Forging New Frontiers in Mission‑Oriented Innovation Policies

Annex F. OECD definition and typology of missions

OECD definition of mission-oriented innovation policies

The OECD defines mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) as a co-ordinated package of policy and regulatory measures tailored specifically to mobilise science, technology and innovation (STI) to address well-defined objectives related to a societal challenge, within a defined time frame. These measures possibly span different stages of the innovation cycle, from research to demonstration and market deployment; mix supply-push and demand-pull instruments; and cut across various policy fields, sectors and disciplines. They also include initiatives led by non-public actors, in relation to or promoted by policy measures (Larrue, 2021[1]).

More succinctly, missions are defined as a space for purposeful collective action to address complex and systemic challenges. Collective action is the common thread that cuts across the three building blocks of MOIPs: 1) strategic orientation – an MOIP involves a collectively developed agenda; 2) policy co-ordination – a dedicated structure of governance to take and monitor the effects of common or mutually consistent decisions; and 3) policy implementation – a deliberately designed “joined-up” set of interventions. What is unique about MOIPs is not the presence of any of these building blocks taken in isolation – they are found in all STI systems – but rather their integration into a common organisational and institutional framework. Neither a whole-of-government national strategy for green hydrogen nor a high-level cross-ministerial committee for industry decarbonisation nor a large-scale co-operative programme for a circular economy are sufficient to form an MOIP.

OECD typology of mission-oriented innovation policies

The OECD also identified initiatives that to a greater and lesser extent matched this definition to make sense of their diversity through a simple typology. Five main types of MOIPs result from this work:

1. Overarching mission-oriented strategic frameworks are large policy initiatives aiming to achieve ambitious, high-level, national or transnational missions to address systemic challenges. They are generally led by a cross-ministerial body or the centre-of-government and offer rather a wide-ranging but rather loose (“umbrella-type”) co-ordination.

2. Challenge-based programmes and schemes are targeted and more narrowly focused schemes operated by one or several agencies. They aim to accelerate the development of concrete solutions to a specific challenge, often using “demand-pull” competitive mechanisms (e.g. prizes, challenges). Some of these schemes adopt some features of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) model, largely adapted to fit the different national purposes, contexts and capabilities. They are also more systemic than DARPA’s programmes, which are often very narrowly defined, technological and steered by a hierarchical model inside the agency.

3. Thematic mission-oriented programmes build on traditional thematic research programmes to make them progressively more directional, co-ordinated across sectors and disciplines, and mobilising a broader set of interventions beyond grants and subsidies (including some demand‑side instruments such as innovation public procurement in some cases).

4. Ecosystem-based mission programmes and schemes are mechanisms that aim to create or strengthen public and private actors’ ecosystems to develop a common strategic agenda to address some broadly defined societal challenge(s). In some cases, these initiatives can involve a significant degree of delegation of agency tasks towards these ecosystems to implement the collectively developed strategic agenda.

5. Organisational missions – Missions can also be internal to organisations that use a mission framework to steer activities strategically, enhance overall coherence and promote cross-linkages between different parts of themselves. These missions and various types of organisational challenges can be found in RTOs (e.g., CSIRO in Australia or Canada’s National Research Council), innovation agencies (e.g., RVO in the Netherlands and Scottish Enterprise) (OECD, Forthcoming[2]), and, increasingly in recent years, universities  (e.g., Aalborg in Denmark) (OECD, Forthcoming[3]).

6. Place-based missions – Missions can link global challenges with local ones (Uyarra et al., 2025[4]). These place-based missions rely on local leadership, collective action and bottom-up partnerships to solve them through visions of sustainable regional development (e.g., RIS3CAT in Catalonia).

References

[1] Larrue, P. (2021), “Mission-oriented innovation policy in Norway: Challenges, opportunities and future options”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, No. 104, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2e7c30ff-en.

[3] OECD (Forthcoming), “Mission-oriented innovation in universities”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers.

[2] OECD (Forthcoming), “The Role of Innovation Agencies in Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies” OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers.

[4] Uyarra, E. et al. (2025), “Geographies of mission-oriented innovation policy”, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Vol. 56, p. 100970, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.100970.