Putting public sector innovation at the top of the ‘to-do’ list is not an easy task for government. Even if there’s notional support, trying something new often means that you face inertia, confusion and even fear about what exactly innovation is, what goals it can serve or how to do it. To combat these common barriers, the Irish Public Service Leadership Board took matters into their own hands. They created their own Declaration on Public...
This is a guest post from Robert Braun, Johannes Starkbaum and Anna Gerhardus of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, and the RiConfigure EU research project (Grant agreement No.: 788047). Public sector innovation is widely seen as a key for ‘doing things better’. However, innovation per se will not necessarily lead to ‘the better’ nor define what ‘the better’ actually is. Just as the novel OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation suggests , we...
“I want to do something new. It’s going to take time and effort to get right. I don’t know whether it will work, and even if it does, it won’t instantly be better than what we already have. There will probably be unintended consequences and some of our known stakeholders will likely lose out or be displeased. Those who might benefit may not even recognise that we made the difference. If it goes wrong, it’s...
Today the Declaration on Public Sector Innovation has been adhered to by national governments from around the world. This is an important milestone in the growing global practice of public sector innovation. It sends a strong signal that this is something that governments believe is a priority. It demonstrates that there is a budding consensus around some of the concepts and principles of public sector innovation. Access the full OECD Declaration and supporting materials, here....
40 countries adhere to the OECD Declaration At OECD Headquarters in Paris, France, Ministers from 40 countries officially adopted the OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation today, 22 May 2019! In doing so, they have sent a strong message to the international community that public sector innovation is important, worthy of attention and support. The OECD Declaration is a set of five principles, and associated actions, that governments and public organisations can use to inform...
Blog
Innovation facets and core values: how different forms of innovation can cause different reactions
Have new technologies made you reconsider what you hold dear? Has change or innovation ever come into conflict, or sat uncomfortably, with your core values? Why is it that we as individuals can react negatively to things that are supposed to be beneficial? This post explore why different forms of innovation can spur different reactions from people, and what that might mean for practitioners seeking to introduce novel initiatives. We at OPSI think this is...
This post is a follow-on from our Part I post, which provided an overview of the design and development of our Innovation Portfolio Exploration workshop based on OPSI’s Innovation Facets model. Earlier this month, we facilitated a workshop with those from the public sector innovation ecosystem in Sweden. We were hosted by Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency. Vinnova invests 287 million euros annually in research and innovation projects across public, private, and academic sectors, especially…
All models are wrong, but some are useful Over the last few months, OPSI has been testing a model for public sector innovation based on our experiences with system-level studies in Canada and Brazil. As the field of public sector innovation grows and diversifies, we need a more nuanced understanding of its purposes and mechanisms for its stewardship. The multi-faceted innovation model provides a common language and a way to contextualise the purpose of innovation....
The annual meeting of the Mission-Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN) chaired by Prof. Mariana Mazzucato and Prof. Rainer Kattel took place at the Rockerfeller Foundation’s Bellagio Centre between March 27-29, 2019. In the picturesque setting by Lake Como, over 20 organisations worked on various aspects of mission-oriented innovation including evaluation and assessment, tools and methods to deliver on missions. I represented OPSI, as lead on systems thinking and anticipatory governance and my…
From the 11 to 13 of March, OPSI travelled to Israel to interview high-level leaders from across the public sector to understand the Israeli context for innovation better. “This trip was our first foray into this fascinating place, a short scan of how the public service operates. Israel has such diverse communities. Just how vastly different “innovation” looks to each community is the thing that really stood out to me’, said OPSI Analyst Kevin Richman....