On May 11th 2021, OPSI hosted a workshop in partnership with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Civil Service and Sport on Enhancement-Oriented Innovation, as part of our ongoing work on the Innovation facets through our Horizon 2020 programme of research. Over 100 people representing 36 nationalities joined us to hear about the relationships between innovation and public sector efficiency and productivity, as well as methods and tools…
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On March 11-12, 2021, more than 450 futures, foresight and innovation experts from 72 countries around the world gathered digitally to discuss the latest on anticipatory innovation governance. Over three sessions, the emerging Anticipatory Innovation Governance (AIG) model was explored, together with the future of the public sector, and tools and methods for anticipation. The series of sessions were co-hosted with the Government of Finland and supported by the European Commission’s Horizon…
Anticipatory innovation governance model – humble, yet ambitious Governments tend to look like powerful, overwhelming forces that are difficult to stop or change. Juggernauts if you will. Yet governments over decades have reformed a lot: they adopted new (and given away) services and tasks together with technological and societal development. They have taken on different public administration paradigms, successful and otherwise. The change, however, has been slow and, at times, painful. We all…
Tools and methods for innovation, anticipation, and strategic foresight are a perennially popular topic and several hundred members of the global public sector anticipatory innovation tools community gathered to take stock of promise and pitfalls of future-oriented tool and method landscape. On Friday 12 March, OECD OPSI organised the session as part of a workshop on Anticipatory Innovation Governance hosted by the Government of Finland with the support of the European Commission’s…
In April 1912, an icon set sail from Southampton, heading into the future and making history at the same time. The Titanic, “ship of dreams”, was the height of technological achievement. Retrospectively referred to as “unsinkable”, she might as well have been called “future-proof”, such was the confidence she commanded. We all know what happened. We also know the main lessons learned: lack of lifeboats, a chaotic evacuation, and doubts over whether a floating wooden...
Mission-oriented innovation helps the public sector direct innovation towards grand societal challenges. In the face of today’s wicked problems – from plastic pollution to rising inequalities – interest in mission-oriented innovation is growing across OECD countries and beyond. We invited organisations to a simulation to test mission-based approaches on the complex issues they work on. Since late 2020, the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation has partnered with the UCL Institute…
Christian Bason, Ph.D., is the CEO of the Danish Design Centre Editor’s note: The OPSI has partnered with the Danish Design Centre to further explore the application of tools and methods to public sector challenges. This article explores the varied spectrum of design disciplines and practices and provides guidance on how to choose the best design method, drawing from the diversity of design toolkits in the OPSI Toolkit Navigator. It also signals what is next...
Missions offer a formalised path to creating public value but urgently need more experimental and iterative approaches to make missions a reality in the messy world of public policy. Mission-oriented innovation needs not only an ambitious clarity of purpose but also the alignment of system-level operational and governance mechanisms. OPSI is remixing some of its systems tools to help with that and have redesigned a…
After Government After Shock we invited event hosts to share with us recordings of their events, any write-ups of their event or some after-the-event reflections on their event and what they learnt. This blog post provides an easy reference point to help interested people navigate between these. You can also find these materials on the relevant event listing on the Government After Shock site. Event recordings We have created a YouTube playlist where you can find a...
A reflection on a year of crisis and a deliberate start to 2021 While many of us are ready to dive into 2021 and never look back, we can’t race towards “normal”. We are facing a critical juncture where governments must choose to deliberately build on the learnings of this year to be better prepared for the complex future ahead. The Government After Shock event held in November focused on this challenge: reflecting on the...