About
OPSI AT A GLANCE
We support governments in leveraging new approaches to achieve local, national and global policy priorities and deliver on their commitments. We learn from the past, anticipate the future, and build solutions today.
Who we are
The OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) puts innovation at the heart of government. Founded in 2011 based on the growing need for governments to adopt new approaches to address society’s complex problems, OPSI works to move beyond the “status quo”.
We work with governments, academia, industry and global NGOs and civil society to provide cutting-edge public sector innovation support and guidance. We track innovation efforts around the globe and provide a global forum and knowledge hub for shared learning.
We see ourselves as trend-spotters who identify trends in governments and support the development of evidence-based strategies, network creators who connect leaders and practitioners across sectors and the world, and advisors who help governments understand and enhance their capacity to innovate.
Our team
Marco Daglio
Head of OPSI
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Marco Daglio
Head of OPSI
Marco is the Head of OPSI, a flagship initiative of the OECD to support and advice governments in making the most of innovative approaches to transform their public sector. Previously, he was Head of Unit in charge of public service delivery and public engagement. His last edited study “Promoting Innovation in the Public Sector” looks at the combined role of regulations, budget mechanisms, human resource management and organizational change to create space for innovation in the public sector. From 2005 to 2009, Marco has worked on several policy analyst positions at the OECD on digital government, fight against corruption, access to information and open government. Marco is a volleyball enthusiast (less so after spraining his ankle) and Juventus supporter.
Toby Baker
Innovation Analyst
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Toby Baker
Innovation Analyst
Toby works with governments to support public sector innovation. Previously, he worked at Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, and before that as a management consultant. At Nesta, he worked with local governments to improve support for families with young children. Before this, he led Nesta’s EdTech work during the COVID-19 pandemic, designing evaluation programmes and running a £4.6m innovation fund for start-ups in partnership with the UK government. He’s been a board member of Maths4Girls and Hackney New Primary School.
Barbora Bromová
Intern
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Barbora Bromová
Intern
Barbora is a graduate intern at the OECD OPSI working on innovation governance and strategic engagement. She holds a BSc in interdisciplinary social science from the University of Amsterdam and pursues an MPP in Digital & New Technology at Sciences Po Paris. Prior to joining OPSI, her background focused on science communication and innovation policy in the context of artificial intelligence. In her previous roles she has worked to promote AI research and effective technology transfer in Prague, Czech Republic, as well as to strengthen youth inclusion and participation on the international stage.
Heather Buisman
Innovation Analyst
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Heather Buisman
Innovation Analyst
Heather is an Innovation Analyst with OPSI focused on building innovative capacity within public sector systems. She led the Government After Shock and Government Beyond Recovery global initiatives on innovation in the era of crisis. Heather is currently supporting the Governments of Latvia and Romania to systemically improve their capacity to innovate for impact. Prior to joining OPSI, she worked in various capacities within the Government of Canada including innovation and strategic initiatives across numerous departments. Heather studied Defence and Security Policy, focusing on allied interoperability and diversity and inclusion in military recruitment and retention.
Daniel Bengtsson
Foresight Specialist
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Daniel Bengtsson
Foresight Specialist
Daniel is a Strategic Foresight expert at OPSI. Prior to joining the OECD, he led the foresight team at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, doing research on governance, innovation and transition. Previously he worked for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, where he co-created the EU Policy Lab, did foresight, and gave science advice to policy. He has also worked for the City Hall in the city of Gothenburg, and for the International Association of Public Transport. He has been awarded the Most Significant Futures Works Award from the Association of Professional Futurists for the co-creation of the Scenario Exploration System (SES). He has been Chairman of the Swedish Foresight Network. He holds a MA in History from University of Gothenburg, including European Studies at Loughborough University.
Rodrigo Dal Borgo
Innovation Consultant
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Rodrigo Dal Borgo
Innovation Consultant
Rodrigo is an intern at OPSI working on Anticipatory Innovation Governance. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND fellow and research assistant at the Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Deusto, he is currently completing a Ph.D. framed within the topic of promoting ethical culture in multinational companies. He has used scenario planning and systems thinking to understand the dynamics of corporate cultural change, to diagnose disruptions that could impact organizational ethics and to mobilize and align stakeholders. This research has given him practical opportunities to interconnect academia with industry with a secondment to a multinational electric utility, as an assistant researcher and visiting PhD at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and a coordinating position in a knowledge-transfer community on business ethics in the Basque Country. He also provides strategic foresight/scenario planning training and advisory to companies and organizations in the Basque Country. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, he worked as a journalist and later moved to Europe where he received an M.A. in international relations and diplomacy.
