Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism

Engaging and involving citizens in the design of missions has become, in some countries, a core principle of public-sector innovation, just as it is in innovative private-sector practice.

missions must change how the public and private sectors work together. This partnership is less about handouts, guarantees and assistance, and more about co-investment, sharing risks and sharing rewards.

All of this depends on building in-house capabilities in public institutions that enable them to proactively manage a portfolio of projects.

Making real-time data publicly available can help create a sense of urgency, acknowledge achievement and encourage motivation about progress.

The key is to specify what is needed without micromanaging the way in which it is done – so to stimulate as much creativity and innovation in multiple actors.

This means putting less emphasis on the need to support specific types of firms (such as SMEs and start-ups), less on specific technologies (such as ‘high-tech’, artificial intelligence, quantum computing), and less on specific sectors to promote (such as life sciences or the creative sector). At the same time, it means putting more emphasis on the

the goal should be broad enough to encompass numerous projects that together achieve the overall mission. Some of these projects will fail; others will succeed. But the ambition is to stimulate as many different ideas and routes to solutions as possible.

a mission: it needs to encourage multiple solutions instead of focusing on a single development path or technology.

It means transforming government from being merely an ‘enabler’ or even a ‘stifler’ of innovation to becoming the engine of innovation. Usually this type of flexibility and outcomes orientation only occurs in wartime, when military organizations are given autonomy from more bureaucratic branches of government. And yet DARPA works in peacetime, too.