Work Areas

About emerging tech for civic participation Emerging technologies are creating new opportunities and challenges for civic participation, calling for the exploration and experimentation of innovative ways for governments to address people’s needs and expectations. About the project Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands are promoting “Improving civic participation through emerging technologies”, a project funded by the European Commission under the Technical Support Instrument (23PT04). Since…

Governments require future-oriented innovations in order to respond to complex challenges, such as climate change, aging societies and digital transformation, in real time. Anticipatory innovation is the act of creating and implementing new, value-shifting innovations in environments of deep uncertainty, particularly for the purposes of exploration and shaping future priorities.

OPSI works in close partnership with the European Commission (EC) to achieve its priorities in leading public sector innovation.

Governments require future-oriented innovations in order to respond to complex challenges, such as climate change, aging societies and digital transformation, in real time. Anticipatory innovation is the act of creating and implementing new, value-shifting innovations in environments of deep uncertainty, particularly for the purposes of exploration and shaping future priorities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how the interconnectedness of countries may have made the world more vulnerable to common threats, and has exposed weaknesses in international co-operation. Major challenges are not limited by jurisdictional borders, and demand collective action.

At OPSI, we support the use of Behavioural Insights from policy design to implementation and evaluation. We have an empirical approach that includes research on context-specific behavioural drivers and barriers, systematically challenging our assumptions and rigorously testing interventions before scaling.

OPSI undertakes country studies and action-oriented work in order to help governments better understand how to strengthen their innovative capacity to meet national and global goals.

OPSI and the UAE MBRCGI has conducted extensive research, held global Call for Innovations crowdsourcing exercises, and met with innovative teams from around the world to surface key trends, examples and stories. Through this work, OPSI and the MBRCGI have found that governments are testing and implementing exciting and innovative new approaches, transforming the ways in which they operate and serve their people.

About Innovation Portfolios Portfolio approaches help reveal, connect and orient diverse and multi-faceted innovation activities according to an overall strategy. Why are portfolios needed? Innovation can be an uncertain investment. There is no guarantee that any single innovation will work, how it will work or what the unintended or unanticipated consequences might be. In an uncertain world, it is dangerous to rely too heavily on any one single strategy or approach. Changing circumstances…

Short-term, single stakeholder approaches are not sufficient to address global environmental challenges such as climate change, or complex health challenges such as cancer. Mission-oriented innovation provides a policy framework for tackling the grand challenges facing governments today.