Posts on European Commission Collaboration

Years of experience of working with governments on harnessing innovation in the public sector have shown that innovation challenges are often common across governments. By the same coin, many governments have experiences of successfully overcoming a comparative challenge. They can act as beacons, shedding light and expediting innovation learnings and solutions. To bring a collaborative and transformative leap in overcoming innovation obstacles, the OECD is launching a Government-to-Government…

In many countries, innovation became a buzz word following the emergence of New Public Management approaches, periods of austerity and a focus on cost savings as a way to control government spending.  In Latvia – as in many other OECD countries – innovation is often associated with the ability of government to “do more with less”. But innovation can achieve much more than this. Innovation, working in new and novel ways to improve impact, can...

In a world where change is the only constant, the ability to anticipate and adapt to the future has become a vital survival skill for governments and public sector organisations. A reactive approach to policymaking is no longer enough. It is increasingly important to anticipate policy challenges and take action to proactively steer towards preferred futures. We are seeking peers and experts to join us on this ambitious journey.   Building on experiences strengthening anticipatory…

2021 was yet another busy year at OPSI! As the rate and complexity of global challenges increases, so does our work. In cooperation with partners and counterparts, we complete another successful year of leveraging our expertise in global trends, public sector innovation systems, transformative technology and innovation skills, processes and methods. We held over 50 workshops, webinars and events Issued 13 reports Published 46 blogs And held hundreds meetings to drive the point home: that...

“What is innovation, anyway?” It is a question we are asked at the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) every day. The concept of innovation is varied and confusing. Intentionally managing and steering innovation in governments even more so. While the OECD’s public sector innovation definition outlines that innovation is something that is novel to the context, implemented and brings about impact (for example in the form…

What if our minds could move through time as easily as our bodies can move through space? In the movie Arrival (minor spoiler alert!), linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks learns an extraterrestrial language that expresses ideas in a timeless and nonlinear way. Through some science-fiction magic grounded in a grain of truth, Banks gains the ability to perceive time itself differently, and experiences flashes of future moments of great personal and…

Virtual Conference – Government Beyond Recovery: Towards a future-fit public sector: 18-19 October 2021 As we hurry to buy plane tickets to the next tropical destination or catch the latest James Bond movie in theatres, the sudden and dramatic restrictions we all experienced in early 2020 can feel like a distant memory. In the early days of COVID-19, many of us reflected critically on the things that mattered most in our lives and work; committing...

Intermediary report launch Over the past year the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) has worked together with the Government of Finland and the European Commission to build an anticipatory innovation governance model. As part of the work, the OECD assessed the current public policy steering system of Finland and its anticipatory capacity – the first results of the work are presented in a report accompanying the blog. Building an anticipatory innovation governance model First,...

How do you manage a variety of innovation projects, with differing types of innovation, different goals, and perhaps different teams and funders? To avoid dealing with a mere list of projects, practitioners have recently become interested in innovation portfolio approaches. What we mean by innovation portfolios Portfolio management is an analysis and sense-making activity connecting innovation practice – specific projects, initiatives, and programmes – to the intent and purpose behind those…

Much of what the public sector seeks to do through innovation aims at making life simpler for citizens: adapting to evolving needs while also improving agility in the design and delivery of programs and services. Over the course of the past year in particular, governments have been relying heavily on adaptive innovation and agile approaches to respond to the rapidly changing needs of society. On 8 June 2021, OPSI, with the support of the EU...