| Notes |
MAPPING
INNOVATION
UNITS
October 2018
Expert Report by Caroline Paulick-Thiel
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units| 2
Mapping Innovation Units
Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund
By Caroline Paulick-Thiel, October 2018
IMF | Innovation Caroline Paulick-Thiel, October 2018 | 3
Contents
Overview....................................................................................................................... 3
Setting the Scene ........................................................................................................ 4
Project Overview and Research Approach............................................................... 6
Interview Insights ........................................................................................................ 8
Incentivizing a culture of innovation.......................................................................................8
Aligning interests between staff and management.............................................................11
Building structures for an innovation culture......................................................................15
Overcoming barriers for a culture of innovation .................................................................18
Mapping...................................................................................................................... 20
Outlook ....................................................................................................................... 21
About the Author....................................................................................................... 23
Acknowledgement..................................................................................................... 24
Literature .................................................................................................................... 25
ANNEX I: Short presentation of report................................................................... 27
ANNEX II: List of collected units............................................................................. 41
APPENDIX III: Profiles of selected units ................................................................. 55
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Overview
This report has been conducted for the internal use of the iLab of the International Monetary Fund in
2018. The main objectives were to better understand how an innovative organizational culture between
employees and key stakeholders can be fostered, as well as to create a mapping framework for
innovation units that can be adapted and further developed. It is not a scientific study but can rather be
seen as a contemporary glimpse into expert experience of people working within innovation units.
From a list of more than 250 identified innovation units across public and private sector as well as
academia and civil society, 19 units were selected based on benchmarking qualities in relation to the
IMF iLab including setup, sector and focus of work.
The profiles of the selected innovation units were compiled from material on the websites of the
respective organization. A number of the labs featured in the profiles were willing to respond to a few
questions regarding information that would not otherwise be available on their websites. Furthermore, it
was possible to conduct telephone interviews with several innovation units. This provided a much higher
degree of insight.
The interviews insights have been clustered in four different areas: incentivizing an innovation culture;
aligning interests between staff and management; building structures for an innovation culture;
overcoming barriers for an innovation culture.
Seeking a framework to map the gathered insights, a “map in progress” was developed for the analysis
or evaluation of existing programs and the strategic development of future activities to foster human
centered organizational development.
The report concludes with an outlook highlighting that innovation units challenge the status quo of an
organization by requiring different spaces, tools and rules for their explorative and collaborative working
approaches. In order to prevent unwanted divides within an organization and foster an inclusive
innovation culture, a few basic aspects are recommended.
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Setting the Scene
Spurred by a world in fast transition and new challenges, the necessity to make use of the valuable
human potential for finding appropriate answers is more urgent than ever. Confronted by the complexity
of interrelated social, technological, economical or ecological issues, private and public organizations
have realized the need for innovation from within.
INNOVATION UNITS
For more than a decade, innovation units have been emerging worldwide, exploring the possibilities of
re-organizing existing knowledge and building new relationships between people and their
environments. Innovation units offer interfaces for organizational development that combine structural
and cultural aspects:
• People who normally don’t meet in a siloed environment can meet and work
together
• and are provided with explorative methods that foster collaboration and collective
intelligence.
The integration of design methods that support the generation of knowledge based on different
stakeholder perspectives and the integration of a broader range of values, norms and sources of
evidence distinguishes these units from other types of knowledge actors. Innovation units can have the
greatest impact by harvesting the amount of knowledge found in different places and packaging it into
usable forms of socio-technological and socio-economical knowledge e.g. for evidence-based policy
making that takes this wider range of evidence into account (McGann et al. 2018)..
INNOVATION
There are many definitions of “innovation” relating to disruptive technical developments. Given the
research focus of this report on cultural aspects of innovation, the following definition highlights the
social and human aspect of innovation that is of direct relevance:
“An innovation is a new or significantly changed way of improving the workplace’s (human) activities and
results. Innovations can be new or significantly changed services, products, processes, methods or
organization or methods of communicating with (internal and) external parties.”
(Center for Public Innovation, Denmark)
Innovation is part of transformational processes. Its counterpart is called exnovation, which relates to the
standardization but also demolition of existing structures.
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HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN (HCD)
Design is directly linked to innovation in its potential to consciously create something valuable for people
and their environments. Human Centered Design is deeply rooted in explorative learning approaches
that put people at the center of the process and acknowledge the difference of human experiences. The
following definition is of particular interest because it places the approach within public sector
development:
“Human Centered Design is a creative and strategic approach to solve challenging problems frequently
found in legacy systems, HCD is a springboard to sustainable change in the public sector. By
incorporating people’s behaviors, mental models and needs into the process, HCD is especially suited
for creative problem-finding and participatory problem-solving.”
(Lab at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management)
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Project Overview and
Research Approach
The main objective of this project was to better understand how an innovative organizational culture
between employees and key stakeholders can be fostered and create a mapping framework that
can be adapted and further developed.
Another more general objective was to connect the IMF iLab to the international innovation community
(especially with focus on public sector innovation) and to exchange existing expertise as well as support
the development of the IMF iLab actively.
From a list of more than 250 identified innovation units across public and private sector, as well as
academia and civil society, 19 units were selected based on benchmarking qualities including setup,
sector and focus of work. The gathered material was extensive and selecting the specific examples was
challenging. Together with the IMF iLab team, the cases were chosen as a start for further investigation,
especially into the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
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This first selection of innovation units was an attempt to combine different aspects:
• Similarities concerning organizational setup
• International and intercultural scope
• Established units with experience concerning organizational development
• Rising units with interesting and relevant topics
The profiles of the selected innovation units were compiled from material on the websites of the
respective organization. All of the information is publicly available and represents how the units choose
to present themselves to the outside world.
The material has been edited and ordered to criteria such as: setup & scope of work, approach /
projects and relevance. The profiles are meant as a general introduction to the units, primarily in order to
portray the broad variety of models. This is intended for benchmarking purposes (see annex).
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Interview Insights
A number of the labs featured in the profiles were willing to respond to a few questions regarding
information that would not otherwise be available on their websites (ATO, Legal Design Lab, Open
Government Partnership).
Furthermore, it was possible to conduct telephone interviews with seven (plus two) innovation units
(UNDP, Deutsche Post, Daimler, States of Change, MobLab, Center of Public Innovation). This provided
a much higher degree of insight.
The guiding questions were:
• How do you incentivize a culture of innovation amongst staff? What kinds of approaches
are most effective and why?
• How do you align interests of staff and management (throughout hierarchy levels) to
allow innovation initiative, participation and engagement? What kinds of barriers are
most difficult to overcome?
• What new policies or incentive structures have been fostered through the innovation
efforts within your organization or the organizations you work with? Can you give an
example?
The interviews insights have been clustered in four different areas: Incentivizing an innovation culture,
Aligning interests between staff and management, Building structures for an innovation culture and
Overcoming barriers for an innovation culture. Each cluster is given a headline and a short summarizing
paragraph, followed by quotes.
Incentivizing a culture of innovation
BUILD OWNERSHIP
Many interviewees emphasized the need to encourage a sense of ownership for innovative
ideas. The originators of novel solutions are usually the people who are best qualified to
advocate for them. Allow these staff members to shine and thus set an example for others,
enabling a culture of innovation to become established.
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Initiate a cultural shift by motivating people through "movement not mandate":
You can't make people innovate. You have to do the culture change work to shift how the
culture of an organization works and how people engage with on another and think about
problems and solving problems.
If rewarded by the culture and system, employees are happy to advance innovation. The
problem is, if not coupled with the relevant expertise – it's mainly the mainstream operators
who are reluctant to acquire expertise – then it becomes doing new things with the old
methods, which is essentially compromising the results of the work.
Identify the indicators of a good innovation culture:
Being good at collaborating across a workplace; entering onto new roads, even if there's a
risk that it's the wrong road; working systematically with learning from your mistakes;
recognizing people who come with new ideas; working systematically with citizens' and or
companies' perspectives; being clear about what you want to achieve with your innovation
initiative.
Give acknowledgement and create opportunities:
Acknowledge the real novelty while keeping the balance between doing things as usual
and giving opportunities to people to learn and expand.
BE OPEN FOR ALL
An innovative culture can only truly become embedded throughout an organization if it is seen
as inclusive. All staff should feel empowered to make suggestions and be supported in trying
new approaches. Trust in the collective intelligence of your organization.
Use collective intelligence and appropriate tools for overcoming crises:
Use some online tools – some open collaboration tools for people to surface ideas from
everywhere in the organization, not just this small group.
Count everybody in, no matter what level of staff they are:
Get some ideas from across the organization, no matter what level of staff. Everyone has
the ability to be creative. It's not like some people are innovative and some aren't.
Be there for mainstreamers and non-mainstreamers:
Mainstreamers are the majority of staff. They require nudging and hand-holding and
support, and they need to have a specific kind of professional reward: either a promotion or
acknowledgement or something related. Non-mainstreamers are people who are naturally
self-starters. These people only require the space to experiment and learn and expand.
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DEVELOP PEOPLE
There will always be staff members who have innovative ideas. Allow that way of thinking to
become contagious throughout the organization by providing support and training to different
types of innovators, enable them to organize their knowledge and convey that mindset to others.
Build educational frameworks:
Allow innovators to continue to promote an idea as an idea generator and have tools to
further develop the idea. For transformations towards digitization and new working
methods, there we offer many things that are accessible to all. Employees can voluntarily
choose from the basket of options.
Teach and facilitate facilitating:
We teach other people in the organization this way of problem solving, so that they can
build that capacity for themselves and their own departments.
Offer direct coaching for impactful results:
For our partners, we do a lot of technical coaching, innovation coaching and problem
solving. We're there with them all the time to make sure they generate impactful results
within their working environment.
Create network access and expand it:
Provide access to a network and support engagement within it.
GIVE CREDIT
Grant employees the kudos they deserve for original ideas and their implementation.
Acknowledge those people who have instigated fresh approaches and show that innovative
impulses come in many forms. All too often, management seems eager to claim credit for
implementing a new idea, although it actually emerged from adapting daily practice.
Establish an Innovation KPI with a Global Score Card:
...so that people get their ideas incentivized from a management-wide perspective.
Offer prizes for ideas, implementation and imitating:
Including structural-cultural elements like innovation fund, innovation strategy, innovation
unit.
Open grants with learning transfer:
We provide money to build this innovation team through what have typically been threeyear grants.
Management issues internal grants to the staff, saying: "Each of you can have $2000 or
$5000 and you can spend it in the way you want, but you have to come back with the
learning.”
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Lower risks by funding experiments actively:
We take that risk for them and say: "We'll help you build this capacity, we'll give you the
funds to hire these innovators into the organization so they become part of the DNA."
SHOW - DON’T REPORT
Allow the actual impact of a fresh approach to be appreciated by staff in daily practice. A good
idea can always be further improved through collective evaluation and adaptation to different
fields of work within an organization. Give people space to present their good work and ask
questions. Draw attention to an innovation and let the results speak for themselves.
Demonstrate the impact by feeling the change:
Show how the new way of problem solving can have impact. So by the time the grant ends
there's incentive for the organization to actually keep them going and say "we can't operate
without the innovation team now” because they've really proven the value.
Use backing from the management to try new ways of working with them:
When we started the initiative, there was strong backing from the management, with a
presentation to the board and budget.
And then during this time that is freed up they can do things that are interesting,
professionally satisfying and new. And that might stay at that level if it is not backed up by
the managerial support. … Eventually these people move out.
Aligning interests between staff and management
CONNECT GOALS AND STRATEGIES
Staff and management often have different intentions behind innovation. Staff are interested in
making their daily work more engaging and meaningful, whereas management typically seeks
increased efficiency. Particularly for middle management, this can lead to a conflict of interests.
Focus on the effectiveness of a new approach or solution.
Implement innovation as a means and tool towards creating organizational value:
Promote innovation as a tool towards achieving a goal. If you have a really strong strategic
talk on that, that's a very import part in aligning your organization.
Make innovation a contribution to real problems:
The results of the project will ideally contribute to or feed into the overall program
implementation, embedded in thematic and expertise-based work.
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Embed innovative culture strategically into the mainstream procedures:
Innovation has to be strategic or it will stay sandboxed. Operation and the decision on what
novelties to introduce has to be made in direct discussion with the management. Because
mainstream will always suppress innovation.
In centralized planning and centralized approaches, the strategic plan outlines this
innovative line of work specifically and encourages engaging in diverse partnerships with
diverse approaches, testing novelties, bringing them on board. That creates legitimacy to
look at the internal processes in a different way, to make things easier.
Develop framing strategies:
"Balance Strategy" combines a completely digitized business model (to offer all processes
digitally) and additionally offer processes that are tailored to customer needs and
strengthening of the core business.
Other measures include the BMC (Business Model Canvas), and an award where
management can focus on specific issues and create management attention and bring
different sides together. That is an operational level that results from the strategy.
CREATE VALUE
Innovation presents many opportunities, as well as new challenges. New approaches can easily
be perceived as intimidating, or even threatening. This is especially true regarding digitization.
Throughout all sectors, there is a valid concern about "teaching a machine how to replace me".
Lay out the value of old and new knowledge to be connected if possible.
Provide the right services:
It is important to make sure we were providing a different set of services or values to those
different segments of our community.
Understand the different needs:
Leadership needs to very quickly understand what's changing in the world, how to find the
right staff, how to structure teams differently to include these kinds of new roles, these
digital roles. At a practitioner level, maybe I need to know how to use Google Analytics, or I
need to connect with people in other offices who are doing similar work, but I don't know
about them yet, so I need help finding them.
