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Created by the Public Governance Directorate

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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Validation that this is an official OECD website can be found on the Innovative Government page of the corporate OECD website.

Explore what an innovation is

Explore what an innovation is

OPSI publishes case studies on public sector innovation. Please see below to see how we define this. Do you have a project that fits the description?

Submit a case study

Before creating a submission, please consider  the following characteristics of public sector innovation a well as our criteria for acceptance.

The public sector is integrally involved in the innovation

  • A public sector organisation initiated the innovation and has a leading role in the design, development or implementation of it or a public sector organisation is an integral partner in the innovation even though it is initiated or led by an external entity (e.g., company, civil society organisation, civic individual).
  • A public sector organisation is accountable for the results of the innovation and/or is impacted by the results of the innovation in some way.

The innovation is novel

  • The innovation is novel and new for the organisation where it is implemented, even if other organisations elsewhere have done something similar.

The innovation is implemented

  • The innovation is at a stage where it has begun to reach its users or beneficiaries (even if these are only in the form of a pilot study or a test; some prototypes and proofs of concept may also apply).
  • Project plans/strategies/intentions to innovate in the future do not qualify unless they have been actualised in some way.

The innovation has made/ has the potential to make public impact

  • The innovation has the potential to make a public impact, or is in such a state that you can amass some quantitative or qualitative data (however preliminary) on its impact in areas such as:
    • Efficiency – an improvement in outputs in relation to inputs.
    • Effectiveness – an improvement in achieving given objectives.
    • Service quality (in terms of):
    • Accessibility – an improvement in the ease of access to access to a service. These may be related to cost; geographic distance; number of service providers; complexity and availability of a service.
    • Responsiveness – i.e. the ability to respond to different user needs or user views.
    • Reliability – i.e. the accuracy and consistency of a service.
    • User satisfaction – a recorded improvement in users’ reported satisfaction.
  • If quantitative/ qualitative data does not yet exist at time of case study submission, please include expected potential results based on initial estimates and indicate how results will be measured at a later stage.