New Report and Site from NESTA: “Last year we were aware of the growing trend for governments to set up innovation teams, funds, and labs. Yet who are they? What do they do? And crucially, are they making any difference for their host and partner governments? Together Nesta and Bloomberg Philanthropies set out to answer these questions.
Drawing on an in-depth literature review, over 80 interviews, and surveys, i-teams tells the stories of 20 teams, units and funds, all are established by government, and all are charged with making innovation happen. The i-teams case studied are based in city, regional and national governments across six continents, and work across the spectrum of innovation – from focusing on incremental improvements to aiming for radical transformations.
The i-teams were all created in recognition that governments need dedicated structures, capabilities and space to allow innovation to happen. Beyond this, the i-teams work in different ways, drawing on a mix of methods, approaches, skills, resources, and tackling challenges as diverse as reducing murder rates to improving education attainment.
The i-teams report details the different ways in which these twenty i-teams operate, but to highlight a few:
- The Behavioural Insights Team designs trials to test policy ideas, and achieved government savings of around 22 times the cost of the team in the first two years of operation.
- MindLab is a Danish unit using human centred design as a way to identify problems and develop policy recommendations. One project helped businesses to find the right industry code for registrations and demonstrated a 21:1 return on investment in savings to government and businesses.
- New Orleans Innovation Delivery Team is based in city hall and is tasked with solving mayoral challenges. Their public safety efforts led to a 20% reduction in the number of murders in 2013 compared to the previous year.
- PS21 encourages staff to find better ways of improving Singaporean public services. An evaluation of PS21 estimated that over a year it generated 520,000 suggestions from staff, of which approximately 60 per cent were implemented, leading to savings of around £55 million.
Alongside the report we have launched theiteams.org a living map to keep track of i-teams developing and emerging around the world, and to create a network of global government innovators. As James Anderson from Bloomberg Philanthropies says, “There’s no reason for every government to start its innovation efforts from scratch.” There is much we can learn from what is underway, what’s working and what’s not, to ensure all i-teams are using the most cutting edge techniques, methods and approaches….”