With us it is currently the case that we are clearly focused on internal business units to
treat their pain points and find out what they need.
ENABLE VARIETY OF PEOPLE
A key to establishing a culture of innovation within an organization is to mix things up and bring
together a variety of people from different departments and hierarchal levels who can share
experiences and ideas at eye-level. It is also important to bring in outside perspectives with
experience in innovation – as moderators, contributors and facilitators.
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Initiate innovation culture from the bottom up to pass on to all:
Employees should be enabled to design innovations themselves, because we do not
assume that the company creates this from a department. We want to pass this on to all
via multipliers.
Ensure a network of people who are engaged in innovation work:
At the regional office there is a Knowledge and Innovations team, at central level there is a
Knowledge and Innovations unit, which is fostering the linkages between them, and are
also advocating on behalf of the grassroots country offices, the individual offices of the
organization
Enable co-creation between divisions and hierarchies:
Today, we work much more in co-creation, where we have different departments and both
sides really work together very acutely in the projects to develop new products.
Go for diversity and a mix of people:
To be really great, they already have different experiences and expertise that they don't
have to develop at this point of time within government. But then it's also really important to
have people from inside government, who understand the culture, who understand the
people. That can help bridge trust and collaboration, so that people from outside can learn
how to do this in the most effective way. Together they really have a diverse mix of skills.
INFORM DECISION ARCHITECTURES
The structure of an organization can play a decisive role in enabling or inhibiting innovation.
Longer vertical hierarchies have vested interests in preserving the status quo. Broader
horizontal hierarchies can lead to detachment from potentially relevant parallel impulses. A
central role of an innovation unit is to help bridge these gaps.
Convene low hierarchies:
The culture is really conducive towards making innovation happen. We have a low power
distance in the workplace, there's not a big power hierarchy. Some of those middle
management problems are more prevalent in other countries – some of the time gaps down
through the organization that you'll see in some of the change management models and
theories, that there's a time lag there. We're more facing barriers that are horizontal rather
than vertical.
There is a culture-based approach and the management team understands that we need
innovation and that it must be promoted.
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Enable management to give space as well as give direction:
The task of the management is to give people space as well as giving them direction. In
terms of: What is the social good? What is the benefit? What is the the target that we want
to achieve? And which of the areas would it be preferred to experiment in? It's 100% plus
workload. And when you get better at doing this, when this is expanding, it is extremely
important that managerial support is equally matching that expansion.
Facilitate executive sponsorship and excitement:
The leaders need to be excited about this or things will get stuck. But it's really the middle
managers who also have to be on board, because they're dealing with the leaders who are
telling them they have to do this. Then it becomes a mandate rather than something that
they want to be a part of and are excited about.
COMMUNICATE CLEARLY
Proposing and implementing innovation requires the approval of an idea or new approach by a
variety of stakeholders. Understanding the different needs of those involved can enable a
nuanced communication of intentions in order to bring everybody onboard. Talk also about what
doesn’t work throughout all hierarchy levels.
Care for language to express more understandably to different audiences:
We try, for example, to express ourselves more understandably in blog posts and to always
address the appropriate target group.
Communicate with the management convincingly:
It helps when the management is completely convinced and communicates as such.
There are many events about innovation, which communicate that the new business is very
important.
There was a lot of support from management, also because it is not an incredibly
expensive thing.
Create visibility with casual events as well as notable results:
Before bringing this competency in, hold brown bag lunches and introduce the concepts if
that hasn't happened in the organization yet. Create momentum where people say, "I want
to have those great impacts, too" and "Wow, they are talking about all these great things,
maybe I need to look into it." Then they're more willing to reach out and want to learn more.
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Building structures for an innovation culture
DEVELOP NETWORKS
A culture of innovation depends on establishing networks that provide constructive support and
exchange between likeminded and very different types of innovators. Sharing experiences
within and beyond an organization is crucial for learning and overcoming obstacles.
Establish alumni programs:
We make sure you stay connected to this network of people who can help you.
Create new places where a wide variety of departments are gathered and in closer contact:
There is a “shared desk model” where there are no fixed seats, but people sit together
depending on how that need to work together on that day. This also means that a wide
variety of departments are gathered.
Generate awareness of each other:
Indeed, the generational issue has improved a lot in the last months and years, because
people have become a lot more aware of how different people work on which topic and
how to learn more from each other.
ESTABLISH INTERFACES
Especially within larger organizations, there is a need to establish clear interfaces between
innovators and management, as well as between different departments, to coordinate how
innovative measures are implemented and to monitor their progress.
Build more interfaces to other areas:
Make sure, interfaces between areas are created, so that it really comes to an exchange
and not just one area slides over to the other. I think it is an exchange movement that is
currently taking place.
Use interconnected small interfaces:
In the country offices, there are these small-team innovation labs that have the space to act
like startups. These are interfaced between organization and partners, actively creating the
same capacity in the government.
Work with HR and OD to ensure that exchange takes place:
HR is geared to ensuring that a lot of exchange takes place.
We use job shadowing that starts actively, where employees from totally unrelated areas
e.g. legal, work with us for a few days in the department and look at the methods we work
with: cultural transformation offers, Design Thinking, user testing.
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EMBEDD GOOD PRACTICES STRUCTURALLY
Innovation requires time, planning and resources. It relies on the willingness on behalf of staff
and management to create space for developments and to become embedded in existing
organizational structures. Combine innovation with integration to make an organizational
difference.
Engage policy and planning:
The innovation was shifting from a different generation of actors, from an older approach to
a new approach. Implement a three year plan for your office to include ways in which
you're building people power. You're creating roles for many people to participate in these
projects. It has now become the norm or be mandated.
Become essential - from edge to center:
So it's moving from the idea of people power and participatory open processes – from
being a fringe concept, where maybe it's only happening in pieces, to something that is
essential to any project that the organization adopts.
Prove impact by experience:
People have to figure out if it's worth investing their time and energy with us, or are we just
representing a whole bunch of new unproven things that maybe will disappear. That
element of trust and relationship building, which was important before the digital age, is
even more important now.
INTERRELATE REGIME AND NICHE
Groundbreaking work usually starts on the fringes of an organization. Strategies for renewal are
needed to allow fresh approaches to enter the broader culture of an organization. The inclusion,
explanation and mediation of different perspectives are crucial for developing new
organizational narratives.
Balance between new and old:
Find the balance between the mainstream, how we usually do business, and the nonmainstream: how to do different things. And balancing these two requires a strategic
approach. We still need to have the system in place for the grassroots innovations to meet
that top level demand. We need space for creating, more places where external partners
can engage with internal ones, so that they come out of the usual routine and they learn
the concepts, not by book and not from the consultant, but hands-on.
Question the Status Quo:
With any larger organization, the challenge is staying at the cutting edge of whatever you're
doing and being willing to question things and stay nimble and stay attuned to the demands
of the landscape you're working in.
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FUND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Funding structures are decisive for new developments. Resources must be made available to
implement novel ideas over a realistic timeframe. Prizes and grants can be useful incentives.
Create new budget positions, competence-oriented job profiles and adequate procurement
procedures.
Fund opportunities:
We have internal innovation funds, which allows different country offices to apply to test
different innovation approaches. They are less intensive in terms of reporting, and thus
more focussed on learning.
Create new budget positions:
It's built into our grant that the organization has to start transferring at least the director
position onto the internal budget before the grant ends. So they already start building
momentum for sustaining the team. Part of the expectation of the grant is that they will
sustain the team when it's done.
Be aware of funding consequences:
Create different prizes and encourage people to become more risk takers and make
mistakes and learn from them. Attention always follows the prizes. But those prizes come
with other problems, because what do you do if you give a reward to the first three winners,
then what do you do with the rest of the people. So there are lots of problems, but those
are the ones that are most visible.
GROW A LEARNING CULTURE
Ultimately, innovation within any organization is reliant on the people involved. Staff need to
trust their colleagues, to feel appreciated, be provided the wherewithal to realize new concepts,
and to be given credit for their efforts to learn, adapt and embed ways to better their working
procedures, results and impact.
Invest in relationships and trust:
Nothing really happens without trusted relationships. People have an amount of willingness
to get on board with a certain kind of change or do something maybe prompted by external
backers, but ultimately it comes down to trust. Do they believe that you're there for a good
reason that you're there to help them? Or are you potentially a threat to them in some way?
Appreciate achievements:
There has to be appreciation for the achievements, and to give people credit for their
achievements. These people do not normally require promotions. They require further
resources to invest in the innovation they are already pursuing and to expand it.
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Give credit for doers:
Credit should be given to the people who are actually doing innovation work, because it is
often hijacked. People who are higher up the ladder, they have access to resources,
information, channels of communicating this information. So credit should be given to the
originators lower down in order to foster the culture of innovation.
Overcoming barriers for a culture of innovation
In order to establish a culture of innovation within organizations, it is crucial to identify existing barriers
to innovation and mitigate them.
The wish for innovation often comes from the management themselves, in the form of top-down
incentives. "They face issues of 'I want people to do new things' or 'I'm giving employees opportunities,
but they don't want to be engaged.' Here there is an ownership issue. Often the managers who want
staff to innovate don't take into account what staff are actually interested in. Making that unseen link is
extremely important for management, also to bring people together around a shared goal."
Policies or regulations can inhibit the kind of cross-departmental cooperation that leads to innovation.
"The way the organization is set up, the challenge lies in getting innovation happening horizontally. That
is more of a barrier than the vertical barriers." "I don't have legitimacy to act with the partners, like to
develop the new project. If I go out and work with a partner, when I come back, I don't have a guarantee
that I will be able to follow up on it."
Bureaucracy can also be an obvious barrier here. Requesting authorization or funds, reporting and
bookkeeping all slow down the creative impulse. Here the question is: "How can an organization adapt
its bureaucracy or processes that may get in the way of their own people's ability to do their best work?"
Often the cultures in different departments make working together more difficult. “Frictions between the
business and IT side are not unusual, for which there has already been one or the other changes to
work better together as technology becomes more and more important. The solution is to work much
more together. In the past, there was a business unit and an IT unit, business gave orders to IT, then IT
implemented it.”
The movement of people often takes momentum away from innovative efforts, when management
changes and personnel changes. "We see that as a way bigger barrier for innovation. Projects die when
people move around a lot. When you get a change in top management, you get a change in direction
and that can sometimes kill some of the innovation happening. Again that's a change management
problem and an example of some of the inherent sickness in modern day big bureaucracies."
Innovation can often come from the grass roots of an organization. It is necessary for management to
spot these impulses and consider how they can be adapted to other departments or further up the
managerial ladder. "Often, when innovation starts at the lowest rung of the organizational ladder, it will
be confined to the sandbox principle. There will be no scaling up. And that can stay at that level if it is
now backed up by the managerial support. Eventually these people move out. However if there is a
management that is receptive to these processes, then they try to bring them on board and allow more
space and see what the opportunities are to scale up what they are doing."
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It is a common problem that long-serving staff are averse to change, and perceive it as a threat. Yet
experienced employees often have special insight into structural issues and bottlenecks. "There are
surely employees who have been around for a long time who make skeptical comments, who do not
sign up for courses we offer. But there are also good counterexamples, who participate very willingly."
Visionary staff often have the feeling of being left alone with their creative ideas unless they are
provided with a forum to implement them. If there is no infrastructure for innovation "then you are alone
and you have to find the ways of dealing with the management. If that is not structurally embedded
down to the lowest unit, it is still essentially unofficial."
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Mapping
Seeking a framework to map the gathered insights, the following “map in progress” was developed for
the analysis or evaluation of existing programs and the strategic development of future activities
fostering human centered organizational developments.
Understanding that transformations are shaped by directed human activity, it was important to put
people and their different populations at the core of the map (yellow center pillar). The distinction of the
different levels is backed up by extensive literature reviews on organizational learning (e.g. Rashman et
al. 2009).
The external results of that directed human activity are categorized in the right turquoise axis, based on
the ‘Four Orders of Design’ concept (Buchanan 2001) which helps to promote the perception of design
areas from “something nice to have” to “essential for creating desired results at different levels”.
The internal embeddedness and underlying motifs (blue left pillar) for questioning the status quo are
crucial to learning, innovating and transforming. The combination of formal and informal approaches is
key to interlinking individual with organizational capacity building (Schein 1992).
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Outlook
Innovation units challenge the status quo of an organization by requiring different spaces, tools and
rules for their explorative and collaborative working approaches. Although the responsibilities of these
units differ – from inspiring new products and services to building competences and capacities – their
contribution to transforming the organizational status quo in relation to its core values and mission
should be taken seriously into account.
Establishing an innovation unit usually triggers different developmental speeds within an organization.
They often enjoy the attention of management, which can lead to an envious imbalance amongst staff.
Especially when not embedded within the existing units, the differences between "normal" and
"innovative" staff members can lead to cultural conflicts resulting from different values and a lack of
appreciation. Therefore, organizational ambidexterity, the good management of these different
tendencies, perspectives and needs of staff, is crucial for a meaningful development of structural and
cultural aspects.
