How can the mission-driven approach work even better? That's the question as the OECD brings together 130 experts from 23 countries for a consultation in Austria. Olga Kordas is one of them.
The OECD conference, Mission forward: Forging new frontiers in mission-oriented innovation policies, has several objectives. Over two days, researchers and practitioners will discuss and share experiences on how to design, manage, implement and evaluate mission-oriented interventions. The conference will also provide input for future initiatives and create closer contact between researchers and practitioners.
What is the contribution of Viable Cities in this context?
- "Viable Cities is one of the pioneers of mission-driven work in Europe, so there is a lot of interest in our experiences and lessons learned, both among researchers and practitioners," says Olga Kordas in Vienna.
The backbone of the conference is four key questions that highlight challenging areas for improvement:
- How to frame the mission so that it is at the right level of ambition: how to set collective goals that are ambitious, inspiring and at the same time realistic?
- How to involve more actors beyond research and innovation: Which governance structures best support the systemic, broad mission?
- How to increase public and private sector engagement and investment towards mission goals?
- What competences and support mechanisms are needed to achieve the mission? And how can these be built into actors' - public and private - organizations?
- Changing entire social systems is not easy. The conference provides important input, both for developing mission-driven innovation, and because it brings together many different experiences in a common meeting place," says Olga Kordas.
During the conference, a new version of the OECD Mission-oriented Innovation Policy Online Toolkit - a website with many examples of mission-driven initiatives in different fields. It provides a wealth of information on the design, management, implementation and evaluation of initiatives.
It is the OECDCommittee for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), which brings together representatives from 40 mission-driven initiatives and organizations in 23 countries facing challenges in different areas. CSTP is a leading forum for international cooperation in innovation and research policy.
