Innovation Tag: Methods and Tools

Officina is a lab for innovation in the public sector whose main objective is to catalyse the energy of young talents by offering them a transformative training programme. Officina was developed to address a triple urgency: future decision makers not perceiving the public sector as an attractive workplace; the public sector having high average age workforce and lack of innovative approaches; society at large needing a more modern and appealing public sector in this key historical moment.

A lot of innovative activities are carried out by Dutch and other governments. Unfortunately, the impact is limited. Innovations are stand alone projects, not implemented or scalable within primary processes. This reference model supports the implementation of an innovation management system for governments. The starting point is an Innovation Maturity Scan. Tooling, training and handouts are available supporting a social and process innovation transition at governmental organizations.

The Violence Early-Warning System (ViEWS) is a publicly available data-driven forecasting system at the frontier of research that generates monthly predictions of conflict fatalities up to 36 months ahead – throughout Africa and the Middle East. The project launched in 2017 to help policy-makers and practitioners plan anticipatory action and humanitarian interventions with a transparent and evidence-based approach. It is based at Uppsala University and Peace Research Institute Oslo.

When applying for state aid or other services without the means or knowledge to do it online due to the digital gap, it usually takes a day or waiting in queues and filling out paperwork. Communities have thought and offered a grassroot solution: store owners helping their peers to get online procedures done in their business, in exchange for a small fee. It is a simple innovation, yet effective when it comes to decentralize public services, foster digital inclusion, and strengthen local markets

The rate of innovation often exceeds the speed at which regulatory systems can adapt, blurring lines between sectors and cutting across transitional regulatory and geographical boundaries. The RPF aims to keep the UK at the forefront of regulatory thinking and experimentation. It sponsors projects, led by regulators, aiming to help create a UK regulatory environment that encourages business innovation and investment. It is market-led and uses real-world innovation settings to deliver.

With the Quality Tools an organisation can evaluate, monitor and compare the quality and use of its services within and between organisations. The tools include a Self-assessment, Customer Feedback and Utilisation Rate Measurement tool and are free of charge. The tools were developed primarily for public sector organisations to help them develop customer-oriented digital services and improve knowledge-based management. On a national level the tools provide data on the state of digitalisation.

How to bring new ways of working and problem-solving tools to the Estonian public sector? Over the course of a year and a half the Public Sector Innovation Team of Estonia developed a design sprint format suitable for the Estonian public sector. By constantly adapting and improving the format the Innovation Team has seen that it is a highly effective tool for spreading design thinking methods and generating enthusiasm around them.

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 Startup GOV.BR Program aims to accelerate strategic digital projects at federal government in an unprecedented and innovative way. By providing technological tools, allocating professionals and assisting them to adopt agile methodologies, it supports a 30-crosscutting-project portfolio with several federal agencies. The initiative has promoted a paradigm shift in the management of public digital solutions, incentivizing agility, resilience and value generation for citizens and general users.

Intergenerational fairness—the idea that we should meet the needs of the present without compromising rights of future generations or citizens—is a defining theme of our time. Although most politicians and citizens value fairness, society does not have a way to assess the impact we’re having on future generations and advocate for them. This Framework for Intergenerational Fairness contributes to this. The Framework provides a pragmatic solution, whether as a young citizen, or public…