Contemporary management needs to be supported in understanding and facilitating these
transformational processes by learning with and from innovation units and their collaborative
approaches to deal with complexity, failure and open communication themselves. Talking and especially
listening to several people who have extensive experience in facilitating transformative and disruptive
organizational change processes, the following aspects are key to establishing an inclusive innovation
culture:
• BUILD RELATIONSHIPS AND
TRUST FOR LEARNING AND
TRANSFORMATION
• LINK INDIVIDUAL
MOTIVATIONS WITH
ORGANIZATIONAL NEEDS BY
LEARNING FROM PRACTICE
AND WORKING ON CONCRETE
CHALLENGES
• INVEST IN COLLABORATION
BETWEEN AREAL AND
HORIZONTAL DEPARTMENTS
• FOSTER TEAM-LEARNING IN
CONNECTION WITH THE
HIGHEST MANAGEMENT LEVEL
• PROVIDE RESOURCES FOR THE
TESTING AND EVALUATION OF
INTERVENTIONS
• ESTABLISH NETWORKS
BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER
LEARNING INTERACTION
• BE ONSITE, ACCESSIBLE AND
OPEN FOR REQUESTS
• DEVELOP YOUR TEAM WITH
DIFFERENT COMPETENCIES
AND PERSPECTIVES TO
ACCOMPANY PROCESSES
• DARE TO TRANSFORM THE
WAY YOUR UNIT WORKS AND
CREATES IMPACT AS WELL
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 23
About the Author
Caroline Paulick-Thiel is a strategic designer and expert in facilitating responsible innovation in crosssectoral learning environments. Trained in design (BA) and in public policy (MPP), she is experienced in
developing and leading participatory processes to address public challenges. In 2012, she co-founded
nextlearning, an association that supports societal transformation processes with experiential learning
formats. Since 2015, Caroline is the director of Politics for Tomorrow, a non-partisan initiative fostering
human-centered approaches in public innovation in Germany, working together with politicaladministrative institutions from local to highest federal level.
With Politics for Tomorrow, she is involved in several major transformation projects promoting new
models of governance in research and innovation politics and co-leading a unique research project
"Daring to Transform" with the Research Center for Environmental Politics at Free University Berlin. The
project seeks to develop a learning program for a Federal ministry and agency in Germany that will
enable their employees to initiate and promote systemic change processes with actors from all sectors.
For the first Creative Bureaucracy Festival in 2018, she initiated the Academy - a dedicated space for
learning by doing and exhibiting experiences.
Caroline gives guest lectures at different universities, moderates talks for various national and
international public organizations, facilitates workshops for institutions such as the Federal Chancellery,
Federal Ministries and Agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, the German UNESCO Commission,
research or academic organizations or political foundations. She is a member of the Open Government
Partnership civil society network, initiated the Academy for the Creative Bureaucracy Festival and
engages in various advisory activities e.g. as part of the Sounding Board of the GovLab in Austria. For
many years, she has volunteered in projects that combine experiential learning, sustainable
development and policy advice.
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 24
Acknowledgement
I wish to thank all the people who contributed thoughts and insights for this report during interviews and
in written replies. The comments taken from different discussions have been generalized to remove
details that would potentially reveal the origins or the specific institutional context.
Caroline Paulick-Thiel, October 2018
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 25
Literature
§ Buchanan, R. (2001). Design Research and the New Learning. Design Issues, 17(4), 3-23.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511916
§ Mcgann, M., Lewis, J., Blomkamp, E. (2018). Mapping Public Sector Innovation Units in Australia
and New Zealand 2018 Survey Report. 10.13140/RG.2.2.15579.87842.
§ Rashman, L., Withers, E., Hartley, J. (2009). Organizational Learning and Knowledge in Public
Service Organizations: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Int J Manag Rev. 11. 10.1111/j.1468-
2370.2009.00257.x.
§ Schein, E. (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco,
CA. 418 pages. ISBN: 1-55542-487-2. $25.95. (1994). Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society,
14(2), 121–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/027046769401400247
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 26
ANNEX I:
Short presentation of
report
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 27
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ANNEX II:
List of collected units
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 42
Organization / Unit Website Country
Armenia SDG National
Innovation Lab
sdginnovationlab.am AM
Kolba Lab kolba.am AM
LABGobAr argentina.gob.ar/modernizacion/gobiernoabierto AR
Santa Lab santafe.gob.ar/ms/gobiernoabierto/colaboracion/santalab
/
AR
EU Forum Alpbach alpbach.org/en/ AT
GovLab Austria govlabaustria.gv.at/ AT
Zukunftsbüro Voralberg vorarlberg.at/zukunft/ AT
A-Lab arena.gov.au/a-lab-energy-system-innovation/ AU
Australian Taxation Office govinsider.asia/innovation/brendan-jones-australian-taxoffice-business-continuity/
AU
Bizlab innovation.govspace.gov.au/department-industryinnovation-and-science-bizlab-innovation-lab-online
AU
InnovationXchange ixc.dfat.gov.au AU
Lab for Open Innovation in
Science
ois.lbg.ac.at/ AU
Public Sector Innovation
Branch
vic.gov.au/publicsectorinnovation AU
South Australia Public Sector
Innovation Lab
publicsector.sa.gov.au/culture/south-australian-publicsector-innovation-lab/
AU
Sydney Policy Lab sydney.edu.au/sydney-policy-lab/ AU
The Australian Centre for
Social Innovation
tacsi.org.au/ AU
The Policy Lab at the
University of Melbourne
arts.unimelb.edu.au/the-policy-lab AU
Wicked Lab wickedlab.com.au AU
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 43
Innovation Lab
Commonwealth Bank
commbank.com.au/about-us/innovation-lab.html AU, CH,
UK
Futura futuralab.org AW
European Network of Living
Labs
enoll.org BE
iMinds europeana-space.eu/partners/iminds-vzw-imindsbelgium/
BE
Stadslab 2050 stadslab2050.be BE
(011).Lab 011lab.prefeitura.sp.gov.br BR
ENAP enap.gov.br BR
GNova gnova.enap.gov.br BR
IGovLab Sao Paulo igovsp.net/sp/igovlab/ BR
Laboratorio Hácker labhackercd.leg.br BR
Sao Paolo Agents of Open
Government
prefeitura.sp.gov.br BR
CityStudio Vancouver citystudiovancouver.com CA
Civic Innovation Office
Toronto
civicinnovation.to CA
Civic Innovation YYC innovation.calgary.ca CA
CoLab thecolab.ca CA
Development Innovation Unit international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_developmentenjeux_developpement/prioritiespriorites/development_innovationinnovation_developpement.aspx?lang=eng
CA
ESDC Innovation Lab canada.ca/en/employment-socialdevelopment/corporate/reports/2016-renewalprogress/modern-services.html
CA
Impact and Innovation Unit canada.ca/en/innovation-hub.html CA
Innovate Barrie barrie.ca/City%20Hall/Departments/StrategicPortfolios/P
ages/InnovateBarrie.aspx
CA
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 44
Institute without Boundaries institutewithoutboundaries.com/ CA
ISED Innovation Lab ic.gc.ca/eic/site/096.nsf/eng/home CA
MaRS Solutions Lab marsdd.com/mars-solutions-lab/ CA
Nova Scotia GovLab novascotia.ca/govlab CA
Ontario Digital Services (ODS)
Labs
medium.com/ontariodigital CA
sLab slab.ocadu.ca/ CA
Genève Lab etat.ge.ch CH
Staatslabor staatslabor.ch CH
Swiss Innovation Lab swissinnolab.com/#hike CH
UBS Innovation Lab ubs.com/magazines/innovation/en/about-us.html CH
Laboratorio de Gobierno Laboratorio de Gobierno CL
Centro de Innovación Pública
Digital
centrodeinnovacion.gobiernoenlinea.gov.co/es CO
Equipo de Innovación Pública
DNP
innovacionpublica.atavist.com CO
Global Accelerator Network gan.co/ CO
LABCapital labcapital.veeduriadistrital.gov.co CO
Movilizatorio movilizatorio.org CO
RutaN rutanmedellin.org/en CO
Vivelab Bogotá vivelabbogota.com CO
betterplace lab betterplace-lab.org DE
Design Research Lab, Berlin drlab.org DE
Deutsche Bahn d.Lab dbmindbox.com/en/about-us/ DE
Deutsche Post Start Up Lab dhlstartuplab.com/ DE
Forschungswende forschungswende.de DE
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 45
GIZ Capacity Works giz.de/expertise/html/4619.html DE
GIZ Lab of Tomorrow giz.de/en/mediacenter/38050.html DE
IASS iass-potsdam.de/en/research/co-creation-andcontemporary-policy-advice
DE
Loimi Brautmann, Offenbach urbanmediaproject.de/ DE
Lufthansa lh-innovationhub.de/ DE
Nexus nexusinstitute.net/about/ DE
Policy Innovation policy-innovation.org/ DE
Politics for Tomorrow politicsfortomorrow.de DE
Projektgruppe Wirksam
Regieren
spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-128977553.html DE
Startup Intelligence Center startupintelligence.io/ DE
Stiftung Neue Verantwortung stiftung-nv.de DE
UBA uba.de DE
Center for Public Innovation coi.dk/en/ DK
Copenhagen FinTech Lab fintechlab.dk/ DK
Copenhagen Solutions Lab cphsolutionslab.dk/ DK
Danish Board of Technology
Foundation
tekno.dk DK
Danish Design Council ddc.dk/en/projects/ DK
Innovation Lab Denmark innovationlab.dk/en/labagents DK
Kaospilots kaospilot.dk/ DK
MindLab mind-lab.dk/en/ DK
Social Cities Ideation Lab ifhpsocialcities.org/portfolio-posts/portfolio-05/ DK
Laboratorio de Innovacion
Quito
linq.quito.gob.ec EC
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 46
Wonder Lab wonderinnovationlab.com EC
EU Kommission caps2020.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2013/11/CollectiveAwarenessPlatformsE
ngineforSustainabilityandEthics-1.pdf
EU
EU Policy Lab blogs.ec.europa.eu/eupolicylab/ EU
Johnson&Johnson JLabs jlabs.jnjinnovation.com/ EU
OCTA Innovation cta-innovation.eu EU
Smart Specialisation Platform s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ EU
Aalto University / Design in
Government
dfg-course.aalto.fi/ FI
DEMOS HELSINKI demoshelsinki.fi/en/about-us/ FI
Helsinki Design Lab helsinkidesignlab.org FI
Helsinki Smart City helsinkismart.fi FI
inland Design inlanddesign.fi/ FI
SITRA sitra.fi/en FI
Snowcone snowcone.fi FI
Tekes Finland tekes.fi/en/tekes/ FI
BNP Paribas /boost.atelier.bnpparibas/programs/fintech-boost FR
Bretagne Créative bretagne-creative.net/ FR
Direction de la prospective et
du dialogue public
millenaire3.com/ FR
Fabrique de l'Hospitalité lafabriquedelhospitalite.org/ FR
Fonds d'experimentation pour
la jeunesse
experimentation.jeunes.gouv.fr/ FR
Futurs Publics (SGMAP) modernisation.gouv.fr/mots-cle/futurs-publics FR
IGN Fab ignfab.ign.fr/ FR
LA 27e Region la27eregion.fr FR
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 47
La Semaine de l'innovation
publique
modernisation.gouv.fr/en/node/198879 FR
Lab Pôle Emploi lelab.pole-emploi.fr/ FR
Le LABO d’innovation
publique
lab-ip.paris/ FR
Les Entretiens Albert-Kahn eak.hauts-de-seine.fr/ FR
Mission innovation du Val
d'Oise
valdoise.fr/667-innovation.htm FR
Nantes City Lab nantesmetropole.fr FR
Plausible Possible plausiblepossible.fr FR
Rustavi2050 medium.com/@rustavi2050 GE
The ServiceLab sda.gov.ge GE
Synathina synathina.gr GR
UNHCR Better Shelter Unit
(Refugee Housing Unit)
bettershelter.org/ GR
The Good Lab goodlab.hk/ HK
Pulse Lab Jakarta pulselabjakarta.org ID
Digital Israel gov.il/en/Departments/digital_israel IL
i-team Beer Sheva beer-sheva.muni.il/eng/Pages/default.aspx IL
Israeli Leadership Innovation jdc.org/ IL
Jerusalem i-team jlmiteam.org IL
Capgemini Innovation Lab
Network
capgemini.com/de-de/news/innovation-lab/ Int.
Earth Charter Initiative earthcharter.org/ Int.
Effective Institutions Platform effectiveinstitutions.org/en/ Int.
Mobilisation Lab mobilisationlab.org Int.
MSG msg.group/en/press/innovation-lab-for-insurers-msg-scookhouse-lab-coming-to-munich
Int.
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 48
Nestle HENRi henri.nestle.com/about-henri Int.
Observatory for Public Sector
Innovation
oecd-opsi.org/ Int.
Office of Global Innovation,
UNICEF
unicef.org/innovation/innovation_91039.html Int.
Open Government
Partnership
opengovpartnership.org/ Int.
Samsung multi-pronged
innovation platform
samsung.com/semiconductor/about-us/open-innovation/ Int.
Siemens AI Lab siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-thefuture/digitalization-and-software/autonomous-systemssiemens-ai-lab.html
Int.
UN Data Innovation Lab data-innovation.unsystem.org/ Int.
UN Leadership Training wfuna.org/leadership-training-program Int.
UNDP Innovation undp.org/innovation Int.
UNICEF Innovation www.unicef.org/innovation Int.
World Food Programme innovation.wfp.org/innovation-accelerator Int.
