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...
Posts on Innovative Capacity
Finland conducted its first public sector innovation barometer in the Central Government. The results are in and once again reaffirm that Finland gets many things right. 93% of organisations innovated during 2020-21. Innovation activities are motivated in particular by the needs of citizens and clients, productivity and new technologies. Drivers of innovation activities are also reflected in individual innovations and their effects. Innovation Barometer: what and why? The Innovation Barometer is…
Public sector innovation is on the rise, in classrooms and outside. As a researcher, lecturer and ex- practitioner of public sector innovation, I was pleased to deliver an executive course on Innovation and Transformation in Government as part of Brazil`s National School of Public Administration (ENAP) Masters in Public Policy. In this blog, I will reflect my experience on the course design and delivery as well as on how OECD and OPSI tools have helped...
Romania’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) boasts of ambitious goals, including digitalisation of the public administration, adding 90,000 jobs to the economy, investing in modern hospital infrastructure, developing zero-emissions railway infrastructure, making public transport safer and greener, strengthening policy co-ordination and improving human resources capacity in the civil service. This comes at a time when Romania is struggling to improve healthcare outcomes, combat some of the…
We are expanding our team and looking for experienced career specialists with strong competencies in foresight and anticipation as well as assessing, strengthening, and measuring the innovative capacity of the public sector. At OPSI, we help the public sector be more proactive and intentional in using innovation to achieve outcomes. Together with countries around the world, we strive to make governments work better and achieve public…
The standard advice for government innovators is: “First make sure you have the support of agency leaders.” That’s like advising soldiers: “First make sure the enemy has run out of ammunition.” It would be great, but if you wait for it to happen then you may never act. The Independent Demonstration Project is a strategy to innovate in government without…
When working with stakeholders around the world, we often ask them: If you could wave your magic wand, what would you change about your country’s public sector to make it more innovative? While the responses vary, one aspect remains unwavering, regardless of the country of study: that individual public servants are strongly motivated to innovate and push for change, even though the systems they work in are sometimes fighting against this. We need to better...
This guest blog was written by Siwert de Groot, Sil Vrielink (Researchers at the ICTU Foundation, The Hague /NL) and Frans van Dongen (Programme Manager at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, The Hague/NL). Drawing on the work of the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation and following the lead of the Nordic countries, Denmark in particular, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations has recently published the results of the first...
Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Three of the world’s tech giants, which have a larger market cap than many developed and developing nations GDP. And while opinion varies widely on the topics such powerful companies naturally bring about, one aspect is absolutely clear: these companies have learned to nurture and embrace innovation and innovative thinking. To whole-heartedly build it into its very foundations and culture. Yes, stability and education are important – I’m not taking…
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...