Introduction
The systemic and holistic approach of mission-oriented policy holds much promise, but going beyond established policy-making paradigms is no light undertaking. While there are various examples of concrete mission-oriented policies, there is little established practice on what drives missions to success. Mission objectives, governance design, funding mechanisms, and policy mixes vary widely depending on their contexts. As a result, many teams and public sector organisations are struggling to adequately learn from each other to make mission-oriented approaches work in practice.
In a 2022 survey by the OECD and the Danish Design Centre, responses from over 200 international policymakers point to key challenges such as overcoming the effect of silos and entrenched sectoral thinking, difficulties in aligning resources across government, as well as the need to develop mission-compatible organisational models and forms of governance.
Resources
The Mission Action Lab seeks to collect evidence in order to ease cross-country exchanges and provide guidance that can help policymakers in taking on these many challenges.
You can find some such resources here:
- Database: OECD Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies online toolkit
- OECD report: The design and implementation of mission-oriented innovation policies
- OECD report: Reaching Net zero: Do mission-oriented policies deliver on their many promises?
- Bootcamp: Mission-Oriented Innovation (blog post) (recording)
- OECD country reviews: Mission-oriented innovation policy in Norway and Japan
- OECD primer: Mission-oriented innovation as part of the Public Sector Innovation Facets model
- Survey: 2022 Mission Needs Assessment Survey in collaboration with the Danish Design Centre (results) (recording) (slides)