With over 60 confirmed events happening on (or just before) the 17th of November and a distinguished line up of participants on the 18th of November, Government After Shock is shaping up to be one of the biggest international gatherings to explore the implications of the crisis for governments. This event is an important opportunity to take stock. From early on in the year, we saw the hard work being done by different public services…
This year has been rich in learning. The terrible pandemic has provided a lot of insights and required all of us to do things differently. As part of the preparation for Government After Shock, OPSI has been pulling together examples and analysis about the innovative responses seen across the world, undertaking some sensemaking and doing some workshops with different communities about the crisis, and learning from other events and practitioners. One thing we have…
Convening intentional conversations on crisis implications The crisis of this year has required governments at all levels around the world to respond and adapt. The COVID-19 crisis is unique in the sense that, while many individuals, communities and countries have suffered disproportionate impacts, there has also been a global, collective impact that has spared no one. There has been a terrible shock, one whose aftereffects will continue to be felt for some time. It is...
Steps towards a New Data Deal: Prototyping an evidence-based innovation panel for the Portuguese Public Administration A rigorous, realistic, and actionable knowledge of current innovation practices is indispensable in order to meet the present challenges and proactively prepare the future of Public Administration. From the outset, innovation practices in Public Administration must understand the specificities of public service guaranteed by the State. For the Experimentation Lab for Public…
Today, we are pleased to launch OPSI’s third innovation primer, Cracking the Code: Rulemaking for humans and machines. Exploring the exciting emergence of Rules as Code (RaC) in the public sector, we hope the primer will equip public servants (and others) to consider, understand and possibly implement RaC in their own work. Rules as Code (RaC) is an exciting concept that rethinks one of the core functions of governments: rulemaking. It proposes that governments create...
Have you ever felt pulled in different directions at once, such that you do not feel like you are really making headway? Or that when trying to do multiple things at once, you end up not doing any of them well? In this post I’d like to explore what happens when innovation projects try to cater to multiple purposes at once. In a previous post we have discussed how when activity overlaps in different innovation...
The OPSI mission has three pillars: Uncovering emerging practice and identifying what’s next Turning the new into the normal Providing trusted advice In 2020, the work that supports this mission shifted sharply; suddenly, there was a deluge of “emerging practice” as every country on earth was facing different shades of the same problem. We, in turn, experimented rapidly with ways to support governments: collecting responses to COVID-19 as a platform…
OPSI is partnering up with our sister team, the Digital Government and Data Unit, for a series of projects involving researching and evaluating government efforts to promote the digital transformation of public policies and services, including the application of innovative and emerging technologies for well-being and the public good. Some areas of our work include: AI in the public sector. Open data. Data governance and ethics. Public services design and delivery. Systems thinking. Cybersecurity…
The last few months have been a period of immense growth and learning, personally and within governments and organisations. This crisis has demonstrated an overwhelming need, opportunity and business case for why innovation is essential and possible in government. We have collectively experienced a terrible shock – and while the crisis continues and evolves, we need to make sense of that shock, to understand how we need to change and adapt to a world that will never be…
This OPSI guest blog, written by Thomas Gegenhuber (Leuphana University Lüneburg/Johannes Kepler University Linz), Johanna Mair (Hertie School/Stanford University), Rene Lührsen (Hertie School/Leuphana University Lüneburg) and Laura Thäter Lührsen (Hertie School/Leuphana University Lüneburg) shares insights gathered from the #wirvsvirus hackathon on how to carry forward the ideas produced in hackathon environments into concrete action and projects. Moving from sprint to marathon…