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Even more than two thousand kilometers of coastline can’t keep challenges out of Korea. The predominantly water locked country, like many around the world, is grappling with challenges borne out of an increasingly interconnected world. Collective efforts to address them are paramount.  The global response to the COVID-19 health crisis highlighted the potential of partnerships and international collaboration to tackle common problems. Challenges in one country will spill over and so can…

We are expanding our team and looking for experienced career specialists with strong competencies in foresight and anticipation as well as assessing, strengthening, and measuring the innovative capacity of the public sector. At OPSI, we help the public sector be more proactive and intentional in using innovation to achieve outcomes. Together with countries around the world, we strive to make governments work better and achieve public…

Back when I was an exchange student in France, I lived in an apartment shared by nine people, all from different countries and cultures. We had a large kitchen and lived on the city’s main square, so it was a prime location to host some of the best house parties. Imagine: nine people each bring a dozen friends and you’ve easily got over a hundred people in your home! One of the things that most...

New technologies, techniques and concepts are rapidly changing policing, border management and law enforcement across the world. For example: The Netherlands is taking a systems approach to community policing through multi-agency collaboration. The police, the public prosecutor’s office, victim support, and the probation service are all based at one single location, enabling them to handle complete cases more effectively. The city of Chula Vista, California have implemented drones as first…

On 22 June, I had the privilege of participating in the conference “Artificial Intelligence: What’s in it for the Public Sector?”, organised in Brussels by the European Commission, the Interoperability Unit of DG DIGIT and the Joint Research Centre. It brought together policymakers and experts to discuss the opportunities that artificial intelligence (AI) brings to accelerate governments’ digital transformation and improve the design and delivery of public services. The event was a…

If your organisation had a crystal ball, what questions would you ask about the future? What would you do with the answers it received? In this post, we consider the ways in which innovation agencies – government-funded or managed institutions that provide financial and other support to catalyse private sector innovation – can use imagined visions of the future to shape present decisions. Today’s innovation agencies take on a wide range of tasks and duties,...

Seismic events and trends like infectious disease, migration, climate change and technological disruption demand that governments respond rapidly and decisively. Yet without preparation, such decisions must be made from a rapidly diminishing number of options. Sometimes, there is only one clear path left to follow – and it is far from the best one. Finland is trying to identify a better way. The latest OECD report on “Anticipatory Innovation Governance Model: Towards a new way...

The standard advice for government innovators is:             “First make sure you have the support of agency leaders.” That’s like advising soldiers:             “First make sure the enemy has run out of ammunition.” It would be great, but if you wait for it to happen then you may never act. The Independent Demonstration Project is a strategy to innovate in government without…

Our next round of internships is coming up! OPSI is looking for one or more talented individuals to join our team for a six-month internship experience and drive forward public sector innovation projects. The deadline for application is 26 June 2022, 23:59 CET (instructions below). The OECD Internship Programme is designed to bring highly qualified and motivated students with diverse backgrounds into the Organisation and provide successful candidates with the opportunity to improve their…