The project conducted important set of work and achieved the following results:
1. Fostering theoretical and practical learning on innovative approaches in government administrations – The project completed work to explore the theory and practice of systems approaches applied to public sector problems, and developed a conceptual framework and a set of three in depth case studies. The report was discussed by about 100 government and non-government experts at a dissemination workshop event. The project has completed an examination of systemic approaches to city transformation and developed a set of five in depth case studies . The project has also completed the analysis of the innovation lifecycle with sever reports that looked at how ideas are sourced, developed and implemented, and how lessons are diffused. The findings of the city level work were well-received by decision-makers and expert communities in a number of instances such as in seminar in October 2017 in Brussels and January 2018 in Espoo.
2. Enhancing the sharing of ideas and co-creation of innovative solutions – The project has set up an expanded OPSI network of innovation practitioners working in gov admin and provided them with a space to interact, discuss and share through an enhanced online platform (
https://oecd-opsi.org/(öffnet in neuem Fenster)). Network and platform functionalities were developed in close collaboration with the innovators community reflecting their needs and interests. A profile page and interactivity functions of the network have been prototyped internally and with the OPSI National Contact Points. As a result, the Observatory online platform has increased its user base (platform has been accessed over 113K times by nearly 70K users with 300,000 page views from 191 countries around the world since its re-launch under H2020. OPSI developed a Toolkit Navigator (
https://oecd-opsi.org/toolkit-navigator/(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) to support innovators in identifying what tools and methods can best respond to the challenges they are facing. The Toolkit Navigator contains over 150 free innovation resources, all of which touch on subjects relevant to innovation in the public sector, including participatory budgeting, behavioral economics, human-centred design, design thinking, prototyping, and co-creation, amongst others.
3. . Building innovative capacities - The project has successfully delivered a beta inventory of skills for public sector innovations in collaboration with Nesta, and a report which profiles those organisations which have invested in developing and nurturing innovation skills . The skills framework includes analysis of both the challenges of building the innovation skills of government officials as well as a detailed exploration of the skills of innovation specialists brought into government from outside. The research led to the development of eight “skills profiles” that help identify what competencies are associated to different innovation roles within the public sector, thus being directly relevant for any public sector organisations who are working to update their competency frameworks to account for innovation. The model has been well received by HR and policy experts, and started to be applied in public sector skills development frameworks of OECD member countries (e.g. Chile). The project has also successfully developed and piloted a learning-oriented workshop (In Belgium and Ireland) with multiple governments to better understand, frame and develop innovative organizations and systems. The training framework helped baseline participants, discuss the pace of digital innovation, and looked at interventions at the individual, organisational, and system level.
