As we have already seen, the coronavirus crisis has resulted in governments implementing a range of innovative responses. In this update, we’d like to take a quick look at some of the additional innovative initiatives that we’ve seen over the past week, including in the open government and digital government arenas. Recently we issued a call-out for people to identify any innovative, digital and open government solutions and inspiration on how individuals and organisations across...
“Everyone is afraid of making a mistake. Everyone is afraid of the consequence of error, but the greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure.”– Dr Michael Ryan, WHO Executive Director, WHO Press Conference (13/03/2019) The stakes for innovation have never been higher, the risk of failing has never felt greater. Whenever an organisation innovates they are always taking a step into the unknown, with...
OPSI is issuing a call out to all levels of government, civil society, international organisations and the private sector to gather innovative solutions and inspiration on how individuals and organisations across the globe are responding to the crisis.
In December 2019, OPSI launched a partnership with ITLA Children’s Foundation in Finland. The aim of the work is to examine mechanisms of Anticipatory Innovation Governance and to test some of these out on fast-changing challenges with high levels of uncertainty. To that end, we were together with Angela Hanson in Oulu and Vantaa at the end of February 2020 to kick-start a series of workshops on the topic. In particular, the anticipatory looking glass...
The OECD is working with a blockchain expert on research on the uncertain promise of blockchain for government. As part of the research, we are interested in collecting public sector experiences on 1) successful government blockchain projects that have moved to the implementation phase and have users; 2) interesting government blockchain projects that will be implemented in the near future; and 3) stories and lessons learned from projects that did not reach the implementation phase...
Which toolkits or guidance about tools have you found useful in helping you apply a new or different method or approach to your work? We are seeking your help in enhancing the OPSI Toolkit Navigator , so that more public servants and practitioners can benefit from the existing resources and guidance. OPSI’s Toolkit Navigator The OECD is a natural platform to aggregate and help navigate the numerous resources that have sprung up to help people,...
It can be hard to make strategy something that is actionable and that leads to real change. Strategy comes up against how things actually work, and can often be the loser (Culture eats strategy for breakfast[1], right?) Indeed, at our last meeting of National Contact Points (our liaison points with national governments), one of the questions put forward by a country was about how to develop an actionable innovation strategy, one that would support a...
Making the invisible visible. While this is one of my favourite phrases from our 2019 Global Trends report, it is also the phrase I find myself using to describe OPSI’s work with public sector innovation systems. We try to make the implicit explicit to allow people within the system to reflect “is this what we want and intended? If not, what can we do to change it?” And every system is unique and the evolution...
If you talk to public servants anywhere in the world about innovation, it usually doesn’t take long before the words “risk aversion” come up in conversation. A lot of people feel that trying new things in the public sector is difficult because there is little ability to take risks. There are many reasons why this might be so, but one issue that comes up fairly often, sometimes with a little shudder of the shoulders, is...
Note: The Call for Innovations deadline has been extended until 21 February 2020. Thank you so much to everyone who has already submitted an innovation! We apologise that we have had some technical difficulties with the submission process this year. We want to make sure everyone has a chance to submit a case, so we are happy to provide a bit more time. The OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) and the UAE Mohammed...