Design Dublin 21 design21c.com IRL
Dublin City Council BETA dccbeta.ie/ IRL
Northern Ireland PSI Lab finance-ni.gov.uk/articles/introduction-innovation-lab IRL
Co Battipaglia co-battipaglia.commoning.city/ IT
Co Mantova comantova.it/ IT
Design Policy Lab designpolicy.eu/ IT
LabGov labgov.city/ IT
Laboratorio per l'innovazione lab-ip.net/ IT
InSTEDDiLabs ilabsoutheastasia.org/ K
MiLab milab.md MD
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 49
IASS iass-potsdam.de/en/research/co-creation-andcontemporary-policy-advice
MX
Zapopan Lab datamx.io/organization/zapopan-lab MX
Ghent Living Lab stad.gent/smartcity/ghent-living-lab NL
Kennisland NL kl.nl/en/ NL
LEF Future Centre rijkswaterstaat.nl/english/index.aspx NL
Publieke Waarden publiekewaarden.nl/ NL
Waag Society waag.org/en NL
Wasted Lab wastedlab.nl/en/ NL
Auckland Co-Design Lab aucklandco-lab.nz NZ
Nz Govt Service Innovation
Lab
digital.govt.nz/blog/tag/service-innovation-lab NZ
Gdynia Design Centre ppnt.pl/en/centrum-designu/centrum-designu-gdynia PL
Gdynia Innovation Centre
Design Silesia
gdyniaprzedsiebiorcza.pl/entrepreneurship-developmentsupport/gdynia-innovation-centre/
PL
Innolab en.parp.gov.pl/innolab-2 PL
eSPAP Lab espap.pt PT
LabX labx.gov.pt PT
Innovations Lab Kosovo kosovoinnovations.org RKS
Experio Lab, Trafiklab experiolab.com/ SE
Service Lab Sweden servicelab.se/ SE
Social Innovation Co Lab socialinnovationcolab.se SE
Vinnova vinnova.se/en/ SE
GOVTECH tech.gov.sg SG
Innovation Lab,
Transformation Office
psd.gov.sg/who-we-are/our-organisational-structure SG
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 50
Barcelona Urban Lab 22barcelona.com/content/view/698/897/lang,en/ SP
LaboDemo labodemo.net/ SP
The Human Experience Lab,
Public Service Division.
Singapore
capam.org/files/2016BiennialPresentations/DesignledInnovationInTheSingaporePublicServiceAlexanderLau.pdf
SP
Citra Social Innovation Lab citralab.lk Sri Lanka
National Innovation Agency
Thailand
nia.or.th TH
Public Digital Innovation
Space
pdis.nat.gov.tw TW
e-Dem Lab e-demlab.org UA
Mohammed Bin Rashid
Center for Government
Innovation
mbrcgi.gov.ae UAE
Apolitical apolitical.co/ UK
Bexley Innovation Lab bexleyinnovationlab.wordpress.com UK
Bristol City Innovation Team connectingbristol.org UK
Bromford Lab bromfordlab.com/ UK
Cabinet Office Open
Innovation Team
openinnovation.blog.gov.uk/ UK
City Intelligence Innovation
Lab
datamillnorth.org/dataset/city-intelligence-innovation-lab UK
Cornwall Council cornwall.gov.uk/ UK
Design for Europe designforeurope.eu UK
Design Vault publicdesignvault.com/ UK
DfiD Innovation Hub dfid.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/24/the-future-of-developmentinnovation/
UK
DfT Lab dft.gov.uk UK
Digi Leaders digileaders.com/ UK
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 51
Finance Innovation Lab financeinnovationlab.org/ UK
Forum for the Future forumforthefuture.org UK
Future Gov wearefuturegov.com/ UK
Government Digital Services gds.blog.gov.uk/ UK
Government Outcomes Lab
(GO Lab)
golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk UK
hat Works Team whatworks.blog.gov.uk UK
Innovation Centre of Bank of
New York Mellon Corp.' in
Jersey City
bnymellon.com/emea/en/who-weare/innovation/innovation-in-emea.jsp
UK
Innovation Growth Lab innovationgrowthlab.org/ UK
Innovation Unit innovationunit.org UK
Involve involve.org.uk UK
James Martin Institute martininstitute.ox.ac.uk/jmi/ UK
London Fintech Innovation
Lab, funded by Goldman
Sachs, AXA, Nordea, etc.
fintechinnovationlab.com/london/london-network/ UK
MoJ Innovation Team mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/ UK
Nesta nesta.org.uk UK
Open Data Institute theodi.org/ UK
PDR User Lab pdrlab.net/ UK
Policy Lab UK openpolicy.blog.gov.uk UK
RCA Policy Platform rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-design/service-design/ UK
Satori Lab thesatorilab.com/ UK
SILK, Maidstone socialinnovation.typepad.com/silk/2014/07/maidstonementors.html
UK
SIX socialinnovationexchange.org/ UK
Snookdesign snook-design.com UK
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 52
Social Innovation Lab Kent
(SILK)
socialinnovation.typepad.com/silk/ UK
States of Change states-of-change.org/ UK
Superflux & Forum for the
Future
iotacademy.org/ UK
The Behavioural Insights
Team
behaviouralinsights.co.uk UK
The Data Lab Scotland thedatalab.com UK
The Water Hub thewaterhub.org.uk UK
UNLEASH unleash.org/ UK
Y Lab ylab.wales/ UK
United Nations Technology
Innovation Labs
until.un.org/ UN
18F 18f.gsa.gov US
Adobe Kickbox kickbox.adobe.com/ US
American eLab rmi.org/our-work/electricity/elab-electricity-innovation-lab/ US
Archeworks archeworks.org/ US
ATT Foundry about.att.com/innovation/foundry US
Bloomberg Philantropies
iTeams
bloomberg.org/program/governmentinnovation/innovation-teams/#overview
US
Boston Govt boston.gov/departments/new-urban-mechanics US
Boston Mayor’s Office of New
Urban Mechanics
boston.gov/departments/new-urban-mechanics US
City of Austin Office of
Innovation
austintexas.gov/department/about-innovation-office US
Civic Innovation Lab civicinnovationlab.la/ US
DAI / IntraHealth dai.com/ US
Ericsson Ideaboxes ericsson.com/en/tech-innovation US
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 53
Google Incubator area120.google.com/ US
GovLab PHL phillybsi.org US
GSJAM / GOVJAM govjam.org US
Harvard Innovation Lab innovationlabs.harvard.edu/harvard-i-lab/ US
Henry Ford Learning Institute hfli.org/ US
HHS Idea Lab hhs.gov/idealab US
Honda Silicon Valley Lab hondainnovations.com/focus/ US
iCMA ICMA.org US
IMF iLab imf.org US
Innovation Office, SF Human
Services Agency
SFHSAInnovationOffice.Tumblr.com US
John Hopkins University thesocialinnovationlab.org US
JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s finlab.cfsinnovation.com/ US
Legal Design Lab at Stanford
Law School
law.stanford.edu/organizations/pages/legal-design-lab/ US
Louisville Office of Civic
Innovation
opi.lsvll.io/innovation/ US
Minnesota socialinnovationlab.net US
MIT Presencing Institute presencing.org/ US
Multnomah Idea Lab multco.us/multnomah-idea-lab-mil-innovationgovernment
US
NYC Civic Innovation Lab beta.nyc US
NYC Mayor’s Office of
Economic Opportunity
www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/index.page US
Parsons Desis Lab newschool.edu/desis/ US
Rhode Island Office of
Innovation
innovate.ri.gov US
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 54
Rochester Mayor’s Office of
Innovation
rochesterinnovation.com US
San Francisco Office of Civic
Innovation
innovation.sfgov.org US
Seattle Innovation and
Performance Team
seattle.gov/innovation-performance US
South Bend Department of
Innovation
southbendin.gov/department/innovation-and-technology/ US
The Governance Lab NYC thegovlab.org/ US
The Lab @ DC thelab.dc.gov US
The Lab at OPM lab.opm.gov US
The Los Angeles Innovation
Team
losangelesinnovates.com/ US
U.S. Aid Global Development
Lab
usaid.gov/GlobalDevLab US
UI Labs uilabs.org US
WeHoX wehox.org US
Wells Fargo accelerator.wellsfargo.com US
Barclays barclaysaccelerator.com/#/ US, UK, IL
Centre for Public Service
Innovation
cpsi.co.za ZA
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 55
ANNEX III:
Profiles of selected units
IMF | Innovation Mapping Innovation Units | 56
Selected Innovation Units
§ UN Data Innovation Lab
§ UNDP Innovation Facility
§ UNICEF Innovation
§ WFP Innovation Accelerator
§ Australian Taxation Office
§ Bloomberg Innovation Teams
§ Center for Public Innovation
§ DPDHL Start-Up Lab
§ Finance Innovation Lab
§ GIZ Capacity WORKS
§ Harvard i-lab
§ Laboratorio de Gobierno
§ Mobilisation Lab
§ Observatory for Public Sector Innovation
§ Open Government Partnership
§ Stanford Legal Design Lab
§ The Lab at OPM
§ UK Policy Lab
§ U.S. Global Development Lab
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
UN Data Innovation Lab
A flexible
platform
for jointly
delivering
ready-to-scale
tools and
approaches
while
strengthening
internal
capacity
for data
innovation
across the UN.“
Facts
UN Agencies need to strengthen their capacity to collect, analyse and utilise
new and existing data sources and build their work on solid foundations of
evidence to make sure we are reaching those left furthest behind. Within the
UN system there are few compelling operational examples of applications that
leverage analysis of emerging data sources (mobile call records, social media,
financial transactions, sensor data, etc.) with measurable impact in sustainable
development programmes and humanitarian action.
In 2015, the CEB identified four initiatives to enable the UN to harness the
power of the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development and UNICEF and
WFP were jointly tasked to lead one of them, the Data Innovation Lab. Our Data
Innovation Lab workshops are led by different UN Agencies, which further
strengthens the inter-agency cooperation in the field of data innovation and
beyond and contribute to advancing the data revolution system-wide. To
bring in the vast expertise that already exists outside of the UN, each Data
Innovation Lab workshop is hosted by a partner from academia, think-tanks
or the private sector and data experts from these sectors participated in the
workshops as speakers, experts and mentors.
Although the Data Revolution is already transforming private sector and civil
society in profound ways, the knowledge and technical capacity in UN agencies
remains limited. Some UN agencies have started to use new data sources and
innovative approaches when designing programmes and measuring their
impact. But overall, the UN and broader international community is relatively
new to the field of data innovation.
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://data-innovation.
unsystem.org/
ITC
internal
iUnit
supranational
public
2015
International
The UN system-wide joint Data Innovation Lab
provides the system to investigate, design, develop,
prototype and test applications of emerging digital data
sources in support of global efforts to achieve the data
revolution for sustainable development. By bringing
together private sector partners, academic centres
of excellence, and leading experts in data privacy, the
Lab gains access to new types of data, data mining
and visualization technologies and novel analytical
methodologies, providing the UN with hands-on
experience collaborating within “safe spaces” for rapid
innovation, and would contribute to the development
and adoption of more agile, effective and efficient
ways of working.
Set Up & Scope of Work
3
Gains access to new
types of data, data
mining and visualization
technolgies as well
as novel analytical
methodologies
Provides interorganizational workshops
•
•
Working Approach
• Using a build-to-learn, “fail fast or scale fast” approach, the Data Innovation
Lab identifies high-potential opportunities to leverage new data sources
safely and responsibly to address priority sustainable development
challenges, employ user-centred design and rapid prototyping to develop
new analytical approaches and tools, pilot innovations in the field, and share
findings, technology, and lessons learned.
• In consultation with other interested UN agencies, it was agreed to conduct
a series of five thematic Data Innovation Lab workshops to understand
existing data innovation capabilities and needs within the UN system.
• The workshops are designed to guide participants step-by-step through
a data innovation project: By bringing together representatives from all
UN agencies, the workshops provide participants with an opportunity to
identify and discuss cross-cutting challenges, share experiences and learn
from each other.
• The entire Data Innovation Lab workshop series has been realized through
effective, flexible, and supportive collaboration across UN agencies and
without the allocation of any additional resources.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
UNDP Innovation Facility
We invest in
innovation
to find the
best solutions
based on
evidence, to
achieve better
development
results, and
to design
more inclusive
processes
for better
governance.“
Facts
The UNDP Innovation Facility offers technical support to the organisation and
its collaborators across 170 countries and territories to explore new approaches
to increasingly complex development challenges.
From the Innovation Facility’s inception in 2014 through 2016, we have
supported more than 110 experiments with seed funding across 76 countries
and territories. UNDP Country Offices that received seed funding for innovation
kickstarted on average two more innovation initiatives; and more than 60%
of the supported experiments resulted in an uptake by partners across
government, the private sector, and academia: an important pathway to scale.
The Facility’s portfolio is firmly rooted in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. While initiatives span 16 of the 17 Goals, the majority of initiatives
address Sustainable Development Goals that eradicate poverty, enhance
livelihood options, reduce inequalities as well as build resilient and peaceful
societies.
Innovation for development is about identifying more effective solutions that
add value for the people affected by development challenges – people and
their governments, our users and clients.
The UNDP Innovation Facility scans the horizon to assess emerging approaches
and technologies that can add value to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda
in partnership with the public and private sectors.
