When public sector innovation is talked about it can often seem like a new focus, or something that governments have only recently paid attention to. Yet on a recent holiday I had a reminder that governments have been innovating for a long time, and that many of the issues that we face today when innovating are not new. In this case the reminder was a Swedish naval vessel built early in the 17th Century. The...
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This guest blog was written by Rob Thomas Communications Officer, BizLab, Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science “It is the responsibility of every APS officer to explore the opportunities that are available to you through initiatives such as Innovation Month, the innovation labs and teams…” – Glenys Beauchamp – Secretary, Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science Was Innovation Month really last month? At time of writing it feels like…
This blog was authored by former OPSI Policy Analyst, Matt Kerlogue In my previous blog post, I set out the OPSI’s beta model of skills for public sector innovation, structured around six skill areas: iteration, data literacy, user centricity, curiosity, storytelling and insurgency. But providing an outline and description of these six areas is hardly sufficient to enable the uptake of these skills. Our work to develop the skills model, alongside the Observatory’s wider work...
We here at OPSI recognise the value of celebrating innovation, regardless of whether the innovations are great successes or whether they are failures that we can all learn from. An increasingly popular way to celebrate innovation is through awards that can provide well-deserved recognition for innovative teams and projects, and sometimes even funding to help take innovations to the next level. They’re great for surfacing examples and for inspiring others but they can also leave...
GPS system came out of the US Defence Department. Same as ARPANET, the basis of the modern Internet. NASA scientists put the man on the moon. Point here? Public sector innovation does not happen by itself but grows out of people and organisations (and their rules) which made inventions possible. This is the point of departure of a recent report Fostering innovation in the public sector we have produced which explores the role that central government functions...
The case for innovation in the public sector is well known, but despite being on the agenda of governments for much of the past decade it often remains limited to small teams, scattered activities and/or high profile projects. Often these teams and projects involve external innovators and specialists being brought in to government to work on key projects. While governments will still need the expertise of external specialists – to ensure they maintain access to...
This blog was authored by guest blogger, Benjamin Kumpf Policy Specialist, Innovation, United Nations Development Programme “We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we make progress.” Richard Feynman, Noble Prize winning physicist, emphasized this paradigm as guiding principle for work in natural sciences. Based on what we have learned over the last three years in the Innovation Facility in the United Nations Development Programme…
There’s been a flurry of activity at OPSI over the past few weeks. While we’ve been working to pull together a systems thinking workshop that we will be hosting in Paris tomorrow (link in blog), a few of us made our way to Dubai to attend the 2017 World Government Summit in order to launch our latest report: Embracing Innovation in Government: Global Trends. We had the opportunity to meet innovators from all over the...
Over the last year, we have been working in partnership with the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation (MBRCGI) to conduct a global review of ways governments are transforming their operations and improving the lives of their people though innovation. We have conducted extensive research into innovation trends and examples in OECD member countries and non-members alike, as well as a two-month open “Call for Innovations” to identify examples of innovative practices…
The work of the public sector is changing quickly to respond to a more complex, interdependent and hard-to-predict world. Are we, and the organisations we work in or with, ready to fully understand that change and convert that new understanding into knowledge and innovations that improves the lives of citizens? We hope to hear from you about your experience to inform our work. In my last post I wrote about OECD efforts to develop a...