This paper explores how governments develop new relationships and ways of interacting with the private sector through mission-oriented innovation policies. In order to reach their transformative goals under these missions, governments cannot rely on private sector actors to merely take part in one-off R&D projects. Instead, missions need to work at inspiring companies to support broader systems change on an ongoing basis, changing their behaviours within their organisations and alongside other businesses in their sectors.
To facilitate this new way of interacting with businesses, MOIPs provide a clear, long-term "signal" of government priorities. This approach stands in contrast to traditional STI programs, which are often broader, more technology- and sector-neutral, and may not offer the same level of long-term certainty that gives businesses the confidence to invest. However, missions need to be more than their overarching statements in order to provide direction and should include more concrete pathways (e.g., roadmaps and theories of change) so that businesses know what activities to prioritise.
Early engagement with the relevant stakeholders builds excitement towards the mission approach and way of thinking, the momentum of which can then be leveraged when it comes time to implementation. Businesses with more formal roles in the mission framing and implementation often show more commitment to the missions, but policymakers must balance this influence with conflicts of interest and catering too much to incumbents’ interests. At the same time, building interest around missions amongst the private sector is a continuous process and does not end when the missions are launched. Ongoing engagement with industry (e.g., through conferences, articles, podcasts and targeted outreach) is necessary to maintain momentum, ensure there is a steady pipeline of projects to achieve the mission goals, and to disseminate knowledge regarding successful projects. This active portfolio management should be based on a mission’s theory of change, with mission managers making concerted efforts to recruit businesses to fill gaps in the overall set of projects that are needed to reach their objectives. In addition, the work related to missions does not exist in one point of time, so mission teams should look at past projects (e.g., using AI), scan for companies who may be relevant to their goals, and actively recruit businesses to take part in missions.
What is more, missions do not just seek to change the behaviour of individual companies, but often that of entire sectors or ‘challenge areas’. As a result, bridging organisations from government to industry are helping to showcase missions to their constituents, creating a pipeline of projects, and informing policy development based on industry needs.
While many governments attempt to offer a systemic policy mix in support of their mission goals, demand-side instruments have been under utilised. Missions can do more to prioritise government procurement, or creating connections with large private sector actors, to ensure there is a clearer path to a first customer. Government mission owners can also work more with regulators (e.g., regulatory sandboxes), instead of placing the onus on the private sector to navigate the regulatory system.
Public finance alone will not be sufficient in meeting transition needs at large, including when it comes to missions. The financial sector can be an important actor in creating mainstream buy-in to missions. These institutions often specialise themselves, so governments can target their outreach accordingly (i.e., venture capitalists focused on cleantech or health). Ultimately, many businesses see the value of missions and look to policymakers to provide more tools and connections to scale up this engagement.
To better mobilise the private sector in the framing and implementation of missions, the paper puts forward the recommendations below. These recommendations have been adapted from (OECD, forthcoming[10]), which synthesises the “converging perspectives” for implementing MOIPs based on extensive input from academic researchers focused on MOIPs and policymakers implementing mission-oriented policies around the world. The recommendations below are just summary of these perspectives that are relevant for crowding in private sector resources in support of missions and they have been slightly altered to reflect the additional insights of this report: