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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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A customer-friendly emergency service model from Finland where the public can find all the assistance they need at one point of service, instead of across several sites. In addition to somatic emergency services, psychiatry, substance abuse and violence prevention, crisis and social work, and child protection are available. The interprofessional model means collaboration towards a shared goal. The operational model, available anywhere in the world, improves emergency services.
The ‘Reproducible Analytical Pipelines’ project is a collaboration between several UK Government departments to revolutionize the way statistical publications are produced. By using open source software, statistics can be produced more quickly, with automated quality control, in a way that is easier to reproduce, and share. This open approach leads to more transparent, higher quality statistics.
Over a third of U.S. federal employees are eligible to retire in the next five years, yet only 6% of employees are under 30—a pressing issue given the rate of innovation. Piloted as an effort between agencies and a student-led nonprofit, the Civic Digital Fellowship recruits the next generation of technologists—students and recent grads—pairing them with in-need agencies. It has scaled to six agencies, and is an attractive on-ramp for technical students into public service.
Department of Community Services has piloted Career Rising program which provides a continuum of employment-related supports that help break the cycle of inter-generational poverty. The program is designed to provide youth with comprehensive and sustained support that will lead to increased participation in academic and economic activities. Youth participants gain employability and leadership skills, build confidence, connect to community, engage academically, and help meet labor market needs.
National Doctors Training and Planning has commenced The Spark Innovation Program, designed to empower junior doctors to innovate and make positive changes within the public health system. In a traditionally bureaucratic environment where innovation is not encouraged, the Spark program not only enables innovation but actively encourages it. Through this empowerment of initiative, creativity and expertise, retention of staff is also addressed and morale increased.
In Argentina, public servants are getting promoted according to their innovation level. To support this initiative, The Design Academy for Public Policy teaches public servants how to innovate. At the Academy, we teach the core skills and innovative tools public servants need to acquire in order to solve future public challenges, and at the same time empowers them to be part of a cultural change within the government.
The challenge the city Ljubljana wanted to address was how to approach young people who have ideas. What works well, and what could be even better? City Incubator is a programme for the implementation of the ideas of young people in Ljubljana. It is a sustainable tool for implementation and co-financing of local youth initiatives. Individuals or groups may put ideas forward and in the frame of the programme, they receive professional support for the fine-tuning, and financial support for the…
The Better Government Movement (BGM), housed on Innovation.gov, builds a 21st century, delivery-driven government. BGM creates an inclusive space where public servants can grow their creative capacity and learn new tools, approaches, and mindsets to jumpstart innovation. This is in service of solving government-wide problems and affecting positive change within agencies and government writ large.
This online course seeks to foster an innovation ecosystem in Bogota’s public offices, offering Bogota’s public officials the tools to gain capacities for public innovation. Through practical exercises that are related to drawing and mapping, among others, public officials gain insight on ways to approach the users of public services.