Making innovation a consistent, reliable and strategic resource for governments

ended

The context of high volatility and complex challenges require governments to develop new responses, new capabilities and new ways of understanding how to act. Mastering innovation therefore becomes critical, as there needs to be a continual capability for developing and delivering new approaches that can better respond to new challenge. The proposed project will enhance the evidence and provide sound underpinnings for public sector innovation – ‘how’ governments will change the very foundations of governance and democracy needed in the 21st Century. This will help address how governments will be able to respond to the needs of open innovation, security and defence, digital democracy and the delivery of public goods to citizens on the ground – the cornerstones of the call. While governments are increasingly cognizant of the need to cope better with the high rate of societal and technological change, to mitigate or leverage it, they are still largely ill-equipped to consistently anticipate, intercept and decode signals from the external environment before they become realities (from mass migration to changes in mobility patterns in cities to job automation). While OPSI has found that governments are doing exciting new things that demonstrate that the potential for innovation is ever-present, the reality is that innovation practice is still inconsistent and unreliable. It is not a systematic or systemic occurrence. The projects will support governments in making their own innovation journey and build the conceptual frameworks (21st century model of innovative government) and develop the capabilities and capacities needed to accelerate learning and navigate uncertainty and high level of risks. These processes are supported by working with direct demonstration projects inside governments to show that systemic change is possible.