Paola Gálvez Callirgos
Intern
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Paola Gálvez Callirgos
Intern
Paola will be conducting a summer internship with the OECD OPSI. She has a solid track record in advising on and crafting regulatory responses for sensitive issues of cybersecurity, privacy, and Artificial Intelligence governance, with a focus on closing gender and digital talent gaps, as strategic adviser at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Peru and as outside counsel of big tech companies. Paola is an influential player in the development of the Peruvian digital regulation, she led the design of the Digital Skills National Strategy and AI National Strategy. Paola is now pursuing a Master’s of Public Policy at the University of Oxford as a Chevening Scholar.
Nuriyah Haque
Intern
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Nuriyah Haque
Intern
Nuriyah is a new graduate intern with the Innovation Capacity team at the OECD OPSI. As a Bangladeshi Australian that has worked in a spectrum of Not-For-Profits and Government organisations across the globe, Nuriyah has seen first-hand how leveraging our own unique experiences and advocating for innovating thinking can bring about solutions to vast challenges. She has previously worked in Australia’s Covid-19 Pandemic response in analysing and setting up innovative capabilities to better respond to crisis as well as in the advocacy and youth sectors. Currently she is pursing her master’s degree in international security with a passion on exploring alternative and progressive thinking to issues in gender, development, and governance that will ensure that anybody and everybody can thrive.
Angela Hanson
Innovation Lead
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Angela Hanson
Innovation Lead
Angela is an Innovation Lead at OPSI. She leads work around innovation methods, tools, and capacity-building. She is also the lead of the OPSI Toolkit Navigator, which guides public servants and policymakers toward resources relevant for their innovation portfolio and approach. Angela has been a public servant since she was born and has worked in multi-level administrations in the United States. Just prior to joining the OECD, Angela worked in the Office of Innovation at the City of Austin, Texas, where she focused on project-based capacity building, innovation challenges and prizes, Smart Cites ecosystem building, and innovative project teaming and resourcing. Prior to that, she served as the appointed Officer of Urban Forestry and Green Infrastructure for Austin, where she led multi-disciplinary teams for policy and strategic planning efforts. She has a passion for urban systems, narrative-based research and interventions, mountains, natural co-evolution, and psychogeography.
Cale Hubble
Behavioural Analyst
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Cale Hubble
Behavioural Analyst
Cale works in behavioural science at OPSI, helping to coordinate a global community of applied behavioural scientists in government. His work helps that community design and conduct impactful research with cross-country policy impact. Before OPSI he led projects in the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government. Cale has worked across the spectrum of evidence-based policy, including roles in human-centred design, policy evaluation, organisational culture, and futures analysis. He studied psychology and social science at the University of Sydney.
David Jonason
Innovation Specialist
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David Jonason
Innovation Specialist
David is an Innovation Specialist at OPSI, working on anticipatory innovation governance and mission-oriented innovation policy. Prior to joining the OECD, he led the data and analytics team at the Swedish Innovation Agency. David holds an MA in International Political Economy from Stanford University, a BA in Political Science from Uppsala University, and a BSc in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Joaquin Collao Jul
Consultant
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Joaquin Collao Jul
Consultant
Joaquin is a consultant at OPSI working on Anticipatory Innovation Governance and Mission-Oriented Innovation. He has worked as a public servant for the Government of Chile at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Presidency. His previous role was as Coordinator at the Government Innovation Lab, working to accelerate public service transformation in Chile, where he focused on capacity building, innovation networks and innovation challenges. Joaquin has collaborated with diverse governments in the field of innovation and worked with tech entrepreneurs and multinational companies. Currently, he is a student in the Master of Public Administration programme from the London School of Economics.
Claire Karle
Strategic Engagement and Communications Officer
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Claire Karle
Strategic Engagement and Communications Officer
Claire is the Strategic Engagement and Communication Officer for OPSI with a passion for science, technology and development related topics. She has worked for a number of international, non-governmental and private sector organisations in the areas of strategic communications and outreach, event planning and coordination and corporate branding. Prior to joining OPSI, she worked as a Communication Consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on promoting the contribution of nuclear science and technology to meeting development priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals. Claire holds a BA in International Relations from Queen Mary, University of London, and a MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Bruno Monteiro
Policy Analyst
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Dr. Bruno Monteiro
Policy Analyst
Bruno is Policy Analyst at OPSI. Previously, he was the coordinator of the Experimentation Lab for Public Administration (LabX), a safe space for researching, co-creating and testing innovative public services.. Among other engagements, he was point of contact for the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), besides being co-chair of the Digital Democracy Thematic Group (eLeaders). He holds a PhD and a MA in Sociology from the University of Porto.
