Forging New Frontiers in Mission‑Oriented Innovation Policies

Executive summary

What do we know about missions at a key juncture of their policy cycle?

Mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) have reached a pivotal moment. Emerging in the late 2010s as a promising method for tackling complex societal challenges, missions set bold ambitious goals and then take a systemic approach to achieve them – creating new forms of coordination within and outside government to ensure a coherent set of policies is in place to achieve their goals, from knowledge to technology, skills, behaviours, infrastructure, mindsets and practices. Since then, more than 260 missions have been launched worldwide, reflecting the growing policy attention to this issue, supported by a growing academic community. Yet this rapid expansion has also brought challenges. High expectations have created pressure for quick results, even though genuine impacts require time. Critics and doubts regarding missions’ capacity to fulfil their promises have also increased in recent years. Moreover, recent shifting political priorities and budget constraints threaten long-term commitment to missions.

Recognising missions’ achievements and shortcomings, the OECD launched a stocktaking exercise to capture lessons, identify gaps, and support more effective mission design and implementation. For more than a year, this exercise fostered a unique dialogue between policymakers directly involved in the implementation of missions, strengthened by systematic input from researchers. This enabled unique data collection and sharing of experiences to provide practical guidelines on four questions: How should a mission be framed to set it on the right course? How can actors, programmes and budgets be enlisted from science, technology and innovation and beyond? How can private sector financial and human resources be crowded in? How can we deliver on missions’ co-developed strategic agendas? This report synthesises those insights for the future of mission-oriented innovation policy at this pivotal moment. For each of these questions it provides examples of mission practices along with over 65 practical insights stemming from the experience of those who “think” and “do” missions. Based on this precise guidance for mission practitioners going forward, broader mission principles are derived and presented below.

How should a mission be framed to set it on the right course?

• Root missions in more detailed strategic agendas – The success of MOIPs depends on how well missions are framed. Clear, specific and time-bound goals are important, but co-developed mission narratives and strategic agendas that guide stakeholders on the agreed-upon pathways and align investments are even more critical.

• Allocate sufficient time and resources to frame missions – Well-framed missions help to collectively navigate key trade-offs and tensions: ambition vs. realism, transformative vs. conservative approaches, exploration vs. exploitation, societal vs. market priorities, a narrow vs. a broad scope, and political backing vs. grassroots. This requires time and resources, including specific skills and tools such as theories of change, theories of action and roadmaps.

• Use co-creation processes to achieve buy-in and ownership of the missions – The process of framing must engage diverse stakeholders – including in the private sector – from the outset to build legitimacy, mobilise support, and avoid mission “drift” or dilution. Public authorities play a central role in steering this process of crowding-in, ensuring inclusiveness while keeping missions aligned with national priorities.

• Formalise reflexivity in the design process – Ultimately, framing is not a one-off exercise but an iterative, adaptive process. Missions must remain credible, actionable and reflexive, revisiting objectives and strategies as challenges evolve.

How can actors, programmes and budgets be enlisted from science, technology and innovation and beyond?

• Develop governance arrangements that include the relevant actors for achieving the mission, including beyond science, technology and innovation (STI) – Strategic and funding mechanisms should be tailored to reflect national institutional contexts and the nature of the challenges to be addressed. While many missions are led by STI ministries, their governance must engage ministries, local authorities and societal stakeholders to gather and co-ordinate all complementary public interventions and resources from research to deployment, supporting all necessary changes: technological, behavioural, organizational and social. Central steering, common funding and strategic incentives are among the options to make this happen.

• Align mission governance with industrial policy interventions – As missions gradually progress towards the deployment stage, the current priority for several missions is to scale their work – often by mobilising industrial policy tools and funds. This requires stronger high-level political backup than most of them currently benefit from.

How can private sector financial and human resources be crowded in?

• Create clear value propositions, early and continuous consultation, and a strong sense of “mission community”. Bridging organisations, industry networks, and research and technology organisations can help link missions to market needs. Long-term policy commitments, adequate and innovative funding, and demand-side instruments such as public procurement are vital to crowd in private resources.

• Make missions more attractive to the private sector – Governments can broaden the range of incentives they offer to crowd-in private sector investment, such as public procurement, regulatory sandboxes, mission-relevant demonstrators, prototypes or technology infrastructures. More efforts should also be dedicated to simplifying missions’ narratives, structures and procedures and to tailoring communication for private stakeholders.

How can missions deliver on their co-developed strategic agendas?

• Adapt existing instruments to ensure they are fit for purpose to deliver on the mission goals Missions must adopt purposeful policy mixes that range from research to deployment and manage a dynamic portfolio of projects and activities to scale up their proposed solutions. To achieve these aims, missions can reflect their goals in their funding instruments, including selection criteria and recipient eligibility.

• Ensure mission teams are equipped with relevant capabilities – To deliver on missions, a variety of capabilities are needed that are in short supply in many ministries and agencies, including systems thinking, foresight, collaborative leadership and reflexive monitoring. Building these capabilities requires dedicated training and support structures, as well as empowered mission offices to co-ordinate, manage and institutionalise mission processes.

• Use holistic evaluation processes – Mission evaluation methods approaches must capture systemic effects and the mission “double additionality” – the added value of missions compared to both no intervention and traditional STI policies. Theories of change are essential tools for guiding and assessing mission progress, balancing formative learning with accountability.