For example, new approaches include:
• setting up innovation labs with governments to
re-design public service delivery;
• embracing data innovation to implement and
monitor the SDGs;
• exploring emerging and alternative sources
of financing to deepen and diversify the
resourcing and implementation of the SDGs,
from social impact bonds to pay-for-success and
crowdfunding avenues or
• using behavioural insights to facilitate policymaking.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
http://www.undp.org/content/
undp/en/home/development-impact/innovation.html
Development
internal
iProgramm
supranational
public
2014
International
5
Working Approach
Offers technical
support and funding for
solutions that add value
for the affected people
Assesses emerging
approaches and
technologies that add
value for Agenda 2030
•
•
• Large organizations like UNDP have strict rules about how business must
be done. This often entails inflexible multi-year planning instruments,
risk aversion, and concepts of scale that prioritize standardization over
adaptation. Our team in Istanbul led the design of tools to help colleagues
deviate from the current linear implementation paradigm, offering new
ways to work on any stage of a programme or project cycle, and design for
adaptive scale from the get-go.
• The key hypothesis is that if methods that enable experimentation become
part of the organization’s DNA, we will see an uptake in their use and
eventually produce better programmes. To this end, we worked closely
with four UNDP Country Offices over several months to ‘hack’ the corporate
programme guidance and develop the ‘Project Hackers’ Kit’.
• The Kit helps managers and practitioners ask tough and useful questions
about the challenges they face, so they can design more targeted solutions
and scalable solutions with sustainable impact. The Hackers’ Kit strives to
find a balance between making systems-thinking practical and designing
evidence-based experiments that inform a programme’s evolution.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
UNICEF Innovation
We believe
that new
approaches,
partnerships,
and technologies that
support
realizing
children’s
rights are
critical to
improving
their lives.“
Facts
Innovation at UNICEF is driven by an interdisciplinary team of individuals
around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies
and practices that strengthen UNICEF’s work for children. Innovations range
from new ways to structure programmes to new products and technologies.
To create these solutions, UNICEF works with a network of global problem
solvers who can find new ways to accelerate results that reduce inequities
for children. These innovators are also creating a new global infrastructure of
openness, of collaboration across borders, of exploration, and of innovation
for equity.
The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We
sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global
issues meets the startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn
this energy into scalable solutions. We see, around the world, young people
pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and creating a future they want –
and the future is appearing in the places that UNICEF works before it happens
in the „global north.“ We’re an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked
with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices.
UNICEF is on the ground in 190 countries, and we see the evolving challenges
that are facing children and young people – from disease outbreaks and
populations on the move, to urbanisation and climate change. We pair these
changing realities on the ground with efficient, effective and creative ways to
address them. Being able to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
adopted by the countries of the United Nations to change the way we develop
our world through 2030, requires innovation to shape
these global efforts and implement their solutions.
The Office of Innovation specifically looks to form
partnerships around frontier technologies (like
drones and UAVs, blockchain, 21st century skills, urban
technologies, new banking tools, or 3D-Printing)
that exist at the intersection of $100 billion business
markets and 1 billion person needs – and to identify
how they can grow and scale profitably and inclusively.
This often means creating provocations to industry to
show how certain technologies, if built in the right way,
could have tremendous positive impacts on the lives
of children, while also opening new research, markets,
and opportunities to our partners.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
www.unicef.org/innovation
Development
internal
iUnit
supranational
public
2017
International
7
Internal Office for
Innovation that works
with 35 countries
Vertical and horizontal
approach to innovation
proposals
Focus on localized,
external partnerships
•
•
•
Focusing on where new markets meet vital needs, we’ve partnered with leaders from the
private, public and academic sectors to:
• Connect young people to decision-makers via U-Report, the social messaging
tool that allows anyone to speak out, respond to polls and work as positive
agents of change. Through its 3.6 million U-Reporters (and 39 countries), this
tool has helped UNICEF to shape policy to address sexual abuse in Liberia’s
schools, track the distribution of more than 6 million textbooks in Zimbabwe,
and get life-saving messages before hurricanes in the Caribbean.
• Bring an entrepreneurial approach to a risk-averse sector – including
partnerships to develop innovative, affordable solutions that make wearables
and sensor technologies work for communities. Our Wearables for Good
challenge identified stand-out social enterprise innovations – like a wearable
immunization record or a device that encourages children to wash their hands
properly – and we’re now helping these technologies to attract private sector
funding.
• Bring together private sector partners to share data and research; working
with academic and technical partners to create models from that data; and
developing systems for real-time information and action. This allows us to
better understand and respond to emergencies – like during the 2014 Ebola
outbreak, where aggregated data from mobile networks in Sierra Leone helped
us map people’s movements and determine likely routes for the disease.
Working Approach
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
WFP Innovation Accelerator
We work with
intrapreneurs
and external
start-ups to
build solutions
that work.
Facts
The World Food Programme (WFP) is governed by the WFP Executive Board,
which consists of 36 Member States and provides intergovernmental support,
direction and supervision of WFP’s activities.
Achieving Zero Hunger and eradicating malnutrition by 2030 – as mandated
by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2) – is the World Food Programme’s
raison d’être. In a fast-moving world, the challenges posed by this mission are
constantly changing, and so are the tools and approaches that can be used to
overcome them.
WFP embraces innovation and has a proven track record of piloting,
implementing and scaling new ideas. This is not limited to adopting novel
technologies, but includes different ways of designing and executing its
programmes.
Whether it is using mobile phones to gather data from inaccessible areas via
SMS or transfer cash to people on the move, adopting iris scan technology
to identify people entitled to receive assistance, promoting airtight storage
equipment or piloting hydroponic farming techniques to improve the
livelihoods of refugee communities, WFP constantly strives to find ever more
effective ways to ensure nobody goes hungry.
WFP‘s Innovation Accelerator identifies, nurtures and scales bold solutions
to hunger globally. We support WFP innovators and external start-ups and
companies through financial support, access to a network of experts and a
global field reach.
The Accelerator believes the way forward in the fight
against hunger is not necessarily in building grand
plans, but identifying and testing solutions in an agile
way. It is a space where the world can find out what
works and what doesn’t in addressing hunger - a place
where we can be bold, and fail as well as succeed.
Mirroring the structure of the 2030 Agenda, each of
the WFP Plan’s two Strategic Goals – support countries
to achieve Zero Hunger and partner to support
implementation of the SDGs – is articulated through
Strategic Objectives and Strategic Results, against
which progress can be measured.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
http://innovation.wfp.org/
innovation-accelerator
Development
internal
iProgramme
supranational
public
2017
International
9
Working Approach
Success is measured by
taking new ideas into
actual “hands-on” projects
Accompanies and supports
the teams who implement
the projects on the ground
Tries to connect them with
a network of supporters
Programmes to foster cultural change and new solutions:
• Boot Camps are often the first stop on the journey for many projects and
start-ups. Over the course of 3-10 days, innovation and humanitarian
experts help teams deep dive challenges, ideate solutions and refine project
plans. Boot Camps combine innovation techniques such as human centred
design with WFP’s deep field knowledge and operational excellence.
• Our Sprint Programme is an intensive 3-6 month acceleration that helps
projects and start-ups reach proof of concept and/or develop prototypes
ready for implementation. Teams receive financial support, guidance and
space to bring their idea to life from the Munich-based Accelerator, and
access to WFP’s global network of partners and resources.
• The WFP Innovation Fund provides grants to second stage innovations that
have reached a proof of concept to scale globally. Projects and start-ups
that graduate from the WFP Sprint Programme are eligible for funding.
The WFP Innovation Fund is supported by governmental and private sector
donors. To learn how you can contribute, email us today.
• R&D (Thought Leadership) explores new trends, technologies and longterm project strategies that can help move us towards Zero Hunger. The
Innovation Accelerator works with UN sister agencies, academia and private
sector innovation leaders to find and leverage game-changing products or
services. Supported projects receive unparalleled access to R&D leaders in
for and non-profit sectors.
•
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Australian Taxation Office
Our blueprint
for reinvention
reflects what
the community
wants from
the ATO –
the kind of
experience
they want
to have
when they
participate
in the tax
and super
systems.“
Facts
The Australian Tax Office Innovation Lab works with internal and external
partners to explore new industry approaches and determine the feasibility
and benefits of new products within the technology environment. The ATO
Innovation Lab has most recently focused on developing working prototypes
that look to continually improve our DevOps practices to provide repeatable,
automated processes that embed quality and improve speed to market.
The ATO has a long history of digital innovation and digital delivery. In 2004, we
were the first revenue agency in the world to provide an online interface for tax
professionals. Our continued success in delivering digital services is evidenced
by the fact that over 6 million clients now interact with us online and over 3
million individuals use myTax to prefill and lodge their tax return. We also have
over 1million users consuming the ATO mobile app, over 3 million clients using
our Voice Authentication solution and over 1.9 million clients being supported
by our virtual assistant ‘Alex’.
Technology can be leveraged to simplify the way in which the tax and
superannuation systems are administered. We aim to identify and support
the application of technology solutions by working with our partners and the
community. This will assist in streamlining and automating record keeping,
and tax reporting, and lead to a better client experience.
An integrated tax design capability is one in which tax design professionals
operate creatively and collaboratively within an articulated and disciplined
design process to implement tax system products that coherently connect
policy intent with user needs.
We aim to achieve procurement and contract
management that deliver savings, innovations and
efficiencies. Our corporate plan outlines our way
forward, with the strategies, priorities and activities we
will focus on to achieve our goals and mission.
We have set out on a path of reinvention. This journey
over the next few years focuses us on changing how we
operate to better meet the needs and expectations of
the community, while delivering on our commitments
to government and the community. We are focused
on building on our culture of integrity and making
the necessary cultural changes to align with the
transformed client experience.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.ato.gov.au/
About-ATO/About-us/Reinventing-the-ATO/
Government and Administration
internal
iProgramme
national
public
2002
AUS
11
Australian Taxation Office
Working Approach
• Revenue authorities typically have a small number of core functions
related to their respective tax systems: for the ATO, these functions have
comprised revenue collection and protection, revenue distribution, tax law
interpretation and tax system design.
• ‘Tax design’ as used here comprehends the design of tax policy along with the
associated design of tax law and the design of supporting tax administration
(for example, collection systems, tax forms, paper-, voice- and e-based
information) to implement that policy.
• While one of the ATO’s core functions is centrally about design, the
performance of the other three is also vitally influenced by the quality,
efficacy and coherence of tax system design.
• Our vision is to be a contemporary, service-oriented organisation. To achieve
this we are transforming our services and the way we deal with you. Our
starting point was to ask people how they use the tax and superannuation
systems, and what they want. They said we should fix the basics, provide
certainty, tailor services to their needs and help them navigate the system.
From this consultation we created a blueprint for change, which provides
a clear line of sight to what we want to achieve as we reinvent the ATO
through new or improved products and services. Some improvements from
the blueprint have already been delivered and we‘re working to deliver
more in the years ahead.
Integrated tax design
capability for tax system
products that connect
policy intent with user
needs
Sets out on a path of
reinvention, building
culture of integrity
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Bloomberg Innovation Teams
Cities are
uniquely
positioned
to drive bold
solutions
to complex
challenges.“
Facts
Innovation Teams is part of the American Cities Initiative, a suite of investments
that empower cities to generate innovation and advance policy that moves the
nation forward. Bloomberg Philanthropies began investing in i-teams in five
cities in 2012. Today, nearly 20 cities around the world are participating in the
program.
From city halls to public agencies, governments are thinking more and more
about how to create innovative solutions to pressing problems. City leaders are
increasingly seeing innovation as a mindset and process to improve the lives of
the people they serve.
Situated in City Hall, i-teams report to the mayor and work closely with
colleagues in city government, offering them a different set of tools and
techniques to innovate more effectively. In partnership with these colleagues,
they seek to deeply understand the problems they are trying to solve by
building empathy for the people impacted by them, and then work quickly
and creatively to co-create and test solutions that deliver meaningful results
for residents.
Cities are uniquely able to innovate and transform citizens’ lives, but face
many barriers to developing and implementing solutions to tough challenges.
City governments are not always organized to support innovation, especially
when it comes to addressing “horizontal” issues—such as poverty reduction,
sustainability, or customer service—that are the shared responsibility of
multiple departments and chains of command.
The i-teams program was created to provide cities with
a method to address these barriers and deliver change
more effectively to their citizens.
By using the most effective approaches to innovation,
i-teams greatly reduce the risks associated with this
work, and provide mayors with assurance in their
ability to develop and implement effective solutions to
their highest-priority problems.
Mayors have effectively used i-teams on issues as
diverse as murder reduction, economic development,
and customer service. These teams cross the globe
from the U.S. to Canada, Israel, and now, France.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.bloomberg.org/
program/government-innovation/innovation-teams
Development
external
iProgramme
local
private
2012
US
13
Working Approach
i-teams conduct deep qualitative & quantitative research and analyses to assess local
conditions, develop innovative, responsive solutions & measure progress against clear goals.
• Human-Centered: Government solves problems faster and more creatively when
it recognizes and relies on other people and ideas in their communities. i-teams
share challenges and invite residents to help define problems, then develop and test
solutions.
• Risk Taking: i-teams challenge “business as usual”. They test ideas with residents early
on, before they are formalized, funded or vetted, in order to quickly gain feedback and
improve their ideas.
• Impact-Driven: i-teams set targets and use data and performance management to
measure progress and impact. They have a bias toward action because they know that
the work matters only if it delivers meaningful impact that residents can see.
• Versatile: i-teams take on challenges across a wide spectrum of city issues. They
transcend silos that normally exist, spend finite time solving an issue, and are then
redeployed by city leaders to tackle the next big problem.
• Ambitious: Mayors and city leaders use i-teams to bring creative new approaches to
pressing problems. i-teams are uniquely positioned to make big changes on difficult
problems that span departments.