Jack Orlik
Innovation Analyst
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Jack Orlik
Innovation Analyst
Jack is an Innovation Specialist at OPSI, working primarily on Anticipatory Innovation Governance. Jack’s career began in the private sector, where he worked as an innovation consultant for multi-national businesses in social media and technology. An interest in policy led him to work at Nesta, the UK innovation foundation, where he facilitated a policy design programme for public servants in Nordic and Benelux countries, fostered networks and support for the implementation of data-driven and collective intelligence approaches for skills anticipation, and led research and evaluation for a £5.75 million project in partnership with the UK government to stimulate labour market innovation. Jack has an MSc in Digital Anthropology from UCL, a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Oxford University, and once co-authored an illustrated social history of Techno music.
Josh Polchar
Innovation Analyst
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Josh Polchar
Innovation Analyst
Josh is a strategic foresight practitioner and facilitation and engagement designer at OPSI. With experience working with dozens of governments and international organisations, he designs and delivers interventions and processes to build anticipatory capacity in a range of settings. Josh is an alumnus and former facilitator of the Oxford Scenarios Programme as well as a lecturer on the Disrupted Futures course at EM Lyon business school. Josh has co-authored works on strategic foresight for policy making in a range of publications. Prior to joining OPSI, he worked in the Office of the Secretary General at the OECD, which he joined from The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. Josh holds an MSc in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam.
Olivia Sabini-Leite
Intern
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Olivia Sabini-Leite
Intern
Olivia is a graduate intern in OPSI collaborating on the Mission Action Lab and the Action Plan on Green Governance initiatives. She is pursuing a Master’s degree at Sciences Po and holds a B.A. in Government and Latin American Studies from Smith College. Previously, Olivia worked in grassroots organisations focusing on children and on domestic workers’ labour reform and their political/legal representation. Having lived in Brazil, the United States, Argentina, and Europe, Olivia is herself a global citizen. She aspires to leverage her education and adaptability to advocate for innovative solutions to global and local challenges.
Dr. Piret Tõnurist
Innovation Lead
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Dr. Piret Tõnurist
Innovation Lead
Piret leads the work on systems thinking, innovation measurement and anticipatory governance at OPSI. She coordinates OPSI’s work on transformative innovations, innovation theory development and works directly with OECD member countries on their complex problems. Piret holds a research fellowship at the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, TalTech and she conducts research on a variety of topics such as innovation labs, co-production, digitalisation, machine-to-machine coordination and innovation policy management. She has previously advised the Parliament of Estonia and worked as a performance auditor for the State Audit Office in the field of innovation and entrepreneurial policy. She is an active proponent of purpose-driven change in the public sector and has collaborated with different governments, state-owned enterprises and innovation labs across the world. Piret holds a PhD and MA from TalTech in technology governance and MSc from KU Leuven in policy evaluation.
Dr. Chiara Varazzani
Lead Behavioural Scientist
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Dr. Chiara Varazzani
Lead Behavioural Scientist
Chiara leads the work on Behavioural Insights at OPSI. Her work includes fostering a global community of behavioural experts, helping countries tackle policy challenges and running experiments – to better understand what works, for whom and in what context – and providing expert behavioural advice to governments across many policy areas such as health, climate change, financial decision-making and misinformation. Chiara also serves as a member of the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights for the World Health Organization (WHO). Prior to this, Chiara held several positions in government. She was Principal Advisor of the Behavioural Insights Unit of the Victorian Government in Australia, Advisor in behavioural economics to the Australian Federal Government and Research Fellow at the Behavioural Insights Team in London. Chiara holds a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from Sorbonne University, a MSc from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and a MSc in Cognitive Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure.
What we do
Uncover what’s next
Identifying new practices at the edge of government, connecting those engaging in new ways of thinking, and considering what these new approaches mean for government.
Turn the new into the normal
Studying innovation in different contexts and investigating frameworks and methods to unleash creativity and to connect innovation with the day-to-day work of public servants.
Provide trusted advice
Sharing tailored guidance and resources about the ways in which governments can support innovation to obtain better outcomes for their people.
National Contact Points
OPSI, part of the OECD Public Governance Directorate, works in close collaboration with the network of its National Contact Points (NCPs), comprising of OECD country government representatives. The Network, which is co-chaired by Canada and France, supports the OECD Public Governance Committee in steering the direction of OPSI activities.
NCP delegates act as the focal points for OPSI activities at the national level, ensuring access to expertise and supporting in the dissemination of research and knowledge. Through this dedicated network, OPSI ensures collaborative project design, co-creation, prototyping, testing and the integration of user feedback.
With 33 members and 7 non-member countries, the NCP network has been instrumental in the establishment and rapid rollout of OPSI and in providing advice on key strategic directions. Most notably, the NCPs played a crucial role in the development of the Declaration on Public Sector Innovation, the first OECD legal instrument calling on governments to Declare to Innovate.
