Innovation Tag: Cross-Sector Partnerships

Becoming a circular economy entails a deep transformation of industry, consumer behavior and policy. Traditional innovation funding focuses on technology, punctual projects and (single) companies, which alone fail to bring the required systemic change. Hence, the Flemish government launches the subsidy programme Living Labs Circular Economy for projects tackling complex challenges, with a high ambition level, in co-creation with very diverse stakeholders and employing system innovation methods.

Since 2020, the City of Austin (COA) and the University of Texas (UT) have collaborated on over twenty diverse research projects under the legal and administrative framework of a five-year, ten million dollar master interlocal agreement (ILA). Among a very few of its kind in the USA, this ILA is an "innovation enabling innovation" that bridges the barriers between two large, extremely complex organizations and fast-tracks the launch of research and innovation projects by four to five times.

The Government of the city of Lucerne is piloting a new "digital cooperative" model, which allows public sector, private sector and citizens to contribute with data and get remunerated (financially or otherwise). Through this digital coopoerative, the population is able to tackle important and/or urgent issues that affect all its residents using data-driven decisions. For the initial stage, the data and issue tackled is related to mobility.

Renovate or Rebuild was a collaborative project that set out to increase the uptake of sustainable homes in the Australian residential sector. The show took an innovative approach to embed behavioural and building science into an engaging, yet informative and impactful TV series, that promoted and normalised sustainable homes. Research estimates this project could save Australians $600 million on their energy bills and would cost less than $1.60 for every tonne of greenhouse gas abated.

Impact Canada Challenges have incentivized innovative solutions in the areas of climate action, housing, food, and health. A quasi-experimental impact assessment approach uses tax data (available in most countries) to assess the effectiveness of Challenges by profiling Challenge participants and comparing business performance indicators of Challenge participants vs. non-participants. Requiring only the participant’s business number, this is a no burden, comparative, long-term measurement plan.

A problem for companies and owners of companies is that they need to engage with many different authorities to conduct their business. Instead of building solutions in a siloed approach we aim to build into the ecosystem by integrating different actors and enabling the business to control their own data using blockchains and digital wallets. This is both a new approach and use of a combination of new technologies that benefits the companies.

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, relief organizations and government agencies lacked data about events on the ground and struggled to mount an effective response. New methods of event detection were urgently needed. A research team comprised of country experts and computational social scientists created a Twitter-based event detection system that provides geo-located event data on humanitarian needs, displaced persons, human rights abuses and civilian resistance in near real-time.

Countries in the Western Balkans created digital infrastructure to support transparent business operation and prevent fraud in their Common Regional Market. The official registries from 5 countries in the Western Balkans created a digital platform, connecting all official legal and financial data about companies, connected entities, blocked bank accounts and sanctioned persons, bridging different legislations, languages and currencies. The platform won the 2022 OECD/SIGMA/ReSPA award.

Government struggles to exploit advances in science and technology that could improve public services. The UK Home Office developed a new, cost-effective model to enable start-ups, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), not-for-profits and academia to solve frontline challenges across UK government using diverse, cutting-edge capabilities and expertise. Uniquely, for UK public sector, it uses flexible, novel ways of working and commercial mechanisms to deliver mission impact at pace.

LAB Justice is the first executive education program, tailor-made for the Justice sector. With a customized learning journey, it was designed to help people working for Justice bodies address the challenges faced to deliver more efficient and people-centred services. Focused on three main areas – strategic management, digital transition and leadership in a context of change –, it aims to ensure the necessary skills to implement reform measures, namely those under the Recovery and Resilience…