• Rigorous: Innovation teams look outside their city to learn from others that have
faced similar challenges, learn from people beyond the usual suspects, and consider
problems from multiple angles to understand the root causes.
Programme investing in
facilitating innovation
teams within city govt.
i-teams are equipped
with tools & techniques
to innovate effectively
Design principles are
the basis for innovation
•
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Centre for Public Innovation
We aim at
strengthening
the current
value of
innovation
work in the
public sector
as well as
enhancing
the long-term
yield across
the public
sector.“
Facts
The National Centre for Public Sector Innovation (COI) is owned by and works
across the Danish public sector – the central government agencies, local
municipalities and Local Government Denmark in collaboration with the three
umbrella organizations for public sector employees. COI contributes to the
public sector becoming more efficient and delivering services and products of
a higher quality through innovation.
The agendas of public sector innovation change rapidly, as do the needs of
public sector organizations. Therefore, COI works with a dynamic strategic
framework that allows for adjustments. COI facilitates discussions between
researchers and practitioners across different fields in order to continuously
make it easier and more attractive to document value-adding solutions and
the value of innovative actions.
By spreading innovation and reusing the solutions of others, public sector
workplaces can save development costs, avoid unsuccessful strategies and
achieve desired outcomes more quickly. By sharing our own solutions with
others, we can use their experiences to improve the original solution and
possibly achieve a greater reach and impact.
COI seeks to leverage public sector innovation to further increase the quality
and efficiency resulting from the overall innovation efforts.
COI has three ambitions for the changes that are needed to increase the
quality and efficiency of the public sector through innovation: System changes,
behavioral changes and knowledge acquired and used.
COI has a down to earth approach to fulfilling our
purpose and delivering on our activities by:
• developing and communicating knowledge and
tools, that can be used at the individual workplace/
public sector institution and by decision makers
and researchers/scientists.
• having a nationwide presence and participating in
meetings, workshops and conferences.
• establishing partnerships and networks with public
sector workplaces, private sector companies,
citizens, volunteers, scientists
• establishing and participating in the debate on the
framework for public sector innovation.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
http://coi.dk/en/
Government and Administration
external
iResearch Unit
national
public
2014
DK
15
Combines roles: dialogueand leverage partner,
capacity builder, knowledge
partner with ambitions for
the changes that are needed
to increase the quality and
efficiency of the public
sector through innovation:
system changes, behavioral
changes and knowledge
acquired and used
Working Approach
System changes -
COI will contribute to:
• innovative ways of working being included
in the development and implementation
of major initiatives,
• the actions of reusing and sharing
innovative solutions being adopted
in national, regional and municipal
development strategies,
• decision makers demanding that new
solutions are systematically tested
on a smaller scale before full scale
implementation,
• decision makers encouraging crosssectoral innovation collaborations
between state, regional and municipal
workplaces,
• decision makers demanding that
innovation must be done in cooperation
with other public workplaces and with
citizens, knowledge institutions and
private businesses,
• innovation skills being included in HR
strategies and curricula etc.in relevant
education and training programs.
Behavioral change -
COI will contribute to:
• concrete training and collaboration
projects which result in innovation work
of a higher quality,
• it is common practice in the workplaces
to use tools for evaluation of innovative
actions and spreading of innovative
solutions,
• valuable solutions and experiences
actively being spread from one place in it
public sector to other places.
Knowledge acquired and used -
COI will contribute to:
• Danish and foreign actors using and
debating knowledge that COI has created
and communicated,
• public sector innovation being a topic that
has national awareness and is actively
debated.
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
DPDHL Start-Up Lab
The lab
provides
a creative,
results-driven
environment
for the
generation of
new business
models,
creation of
new customer
segments,
uptake of
technologies
& innovation.“
Facts
Deutsche Post DHL Group is the world’s leading mail and logistics company
and operates under two brands: Deutsche Post is Europe’s leading postal
service provider. DHL is uniquely positioned in the world’s growth markets,
with a comprehensive range of international express, freight transportation,
e-commerce and supply chain management services. Deutsche Post DHL
Group employs approximately 510,000 employees in over 220 countries and
territories worldwide.
Start-up Lab is the incubator program where Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL)
Group employees can apply with their innovative ideas to be part of an exciting
start-up environment within DPDHL. When accepted into the Start-up Lab
program, teams become part of “incubator cohorts” which last for 4 months,
with the possibility of extension. During this time, teams are provided with
funding, coaching, Lean Start-up know-how, networking and other support
required to help them turn their idea or concept into a proof of concept,
Minimum Viable Product, or pilot. The goal is to validate the idea and quickly
scale it if the necessary quality gates are passed during the incubation phase.
Applications are open to all DPDHL employees - all that is needed is a good
idea and an entrepreneurial mindset.
In today’s logistics markets, start-ups are challenging traditional business
models. But we can be – indeed we should be – the innovators and disruptors
of our own industry. This is why we need Start-up Lab: it is the first step
towards creating an ecosystem for further innovation across DPDHL.
The Start-up Lab program targets preferably scalable
ideas that employees would like to develop into a
proof of concept, Minimum Viable Product, or pilot on
a project like basis. Ideas submitted to Start-up Lab
need to be supported by description of a plan, team
and requirements to incubate the idea.
For the second round of Start-up Lab, there are a few
topics for which we are especially keen on receiving
applications. These include containerization, future
of work, last-mile delivery and digitalization of our
operations using emerging technologies such as
blockchain, IoT and robotics.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://dhlstartuplab.com/
Logistics
internal
iUnit
international
private
2017
DE
17
Teams become part
of incubator cohorts,
provided with funding,
coaching and support
Main topics are future
of work, digitization
of operations using
emerging technologies
The lab offers the following support:
• Start-up environment - tailored to the specific idea and team we jointly setup the best possible work environment (e.g., lean processes, access to office
spaces, working hours).
• Network building – exposure to and collaboration with DPDHL Senior
Management and Innovation Network.
• Funding & Resources – seed funding and provision of resources needed to put
your idea into practice (e.g., market research support, IT dev).
• Mentoring & coaching – benefit from your business sponsor and m e n t o r s
(internal and/ or external) through coaching, pitch support, a comprehensive
onboarding, etc.
The aim of the Start-up Lab is to:
• EXPLORE new DIGITAL BUSINESS MODELS - Example: Saloodo! a digital
platform for road freight where shippers & carriers can offer & search loads
• INCREASE – leverage & scale emerging technologies to INCREASE OPERATIONAL
EFFICIENCY - Example: Collaborative robotics and wearable technologies in
warehousing operations
• ENHANCE – leverage & scale emerging technologies to ENHANCE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE - Example: Chatbot on Allyouneed Fresh app
Working Approach
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Finance Innovation Lab
Dysfunctions
in the financial
system lie
at the root
of many
of today’s
challenges,
from fossil
fuel addiction
to structural
inequality.
Facts
The Finance Innovation Lab was founded by WWF-UK (World Wide Fund for
Nature) and ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales)
in 2009. The Lab is now an independent entity, though both organizations
continue to support The Lab through significant funding, strategic oversight
as Trustees and through ongoing collaboration with The Lab on projects of
mutual strategic interest.
The core group of allies are civil society players that share the same goal of
transforming finance and are actively advocating for structural reform. As a
secondary group of allies, we also work with stakeholders that could positively
influence structural reform of the financial system: such as entrepreneurs,
think tanks and thought leaders. The Lab has grown into an award-winning
initiative that has engaged thousands of people and created change in
government policy and enabled new campaigns and business models in
finance. Importantly, we collaborate with people who want to work with us.
We work with those who see that they are a part of a bigger picture of systems
change and integrate this into the heart of their work.
Finance is a complex system: a network of relationships with a specific purpose
and set of values. Changing one part of the system won’t lead to transformation.
Instead, we need to shift the fundamental basis of the financial system – the
prevailing mindset and values that underpin the current system, its purpose
and its power structure.
We use transition theory to understand the key elements of systems change:
1. The landscape: this is comprised of the wider
dynamics that affect systems, e.g. demographics,
environmental change, technological change, social
norms.
2. The regime: this aspect is about power: Who gets to
shape the rules of the game? Who has access to the
most valuable information? Who is included and who
is excluded?
3. The niches of innovation: disruptive innovators,
specifically those that are creating new models of
finance, based on a different mindset, values and
purpose.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
http://financeinnovationlab.
org/
Finance and Insurance
external
iCharity
international
civil society
2009
UK
19
Working Approach
Group of allies
advocating for structural
reform in finance
Applies transition
theory to understand
systems change, looking
at purpose, mindsets
and power structures
•
•
The Finance Innovation Lab empowers positive disruptors in the financial system.
We are catalysts for the transition to a better financial system. We work with open
and willing change agents – innovators and early adopters who already understand
the need for transformation and are working towards it. Our vision is a financial
system that works for people and planet. We connect people who are changing
the system, develop them as leaders and help them scale their work. Our primary
focus is the niches of disruptive innovation in finance, who we support through our
Fellowship programme and wider community of practice. We use the learning from
this work to advocate for change in the policies and regulation that shape the system, connecting civil society campaigns to the practical barriers faced by innovators.
Our work creates four types of impact:
• Thriving communities – communities that are committed to each other,
share a common purpose, collaborate effectively and have a greater
collective impact
• Collaborative leaders – leaders who understand their role in creating
systemic change, work to their highest potential and inspire others to take
action
• Scalable solutions – ideas and businesses that prove it is possible to do
finance differently
• Enabling environment – a policy and regulatory environment that supports
socially useful innovation.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
GIZ Capacity WORKS
The
cooperation
partners
switch back
and forth
between
observing and
analysing their
setting, and
implementing
concrete
actions
designed
to facilitate
change.“
Facts
Reforming the health sector or the education system, extending an airport,
reducing government debt or internationalising a business: all of these
mean societal change, a subject that is increasingly on the agenda, in Europe
and around the world. Any societal change process makes high demands
on the quality of interaction between the state, the economy and civil
society, sometimes even beyond national borders and continents. As the
interdependencies between countries and their various stakeholders increase,
the pressure on joint steering becomes immense, with negotiations having
to produce decisions that all sides can uphold. This is generally anything but
straightforward.
Capacity WORKS has proved a great success in German international
cooperation, where it has achieved an excellent track record as a model for
cooperation management. This has been the case regardless of the considerable
differences between the various countries, cultures and sectors in which we
work. Capacity WORKS was first developed in 2006 within the former GTZ,
one of the predecessor organisations of today’s GIZ. Following a two-year
pilot phase in 2009 and 2010 we then introduced it as our management
model for sustainable development. Today, Capacity WORKS is an integral
part of all GIZ’s key procedures from programme design, to implementation,
to internal evaluation and reporting. GIZ assists societal change in various
roles: as a facilitator, intermediary, mediator and also as a co-designer that
sets the stage for the actors involved. GIZ applies the logic that underlies its
management model Capacity WORKS, making it accessible for joint project
activities. Condensed into this model are some 30 years of GIZ expertise in
German international (development) cooperation in
many different societal change processes worldwide.
We assist our commissioning parties, clients and
partners in the design and roll-out of societal change
processes by supporting them in
• promoting sustainable negotiation processes that
result in new structures, procedures and rules for
interorganisational action,
• making decisions and communicating them
through transparent processes that the various
actors can understand,
• embracing a logic that delivers fast and exemplary
results for stakeholders and much more.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.giz.de/expertise/
html/4619.html
Development
internal
iProgramm
international
public
2006
DE
21
Working Approach
Based on practical
experience and the
identified patterns of
a „good practise“ for
successful cooperation
Identifed ‘success factors
for professional cooperation management‘ are
core of learning program
Approach to foster cultural change and new solutions:
• Capacity WORKS provides a mature methodology for the art of successful
cooperation management using relevant key questions, the structure of the
five success factors, and a toolbox for addressing specific questions.
• Strategy: The cooperation system will succeed if and when the cooperation
partners agree on a joint strategy to achieve the negotiated objectives.
• Cooperation: Trust, the negotiation of appropriate forms of cooperation,
and clearly defined roles form the basis for good cooperation.
• Steering structure: The cooperation system is guided by agreements on how
the actors involved will go about jointly preparing and taking the decisions
that affect them.
• Processes: Successful cooperation systems include a clear understanding
of effective ways of delivering outputs, for which new processes are
established or existing processes modified.
• Learning & innovation: The cooperation partners create an enabling
environment for innovation by boosting the learning capacities of the actors
involved.
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Harvard i-lab
We serve
any full-time
degreeseeking
Harvard
student,
eligible
alumni- or
faculty-led
ventures with
an interest
in innovation
and entrepreneurship.“
Facts
We are a three-lab ecosystem that exists to support Harvard students and select
alumni in their quest to explore the world of innovation and entrepreneurship.
We are a dynamic incubator ecosystem that unleashes the innovative power
of individuals through a network of highly-curated advisors and mentors, peer
collaboration and interaction, and comprehensive resource and programming
support.
The i-lab provides all the physical and intellectual resources current Harvard
students need to develop and grow, including intimate advising, office hours
with industry experts, workshops, an incubator program, and a competition.
Open co-working space is also available for any Harvard student looking to
grow as an innovator.
Our ecosystem encompasses three distinct spaces:
• the i-lab for current Harvard students interested in innovation and
entrepreneurship,
• the Launch Lab for eligible Harvard alumni leading promising early-stage
startup ventures,
• and the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab for Harvard students, faculty, and
alumni working on high-potential life sciences and biotech startups.
The Harvard i-lab is a resource available to all current
students from any Harvard school who is looking to
explore innovation and entrepreneurship at any stage.
