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This website was created by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), part of the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV).

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In our post on innovation facets we outlined how innovation is not just one thing, but that there are different types of innovation that should be considered and appreciated in the public sector. We identified that different facets should be supported in different ways, in accordance with what they are most suited for. But before we dive further into the characteristics and strategies appropriate for each facet, in this post we’re going to explore some...
Yesterday, September 25th, OPSI Director Marco Daglio spoke at the 2nd annual Innova’ter in Paris. The conference highlighted the different challenges that local and regional public sector innovators face in France, and explored how to reinvent public service. During the day-long event, French innovators engaged with representatives of major players in the field of public sector innovation, including OPSI, Nesta, the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) from the UK, the French 27ème region, and…
In our first visit to Brasilia in May, members of the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation team were on a journey of discovery to uncover the innovation context for the Public Service of Brazil. In our recent second visit, we dove deeper to get a better sense of the key characteristics and developments, and to gain insight into what the dynamics of the public sector innovation system are. To assist us in this process, this...
Due to demand from the innovation community, and to give more time for users who encountered technical issues, we have extended the deadline for the Call for Innovations until 5 October 2018. You may submit an innovation any time before the end of 5 October. We do not have a firm midnight deadline. As long as it is October 5th somewhere in the world, we will accept your innovation. The OECD Observatory of Public Sector...
The tale of the ‘erasable pen’ Say you have a doctor, an engineer, and a lawyer all sitting in a room. These three professionals work for the same firm and head office told them that company may now only operate with either pens or pencils. They have to make the decision. Their conversation goes like this: Engineer: I vote for more pencils because with pencils I can erase my mistakes if I make an error...
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Innovation is a many-splendoured thing

Diamond
This post is authored by OPSI team members Alex Roberts and Piret Tõnurist. We at the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation have discussions about public sector innovation every day. So, it can be surprising when we are asked, on a fairly regular basis, ‘what is innovation anyway?’ Of course it really should not be that much of a surprise. The word innovation gets thrown around a lot and is used to describe many things in...
Every now and again I see the claim that there’s too great a focus within innovation discussions on technology and tools, rather than on people and their needs. The argument runs that the specific technology is not what matters. Instead, attention should be paid to what is needed, and then technology options assessed by what they are able to deliver against those needs. The fear is that if the focus is on the technology then...
“We need more innovation!” It’s a phrase we hear a lot. Politicians, Ministers, Secretary Generals, organisational leaders, and middle managers – mostly everyone agrees that the public sector needs to increase innovation capacity. In response, most of our work at OPSI is geared towards improving, assisting or developing resources that help countries increase their innovation capacity. One of the quickest and most effective ways to see an immediate increase of innovation capacity is by…
Over the last few months, the OPSI team did a lot of assumption testing, prototyping and usability testing of the “meta-toolkit” concept (which we are now calling Toolkit Navigator). This web resource will offer self-service guidance to public sector staff and policymakers on existing methods and toolkits, as well as related case studies, peer connections, and capacity building resources based on their specific needs and contexts. As we launch the beta site for the purpose...
If you have a good idea, does being polite help or hinder you when you try to introduce it? Or to put it another way, if you have an innovative proposal that you want to pursue, do you need to be good at dealing with established processes, or is it more important to be comfortable with upsetting the apple cart? In this post I want to explore the relationship between innovation and process, and I’m going...