1. INNOVATIVE POLICY LABS IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
10-11 April 2018
Boyana Residence,
Sofia, Bulgaria

2. Innovation Policy Lab
A specialist team, working in a creative space, which aims to tackle complex challenges in the formulation and implementation of government policy.
Labs experiment with and propose innovative public services and policies.
They try to reform and change the way government operates.
Usually involve a small team with experience of all relevant areas of policy innovation.
Policy Labs can be internal to public administrations, housed in one or more ministries, or external contractors employed for individual projects.

3. Questionnaire Results
Summary of the
Questionnaire Results

4. Summarized information
Under the Bulgarian Presidency a new study has been conducted on the Innovation Policy Labs, focusing on their structure, functioning, organizational model, funding and project selection.
We received 24 completed questionnaires with contributions from 21 EU Member States, Switzerland, Norway and the European Commission.

5. Do you have a “policy lab” or equivalent initiative in your Member State administration?
The majority of countries either have a policy lab or are planning to create one. There is a significant minority of Member States who do not currently have a policy lab and have no plans to create one in the future. No respondents answered that they used to have a policy lab but no longer have one, or that they use the services of a private lab.

6. When were the policy labs established?
There has been an acceleration in the development of policy labs across EU Member States in recent years. Only one Member State reports having had a policy lab before the year Most policy labs or equivalent initiatives were established after 2010.

7. What is the scope of your policy lab in broad terms?
In most countries the scope of their policy lab is general policy development. In a smaller number of Member States the policy labs are more focused on thematic or targeted policy development. For a few Member States the focus of their policy labs is on the behavioral insight.

8. What are the goals and/or policy areas your policy lab works on?
The most commonly reported goals/or policy areas are strategic and high-level areas including innovation, development or coordination of policy, as well as digitalization. Some Member States reported specific thematic areas of focus such as socially oriented goals e.g. health, jobs, education or infrastructure and labour market related issues such as transport, energy, mobility and migration.

9. In which functions or processes of the policy cycle is the lab actively involved?
Policy labs are predominantly used to focus on the early stages of policy development such as the identification of problems, initial analysis and piloting/ prototyping. Some countries have reported that their policy lab or equivalent initiative in their administration is involved further along in the policy process e.g. in monitoring and evaluation, or policy implementation.

10. Where in the organizational structure of the administration is your policy lab located?
In most cases, policy labs are located either in the centre of government, or in a ministry/department. Some other Member States reported that the location of their lab or equivalent initiative is part of another organizational structure, e.g. non-profitable organization or an independent unit.

11. What is the number of staff of the policy lab as of 2017?
The number of employees varies widely between different Policy labs owing to the different structure of the organisations and the scope of functions.
For example, the number of permanent employees varies from 1 to 70 and the number of temporary staff varies from 1 to over 100. In accordance with the data provided, the biggest Policy Labs are in Finland.

12. What range of professional backgrounds or expertise areas do the employees of the policy lab have?
Project and programme management continue to make up the majority of the range of expertise areas that the policy labs’ employees have. Other common employee backgrounds include: generalist, digital or academic background. Among the other specific fields are also psychology, journalism, service design, etc. Business or industry experience is not common in the existing policy labs.

13. What is the total annual budget of the policy lab in EUR as of 2017?
From the chart it can clearly be seen that most countries have annual budgets for the policy lab of up to 2 million euro. The annual budget in only three labs amounts to more than 2 million euro in recent years.

14. What approximate proportion of the total budget is allocated to staff costs and other costs?
The average percentage of the staff costs (salaries, social security, training etc.) amounts to 48.7%, while the average percentage of all other costs (research, testing, policy implementation promotional activities and etc.) amounts to 51.3%. This shows that the ‘soft’ costs of a policy lab, namely staff, are usually at the same level as the ‘harder’ costs of policy implementation.

15. How is the policy lab funded?
In most cases the policy labs’ funding is mixed - government funding together with EU funds from various instruments (ERDF, ESF, Horizon 2020 or other technical assistance). In some MS funding is provided by the Ministry that manages the project. Very few labs are funded privately or by paid services. Blending the sources of funding between Ministries, local government, EU funds and the private sector are all common approaches for funding policy labs.

16. What, if any, are the total projected annual savings or efficiencies brought about as a result of the policy lab’s activities?
Most Member States have not provided information on the amount of savings made due to the work of the policy lab:
it is very difficult to measure the actual financial impact of innovation
in many cases it is not the Lab’s main focus.
However, respondents have also reported that having this information would be very useful for various reasons, so measurement of impact/savings may become an increasingly important area in future, especially when labs have to justify their financing or involvement in the policy-making process.

17. How does the policy lab identify and select projects or policies on which to work?
The most common way of identifying and selecting projects is through internal analysis and selection within the policy lab. In a significant minority of cases, however, project selection is done at the political level. A further minority of respondents reported that selection is done based on research or requests at user level. A small number of Member States reported that there are other opportunities in this particular field which include interaction with co-operation partners or a special management group.

18. What are the main challenges in delivering projects?
Most MS have difficulty in measuring success or added value of the policy lab. This is an important challenge because robust evidence of success is increasingly important in defending the value of public sector work to citizens and Ministers. Other challenges include insufficient institutional support at management level, implementation of the lab’s results, organizational changes/ staff turnover and working across a large geographical area.

19. If applicable, how do you test, pilot, or prototype new policies or projects?
Most MS run pilot programmes before a full-scale implementation and some prefer using focus groups or surveys to test ideas. A very small number of them have chosen to run randomised control trials, this could be because of the complexity and higher cost of this approach. Other administrations responded that they are not yet at the stage of testing their new project ideas.

20. What performance metrics are used by the policy lab to evaluate the success of projects?
With the aim to evaluate the success of the projects, MS defined stakeholder feedback as the most commonly used performance metric. A smaller number mentioned quantitative evidence and participation rate statistics. Very few countries point out that the estimates of financial savings are also used as a performance metric.

21. How do you promote, raise awareness of, and advertise both individual projects and work more generally?
Training and information activities within the administration stand out as the main tools, as well as blogs and social media campaigns. Many Member States also reported having ‘champions’ for the policy lab within individual Ministries to promote its work and to raise the profile of the lab internally. Advertising and other public-facing campaigns are not so widely spread among the countries’ responses.

22. What do you consider to be the 3 main overall benefits of the policy lab?
The vast majority of the countries pointed out as a main overall benefit of the policy lab the introduction of innovative policy tools. Cultural change within the administration is also seen as a great advantage and also citizen-centered policy design. It is notable that financial savings are not seen by many Member States as a prime advantage of policy labs. However, this may be linked to the difficulty of measuring the financial savings delivered by the labs, making it hard to identify savings that may have been made.

23. Case Studies

24. Topics for discussion
What are the main challenges for fostering innovation in the public sector?
How can we stimulate innovation and bring about the necessary change of the organizational culture?
What is the role of Policy Labs in the area of innovation and how can we make the most of them?
What are the key areas of public policy where innovation is most needed?
What tools can we use to implement innovative approaches?
Can we measure the added value of innovation?