We believe that while knowledge is the engine of
innovation, connection and collaboration are the fuel.
We believe that when you bring together the right mix
of people, with shared intentions and similar values,
remarkable things happen. We believe in providing
all the necessary supports for innovation, including
physical safety, transparency, empathy, compassion,
connection and the opportunity for creative collision.
We believe in unlocking unrealized value that can have
a deep impact on markets, on the world, and on the
individuals who walk through these doors.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://innovationlabs.harvard.
edu/harvard-i-lab/
Education and Science
internal
iResearch Unit
local
public/private
2011
US
23
Working Approach
Knowledge is the
engine of innovation,
cennection and
collaboration are the
fuel
Main programme is
based on community
and support systems
• The i-lab hosts office hours with experts- and entrepreneurs-in-residence
(EiRs), faculty mentors, i-lab staff, legal partners, funders-in-residence
(VCs), and other visiting practitioners who can help you grow your ideas and
move your ventures forward. For students who have questions about their
career, venture, or business planning issues, or about innovation in general,
the EiR program is a great way to get answers.
• The i-lab hosts workshops each semester that cover a range of topics.
They’re built to follow the innovator’s trajectory, so we encourage you to
start from the beginning. Pick a topic, and sign up — it’s a great way to learn,
as well as connect with potential team members, founding partners, and
experts who can help your move forward.
• The Venture Incubation Program (VIP) is the cornerstone program at the
i-lab. More than a co-working space, the VIP is a comprehensive, creative
community of innovators, experts, and support systems. The VIP is open to
teams that include at least one matriculated, full-time and degree-seeking
undergraduate or graduate Harvard student.
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Laboratorio de Gobierno
A modern
State is one
that places
people at the
centre of its
concerns and
the design
of its public
policies.“
Facts
The Laboratorio de Gobierno (LabGob) was founded in 2015 as an initiative
composed of a multidisciplinary team, with an Interministerial Board of the
Government of Chile, and with an Expert Advisory Group from the private
sector, civil society and the public sector, mandated to develop, facilitate and
promote innovation processes focused on users within the institutions of the
Chilean State.
The mission of the Laboratory is to develop, coordinate, facilitate and promote
innovation processes centered on people within public sector institutions, with
the vision of basing these processes on the articulation of a new relationship of
trust between citizens, the State, its officials and the private sector.
LabGob has established an Institutional Support Program that seeks to
foster an innovative environment with public impact through economic,
communicational and / or methodological support, as well as a Network of
International Alliances to strengthen innovation in the Chilean State and the
world.
Three aims form the political mandate for LabGob:
1. to learn to understand and manage complex problems
2. to improve productivity and deliver better public services with lower cost
3. to create a better relationship between citizens and government based on
enhanced trust
LabGob‘s three streams of action:
• Innovation Projects - an area of LabGob who would
work to reframe, experiment and implement the
most in-demand public services
• Innovation Skills – ensuring the Laboratorio works
to spread practical knowledge on innovation skills
inside government, but also outside
• Ecosystem Management Investment – to attract
private talent through challenge prizes and civic
engagement to solve public problems.
These three lines combine to form a complete and
complex offer that the Laboratorio makes available not
only for public servants, but also for different actors
inside and outside government.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.lab.gob.cl/
Government and Administration
internal
iUnit
national
public
2015
CL
25
Laboratorio de Gobierno
Working Approach
Responsibility to act as a connector
between citizens, public servants,
authorities and institutions for the
creation of new services, through the
development, facilitation and promotion
of innovation processes within the State
Methodology with two components: a set
of principles that guide its way of working
and an integrated management process
to carry out innovation projects
Way of working is based on Innovation
from Design in combination with
methodologies of entrepreneurship, open
innovation and experiential learning
•
•
•
• As part of the mission to understand and solve public issues, LabGob works
to instill a new culture in government and create a movement of people
that can take up this new culture and make it their own both inside and
outside government.
• It aims to imagine, design and support the implementation of changes in
public services that are perceived by the citizenry as relevant and useful.
The ultimate challenge is to move from promise to implementation in each
of these areas of work.
• The strategy is to create more lasting and sustained impact beyond the
scope of any singular innovation project. To achieve these goals the team
works to support and equip Chile‘s public servants and our stakeholders
with the tools, skills and foresight needed to effectively tackle the most
pressing challenges.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Mobilisation Lab
MobLab
plays a
critical role in
Greenpeace’s
shift to a
new way of
operating at
all levels -
programmatically,
administratively
and strategically.“
Facts
MobLab is one of several strategic and structural initiatives launched by
Greenpeace during the past decade in response to the tectonic shifts in
advocacy and the climate movement.
Founded in 2011, the centre was positioned as a “resource for innovation,
training and capacity development” across Greenpeace’s entire network of
organisations and with a dual focus on digital advocacy and people-powered
campaigning. Designed as a source of best practices, testing, and strategy
development for a network of over 25 regional offices and 3,000 staff,
the centre had a dual focus on increasing digital capacity and promoting
community-based, “people-powered” campaigning.
In early 2017 the MobLab began the process of becoming fully independent
to expand its mission and serve a wider community of organisations and
individuals beyond Greenpeace.
As an independent program, MobLab could more easily serve as a neutral
coach or assistant, working across all of Greenpeace’s departments and
regions to foster strong ties with staff and managers.
MobLab has worked in depth with more than half of Greenpeace’s 26 national
and regional offices, helping teammates adjust their expectations for projects
large and small and, as importantly, to transfer that new thinking to their
colleagues and bosses—spurring changes not just in process, but in culture.
From the beginning, MobLab’s staff sought to foster
a learning mentality among colleagues across the
Greenpeace network, and to widen the community
of activists and organisations eager to collaborate. A
prime opportunity to cultivate this community was
Greenpeace’s highly-regarded “Skillshares”, where
representatives from every national and regional
office, covering 55 countries, learn from one another
in collaborative, peer-led sessions.
The Mobilisation Lab is home to one of the world’s
leading Organizational Development teams. Specifically,
we help Executive Directors and senior staff move their
organizations from more traditional modes of being/
operating to modes that fully leverage the power of
digital and people-centric, modern campaigning.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://mobilisationlab.org
Climate Action
external
iCharity
international
civil society
2011
International
27
Working Approach
Resource unit for
innovation, training and
capacity building across
organizational network
Spurrs changes in
processes and in culture
- moving towards a
'learning organization'
•
•
Key outcomes after MobLab’s first five years include:
Design and testing of new campaign models that have been integrated into nearly
all Greenpeace offices to drive advocacy in at least 55 countries.
Central to these new approaches is Greenpeace’s work to become a “learning
organisation” —
• one that seeks meaningful participation from the people it serves;
• maintains a posture of listening, not telling;
• emphasises an openness to innovation and diversity;
• and values the needs and local wisdom of Greenpeace allies as much as
prominent experts or senior-level staff.
All planning efforts, for example, must now include concrete outlines for how
campaigns will engage regular people as partners in advocacy, and not only as
followers or audience members.
Through decentralisation, Greenpeace has allowed new approaches to find their
way more organically into program practices, organisational culture and, perhaps
most importantly, into the lives of the activists and future activists Greenpeace and
its allies seek to reach.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Observatory for Public Sector Innovation
Our research,
advisory
services,
case studies
and toolkits
give leaders,
managers and
practitioners a
clear picture
of what
public sector
innovation is
and how to
achieve it.
Facts
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has
developed an Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) which collects
and analyses examples and shared experiences of public sector innovation to
provide practical advice to countries on how to make innovations work. The
OPSI provides a place for sharing, discussing and co-creating solutions that
work. The Observatory is led by a Task Force of OECD countries, chaired by
Canada and France.
OPSI benefits from a wide range of experience and research that is relevant to
public sector innovation but exists beyond national governments. For instance,
highly distinguished experts on public sector innovation from academia and
research organisations provide analytical advice to the project.
The Innovation Policy Platform (IPP) has been developed thanks to the support
and funding provided by the OECD and the World Bank Group. On behalf of the
OECD, efforts have been led by the Directorate for Science, Technology and
Industry and the Working Group on Innovation and Technology Policy. World
Bank Group contributions have been led by Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Unit of the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice and the Leadership
Learning and Innovation.
Innovation-driven growth requires the right mix of multi-sector and
multidisciplinary policy actions—in education, research, science and
technology, finance, and public procurement, among others. The challenge is
to find the policy solutions that work best in a given country context.
OPSI’s CASE STUDIES platform collects and makes
navigable examples of public sector innovation
from around the world. OPSI undertakes a variety of
PROJECTS to advance the thinking on public sector
innovation, surface good practice, identify trends to see
what is next and develop approaches to improve public
sector capacity and capability so that public servants at
all levels have the skills and opportunities to innovate.
Public sector innovation is an emergent area of
research and practice. OPSI produces cutting-edge
research PUBLICATIONS to continually advance and
refine thinking on innovation as a concept, its distinct
forms and develops theories of how the public sector
changes to become more innovative.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.oecd-opsi.org/
Government and Administration
internal
iUnit
supranational
public
2014
FR
29
Observatory for Public Sector Innovation
Working Approach
Platform offers examples
and approaches of
public sector innovation
Development of public
sector capacity, skills
and opportunities to
innovate for people at
all levels
•
•
OPSI champions change and helps governments find ways to turn the ‘new’ into
the ‘normal’. We help governments to understand and approach innovation better,
through:
• Highlighting and analysing major trends in public sector innovation
• Evaluating how government systems are set up to support innovation
• Engaging public servants at all levels on the different phases of innovation
and delineating skills and tools useful to navigating each
• Sharing practice and case studies of innovation at all levels of government
The OPSI has launched an online platform, which is open to the public and provides
a unique collection of innovations from a wide range of sectors across the world to
inspire innovators in other countries.
To help innovators explore and choose the most useful toolkits, we curate and
make them navigable in an online ‘meta-toolkit’ resource. This resource employs
a common language around tools and innovation processes, describes how they
work and includes guidance on how they could be used across different contexts,
along with feedback from users who have tried them. We also provide in-person
training and support to public servants wanting a more hands-on approach to
understanding innovation processes, skills and which tools to deploy.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Open Government Partnership
The
completion
rate for OGP
commitments
in Action
Plans has
doubled in the
last couple of
years - but
commitments
could be more
transformative
and
ambitious.“
Facts
The Open Government Partnership was launched in 2011 to provide an
international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their
governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. OGP is
a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from
governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption,
and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. In the spirit of multistakeholder collaboration, OGP is overseen by a Steering Committee including
representatives of governments and civil society organizations.
The Open Government Partnership formally launched on September 20, 2011,
when the 8 founding governments (Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the
Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States) endorsed
the Open Government Declaration, and announced their country action plans.
Since 2011, OGP has welcomed the commitment of 67 additional governments
to join the Partnership.
In total, over 70 OGP participating countries and 15 subnational governments
have made over 2,500 commitments to make their governments more open
and accountable.
With the help of our partners, OGP has established six thematic working groups
that will contribute to peer exchange and learning across the partnership.
At the moment, there are six working groups focused on: fiscal openness,
legislative openness, access to information, anti-corruption, open data, and
natural resource openness.
The ultimate goal is to support the creation and
effective implementation of more ambitious open
government commitments as part of OGP national
action plans.
The working groups should provide practical ways
for participants to share experiences, expertise, and
lessons learned, as well as identify opportunities for
targeted technical assistance and/or peer exchange.
At open meetings around OGP and partner events,
each working group will seek consensus on priority
areas of engagement. Thereafter, participants are
expected to actively collaborate through in-person and
virtual sessions.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.opengovpartnership.org/
Government and Administration
external
iPartnership
international
public
2011
US/UK
31
Open Government Partnership
Working Approach
• The working groups team clusters of governments actively implementing
or interested in pursuing OGP commitments in a particular issue area with
leading civil society experts.
• Each group will be led by at least one government anchor and at least one
civil society anchor that will jointly coordinate the group‘s work and sustain
opportunities for learning. Participation is open to all governments and civil
society organizations involved in OGP.
• The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is a key means by which
all stakeholders can track OGP progress in participating countries. The
IRM produces annual independent progress reports for each country
participating in OGP.
• The progress reports assess governments on the development and
implementation of OGP action plans, progress in fulfilling open government
principles, and make technical recommendations for improvements. These
reports are intended to stimulate dialogue and promote accountability
between member governments and citizens.
• In addition to publishing reports, the IRM also releases all of its data in open
data format. For more information see the OGP Explorer and IRM Data.
Steering commitee
includes government
and civil society
Exchange and learning
on fiscal and legislative
openness, access to
information, anticorruption, open data &
national resource openness
•
•
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
Stanford Legal Design Lab
We work
with legal
organizations,
including
courts,
firms, legal
departments,
foundations,
and legal aid
groups to
help bring
innovation
into their
organization.“
Facts
The Legal Design Lab was founded in fall 2013 to bring designers, lawyers
& technologists together to advance legal innovation and access to justice.
We are currently based out of Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal
Profession and Stanford University’s Institute of Design (d.school). We are an
interdisciplinary team working at the intersection of human-centered design,
technology & law to build a new generation of legal products & services.
We believe in tackling the challenge of legal innovation through a humandriven design process, centered around the quality of users’ experience.
A design approach focuses on spotting new areas and ideas for innovation,
and on ensuring that any new project will support lawyers, clients, judges,
and other users with quality experiences. We also believe that technology,
deployed within this design process, can improve legal services by increasing
efficiency, resulting in higher quality interactions, and creating new value.
