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...
This blog was authored by Alexander Metcalfe, Head of Public Sector Policy, ACCA As the global body for professional accountants, connections matter a great deal to us and our many stakeholders. We believe wholeheartedly in the possibilities of connectivity, and since our foundation in 1904 ACCA has been a super connector. We have always recognised the importance of joining up our network – to find solutions and to be innovative. Indeed, one of our values...
Wales is in the thick of a major education reform process focused on large-scale school improvement. With such an ambitious agenda, the challenge wasn’t just about getting the policy right in the first place, it was about seeing it through to effective implementation so it could start transforming what, and how, students learn. To that end, the Welsh Government Education Directorate worked with OECD colleagues in the Education Directorate’s Implementing Education Policy team to…
Last week, OPSI released the “Hello, World: Artificial Intelligence and its use in the Public Sector” primer on AI. This followed our first innovation primer, “Blockchains Unchained”, and explores how this much-hyped but highly complex area can be better understood by practitioners. It also helps to empower individuals seeking to implement AI in a government context, by giving them knowledge of key opportunities, challenges, and lessons learnt from around the globe. In 2020, we’re…
Today, we’re excited to formally launch the final version of OPSI’s AI primer: Hello, World: Artificial Intelligence and its Use in the Public Sector. “Hello, World!” is often the very first computer program written by someone learning how to code, and we want this primer to be able to help public officials take their first steps in exploring AI. The primer is the result of 10 months of research and analysis focused specifically on the...
Wales is in the midst of a major education reform process. As we know, good education policy is not about perfection on the page, it’s about what happens in the classroom. This is why Wales needed to think about not only effective policy development but also effective policy implementation. What conditions make for effective policy implementation? Our colleagues in the OECD Education Directorate’s Implementing Education Policy team collaborated with key actors in the Welsh education...
English Today the OECD reports The Innovation System of the Public Service of Brazil: An exploration of its past, present and future journey and Innovation skills and leadership in Brazil’s public sector were launched by Marcos Bonturi, Director of Public Governance, at the Brazilian public sector Innovation Week. The Innovation System of the Public Service of Brazil is the second OECD deep-study of a national government’s public sector innovation system. It provides insights into how...