Anticipatory innovation governance: Shaping the future through proactive policy making
Citation:
Work data:
ISSN: 2707-9171Type of work: Working Paper
Categories:
Government and Public Administration | Innovation | Policy & Regulation | Research & MethodologiesTags:
foresight, futuresAbstract:
This working paper introduces the key concepts and features of anticipatory innovation governance– i.e. the structures and mechanisms to allow and promote anticipatory innovation alongside other types of innovation in the public sector. This paper draws on academic literature and OECD work on a range of areas including public sector innovation, foresight, anticipatory governance and emerging technologies. The paper starts outlining an emerging framework to guide policy making in complex and uncertain contexts and sets out some questions for further research in the area of anticipatory innovation governance.
Downloads:
Tõnurist, P. & Hanson, A. (2020). Anticipatory innovation governance: Shaping the future through proactive policy making. OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, No. 44. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Related works:
- Monteiro, B. & Dal Borgo, R. (2023) Supporting decision making with strategic foresight: An emerging framework for proactive and prospective governments
Notes:
Anticipation, anticipatory innovation, and anticipatory innovation governance (p.32, figure 2.1):
- Anticipation: The creation of knowledge about the future, drawn from existing contextual factors, underlying values and worldviews, assumptions, and range of emerging developments.
- Anticipatory innovation: Acting upon knowledge about the future by creating something new that has the potential to impact public values.
- Anticipatory innovation governance: The structures and mechanisms in place that allow and promote anticipatory innovation to occur alongside other types of innovation.
Dealing with change: variety of approaches to governance (p.35, box 2.2):
- Reflexive governance: based on problem-solving ethos.
- Adaptive governance: based on transition management and resilience scholarship.
- Agile governance: based on ICT and digital transformation and the increased rate of change the latter has introduced.
- Experimentalist governance: grounded in the regulatory governance theory.
- Tentative governance: acknowledges the persisten role of uncertainty in policymaking.
Different perspectives of foresight (p.38, box 2.3):
- Exploratory foresight: the future is a forthcoming state or process, which can be described through probabilistic analyses.
- Normative foresight: practitioners interfere with current developments in order to re-direct them in accordance with some idea, goal or norm.
- Participatory foresight: aims to include different stakeholders into a dialogic or deliberative process around the future [to] understand the possible and preferable futures better and create natural ownership and commitment around the latter.
- Strategic foresight: looks beyond current expectations and takes into account a variety of plausible future developments in order to identify implications for policies today.
Anticipatory innovation governance mechanisms (p.44, figure 3.1):
From the side of agency and operationalisation, the following mechanisms are of interest:
- alternatives exploration and experimentation,
- tools and methods,
- data and measurement,
- organisational capacity,
- sense-making, and
- institutional structures.
Connected to the authorising environment, these mechanisms are currently under examination:
- vested interest and cognitive biases,
- public interest and participation,
- networks and partnerships,
- legitimacy,
- evidence and evaluation, and
- learning loops.
Tõnurist, Hanson (2020). Anticipatory innovation governance. Shaping the future through proactive policy making.pdf
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