The lab has three main points of focus:
• Teaching & Training: We run workshops & teach classes on how legal
design & technology can be applied to specific problems in the world of
law.
• Building new products: We create concept designs for new legal products
& services, and build them out with agile, design-driven teams. These
development projects are also research-driven, to create results about
what works in legal innovation.
• Researching & publishing findings: Our ultimate
goal is to build a stronger community around
innovation in legal services, and to do this
we’ve adopted a core open-source ethic. As we
experiment in legal innovation, we publish our
process, our findings, and our finished products,
to contribute to a wider knowledge base and
community.
Each year, we have one overarching theme, which
most of our classes and workshops focus on. This
year’s theme is:
What new predictive, AI-enabled access to justice
interventions are possible?
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://law.stanford.edu/
organizations/pages/legal-design-lab/
Education and Science
internal
iResearch Unit
local
public/private
2013
US
33
Designers, lawyers and
technologists advance
legal innovation and
access to justice
Has one overarching
theme per year, which
most workshops and
activities focus on
•
•
Working Approach
Some notable flagship PROJECTS include:
• Navocado – a platform of new, visual, interactive legal guides to court processes.
It also allows for experts to create these guides through easy-to-use authoring
tools.
• The Court Messaging Project is an open-source software solution for courts to
dispatch timely reminders to juveniles that they have a court appearance to
attend, and to help them prepare themselves for this appearance. It can also
become a more general ‘court coach’.
• The Legal Communication Design project investigates what more effective &
engaging styles of communication of legal text can be.
• The Legal Design Toolbox provides resources, guides, tutorials, and tools to
those who want to build new legal products.
• The Visual Law Library, which collects visual explanations of the law & legal
process, to make it easier to learn what the law is.
• Legal Innovation Workshops & Classes, in which interdisciplinary teams
generate ideas for new legal products & services, using a human-centered
design process and leveraging web & mobile tech.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
States of Change
We want to
build the
culture and
capability of
governments
to practically
deal with
the complex
problems
they face.“
Facts
States of Change has been initiated by Nesta, but is a collective brought to life
by our faculty, our government partners and the wider community of practice.
We are collaborating with the world’s best innovation practitioners and experts
to form an international faculty and learning collective. This faculty will play a
key role in delivering our learning programmes, as well as contributing to the
growing body of practical experiences and knowledge that exists within the
community of practice. We are also partnering with ambitious governments
to help them build their innovation capacity and grow the movement of public
innovation practitioners.
Nesta has a wide-ranging portfolio of work focusing on government
innovation. Significantly, several projects are exploring how innovation teams
work in government, innovations in democracy and public participation, dataled governance innovation, and redesign of public services within core areas
like health and social services.
The challenge is how to approach this complex innovation space. There is a
genuine need among public leaders and policymakers for better strategic and
practical support of this transformational process.
However, current training and development offers in the field are falling short
of fulfilling the task of educating and enabling better government innovation
capacity.
An ever expanding landscape of potentially disruptive
innovation approaches is available to public decisionmakers.
These include abilities to:
• experiment, test and improve promising ideas
rapidly;
• to generate and use data of all kinds;
• to harness knowledge from many sources and in
multiple ways;
• to design interventions that resonate with people’s
lives and aspirations;
• and to make the most of successive generations of
digital technology.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
http://www.states-of-change.
org/
Government and Administration
external
iProgramme
international
public/private
2017
UK
35
Working Approach
Broader initiative to
create networked
practical knowledge
Supports cultural
change in government
by focusing on the craft
of innovation beyond
methods
•
•
Our aim is to strengthen the community of practice that already exists and support people
on their transformative journey by:
• developing innovation learning based on practice rather than theory, and sharing
experiences, methods and cases from the global network of practitioners
• running collaborative R&D projects to explore and test what works in order to
further the field of public innovation
• co-developing practice-led learning programmes to support cultural change
in government
• States of Change aims to advance the field of innovation learning beyond
methods and tools by focusing on the craft of government innovation – what
it takes in practice to navigate and apply a range of innovation approaches, as
well as managing the conditions and implications that these new approaches
create within government organisations.
Moreover, States of Change is building on the experiences of developing and
leveraging innovation learning resources such as the NESTA DIY toolkit, practiceguides for innovation labs and Design for Europe.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
The Lab at OPM
Driving
innovation in
government
by design
education.“
Facts
As part of the Executive Institute within the U.S. Office of Personnel Management
(OPM), The Lab is both a practice and a space that fosters innovation through
human-centered design. Our goal is to teach human-centered design across
the Federal Government and to help deliver innovative solutions that address
complex public and cross-sector challenges.
We partner with government organizations looking for new approaches to
address their most complex challenges. The Lab brings together a unique
combination of private sector fellows, public servants, and students who work
collaboratively on complex cross-sector challenges to design based on the
needs of those we serve.
Our space reflects who we are – government intrapreneurs incubating the
next generation of policy, programs, products, experiences, and services. It is
intentionally designed to foster creativity and collaboration.
Our team is made up of an accomplished group of public and private sectortrained designers from a variety of professional and creative disciplines. This
mix of perspectives and professions creates a balance needed to challenge
the status quo, while operating within the government structure. Additionally,
to continue bringing in fresh perspectives and further our mission to expand
the application of design in government, we regularly augment our team by
bringing Federal employees in from other agencies through details, rotations,
and fellowships.
Human-centered (HDC) design is a creative and
strategic approach to solving challenging problems. It
blends together design, strategy, qualitative research,
and entrepreneurial thinking. This method puts people
at the center of the process, taking into account their
complex behaviors, mental models, and needs. By
using this approach to problem solving, we identify and
address the root causes of problems, rather than the
symptoms.
The discipline of human-centered design quickly
generates ideas and tests new concepts that reduce
risk facing organizations and meet the true needs of
the people with whom we are designing. As a result,
we create and implement impactful and sustainable
solutions. We rigorously use both quantitative and
qualitative data to measure our work.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://lab.opm.gov/
Government and Administration
internal
iUnit
national
public
2012
US
37
The Lab at OPM
s
Working Approach
Leading, doing,
teaching to innovate
Federal workforce
Team unites
accomplished designers
and mix of perspectives
HDC puts people at the
center of the process
•
•
•
Our three main goals are to serve as leaders, doers, and teachers of humancentered design in order to build an innovative Federal workforce ready to solve
public sector challenges:
• Leading Public Sector Design: As a leader in the public sector movement
to build and support human-centered design as an effective approach for
solving complex challenges, The Lab regularly brings innovators together
to share insights through an innovators network, thought leader talks,
publications and best practices
• Doing Public Sector Design: The Lab uses project-based learning to help
government organizations conduct human-centered design projects that
result in groundbreaking and innovative outcomes. Design capabilities we
have and build include: User experience (UX) design, Service design, Product
design, Program design, Policy design, Design strategy, Design research
• Teaching Public Sector Design: We are rethinking public sector education.
At The Lab, we are all about teaching new skills through learning
experiences. We are building a dynamic curriculum that adapts to the needs
of the federal government and the latest developments in public sector
innovation. This allows us to produce design knowledge for government and
adapt it to specific problems. We offer monthly education products, such
as the Fundamentals of Human-Centered Design, Visual Eloquence and
Mapping Systems and Processes, as a constant way of building government
capabilities in design.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
UK Policy Lab
The Lab’s
approach is
agile, flexible
and iterative.
Each project is
bespoke, but
is fundamentally about
understanding
people better
and designing
with and for
them.“
Facts
Policy Lab brings new approaches to policy-making. From data science to usercentred design, it provides fresh thinking and practical support, working as a
research and design testing ground for policy innovation across government.
We were set up in 2014 as part of the Civil Service Reform plan to make policy
making more open.
The Lab is funded by departments and works on projects coming from all
parts of government. We’re a small team - currently of 9 - a mix of designers,
researchers and policy-makers. But we also work with a wide network of
experts who we bring in on different projects.
We use design, data and digital tools and act as a testing ground for policy
innovation across government. Our support is best suited to tackling intractable,
complex, systemic policy problems that require fresh thinking and can lead to
potentially transformative solutions. We sit in the Cabinet Office but serve the
whole of government, primarily responding to requests from policy teams.
Our co-design approach and the suite of tools and techniques we’ve developed
over time help create a neutral space where ideas can flourish. This space
allows for collaboration across departments, with external experts and with
the public.
Policy Lab brings people-centred design approaches to policy-making. We
provide policy teams with practical support to better understand the people
they are trying to reach, and work with them to co-design new solutions.
We work at three levels:
• delivering new policy solutions through inspiring
practical projects
• building the skills and knowledge of the policy
profession and wider civil service
• inspiring new thinking through our writing and
experiments
So far, we’ve worked on over 20 large projects across
a range of policy areas including policing, housing,
health & work and childcare. Over 5,500 civil servants
have taken part in those projects, lab lights, sprints
and training sessions. Many more from in and outside
government follow us on Twitter, read our blog and use
our open policy making toolkit.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/
about/
Government and Administration
internal
iUnit
national
public
2014
UK
39
Working Approach
Internal research and
design testing ground
for policy innovation
across government
Runs experiments for
the development of
'policy firsts' using
speculative design
•
•
• Policy Lab creates a neutral space for policy-makers to collaborate across
departments and engage with the public and external experts in key policy
areas.
• When we are approached about a project we usually suggest a short ‘Lab
Light’ workshop with the policy team. We use policy sprints - an intensive,
collaborative workshop over one to three days - both to kick off larger
projects, and as a stand-alone process.
• Our open ideas days, like Northern Futures and Export Jams, bring together
diverse groups of people to rapidly generate new ideas and create energy
and shared commitment.
• Larger projects, like homelessness, can run from three months to a year
and involve working intensively with service designers, ethnographers, data
scientists and subject specialists. We broadly follow the double diamond
process: define, discover, develop, deliver. The discovery stage typically
involves some form of ethnographic insight, captured in film or on paper;
often combined with data science. In the development stage we work
with people affected to prototype and test new solutions. We then offer
support to departments in taking these ideas to scale (the delivery bit). We
also run experiments, designed to develop a number of policy “firsts” for
government - such as using speculative design techniques to help us think
about the future of ageing and what rail travel might look like in 2035.
"Mapping Innovation Units" Expert Report for the iLab of the International Monetary Fund, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, 2018
U.S. Global Development Lab
Partnership
is in our
DNA. If we
want to solve
the most
intractable
development
challenges,
we can‘t do it
alone.“
Facts
The U.S. Global Development Lab serves as an innovation hub. We take
smart risks to test new ideas and partner within USAID and with other actors
to harness the power of innovative tools and approaches that accelerate
development impact. USAID established the Lab in 2014. The Lab brings
together diverse partners to catalyze the next generation of breakthrough
innovations to advance USAID’s mission to end extreme poverty and support
inclusive growth.
The U.S. Global Development Lab (the Lab) works with entrepreneurs, local
innovators, corporations, NGOs, universities, foundations, diaspora groups,
students, scientists, and research institutions to jointly support local solutions
to global problems. We build partnerships that leverage the combined
expertise, assets and resources of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors
to deliver sustainable, cost-effective, and results-oriented development
solutions. The Lab also hosts open calls for innovation, challenge competitions,
and prizes to source new ideas, approaches and technologies to end extreme
poverty. We have a diverse and specialized staff of scientists, engineers,
technology and partnership experts, former venture capitalists, and program
and administrative specialists.
Working collaboratively with the Agency and our external partners, the Lab‘s
mission is two-fold:
1) To produce breakthrough development innovations by sourcing, testing, and
scaling proven solutions to reach hundreds of millions of people
2) To accelerate the transformation of the development enterprise by opening
development to people everywhere with good ideas,
promoting new and deepening existing partnerships,
bringing data and evidence to bear, and harnessing
scientific and technological advances.
Through the Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship
initiative, the Lab is working with more than 40
incubators, accelerators and seed-stage impact
investors to support early-stage enterprises in
developing countries. This drives economic growth
in developing countries and is opening markets and
reducing investment risk for more than 30 U.S. smalland medium-sized enterprises. Since 2001, USAID
has built more than 1,600 public-private partnerships
leveraging more than $16 billion in external funding
through Global Development Alliances.
Set Up & Scope of Work
Website:
Area:
Set Up:
Sector:
Year est.:
Country:
https://www.usaid.gov/
GlobalDevLab
Development
internal
iUnit
international
public
2014
US
41
Brings togehter diverse
partner from all sectors
Sourcing, testing & scaling
of proven solutions to
reach hundreds of millions
of people
Impact-driven principles
•
•
•
We are aligned around five core objectives to increase the impact of our efforts:
• Science: We channel the technical expertise of scientists and researchers to
build local scientific capacity, empowering people with tools for change, and
use the evidence from scientific research to drive new policies and programs.
• Technology: We work to increase access to digital financial services and the
internet, in part by strengthening enabling environments. We also increase the
use of evidence, data, and analytics for better decision-making.
• Innovation: We identify, test, and accelerate new tools that have evidence of
impact, sustainable financing, and reach. We also increase the adoption of highimpact solutions and the effective use of innovation methods by the Agency.
• Partnership: We work with impact investors to catalyze private capital for
early-stage businesses and strengthen the environment for entrepreneurship.
We also manage USAID’s public-private partnership model, the Global
Development Alliance.
• Cross-cutting Activities: We work to advance USAID’s development goals by
mainstreaming the use of science, technology, innovation, and partnership to
address cross-cutting international development issues.
Working Approach |