European Commission report on missions proposes best practices for their implementation.
The European Commission has published the final report titled ‘Moving forward on the implementation of national missions’ developed out of a ‘Mutual learning exercise on EU missions implementation at a national level’. The report explores the implementation of mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP) by the five EU missions: cancer, climate, cities, soil and waters. Four areas of interest of each of these missions, multi-level governance, mission portfolios, funding and instrument synergies, and citizen engagement, are identified and each is analysed using three pedagogical modes. These three modes include expert knowledge, where discussion papers and reports are used as an overview, applied frameworks and contextualised experience provided by stakeholders, and peer learning.
The findings of the report highlight that due to the EU missions’ complexities, multi-level governance (MLG) is essential for the implementation of MOIP. It is a systemic approach that engages stakeholders at all levels, thus facilitating coordination and collaboration between different initiatives and actors. Research has shown that different types of MOIPs benefit from different governance structures, and usually, a governance structure consists of combining different approaches. However, large-scale, overarching, mission-oriented strategic frameworks, such as the EU missions, are best addressed with a meta-governance approach. Insights on MLG from the report include individual leaders, the legitimacy of mission mandates and multi-level dialogue being key, the importance of timing, political momentum and continuous support for evolving governance structures, as well as the caution to avoid not involving stakeholders from other sectors and thus falling into the ‘STI policy trap’. Overall, MLG approaches must show systemic added value and clear evidence of impact to be considered the correct approach.
A further area listed in the report are the missions’ portfolios, meaning how to design and manage the set of complementary actions needed for the missions in a coherent and strategic manner. The conclusion drawn from the report is that portfolio management’s aim is to make sense and steward actions to align investments and produce synergies. Furthermore, a portfolio approach comprises many levers of change, not all of which will be within actors’ control, that enables stakeholders to abstract from the details and reflects on which areas have been prioritised by them. As a tool, portfolio mapping can be used to identify opportunities for action continuance or discontinuance.
The third area of interest analysed is the mission-oriented funding and instrument synergies. More information on this indicator can be found in a previous SwissCore article on the topic. One clear conclusion drawn by the report is that mission-oriented public investments must be complemented with other sources of funding. When designing synergistic policy mixes for missions, the report indicates five principles to follow. One must build upon existing policies and structures, use many and broad instrument types, engage with and ensure effective participation of a broad range of stakeholders, continuously evolve the policy mix and avoid over-relying on specific financial instruments. Through its findings, the report presents a list of best practices. Amongst what one should do is ensure that funding instruments align with the mission’s objective, foster public-private partnerships, use flexible funding arrangements and engage with a broad range of stakeholders early in the development process. On the other hand, the report discourages rigid funding structures and isolated funding decisions and cautions against underestimating how vital it is to align missions with national and regional priorities to ensure support.
The fourth area of inquiry in the report is citizen engagement, which not only includes getting the public involved throughout the implementation of the mission, but also making sure that citizens understand their roles within the missions. The report presents missions as an opportunity for civic dialogue and to include knowledge from other stakeholders and as a platform to foster partnerships. Civic participation can occur to different extents, which the report delineates into five groups. These call the mission to either inform, consult, involve, collaborate with, or empower the public. The involvement of citizens not only increases the mission’s legitimacy with the public, but it also builds mission-oriented ecosystems and activates communities of purpose. Citizen engagement should involve all kinds of stakeholders and drive meaningful engagement, thus always have a purpose. The extent to and way the public should be involved is to be consciously decided and communication must be a priority. To conclude, the learning exercise draws nine main points from its analysis. EU missions must be approached holistically with a view beyond the science, technology and innovation spheres and they must be both a team effort and operate on a flexible and experimental approach. It is better to target ‘systems transformation’ by ways of adapting where needed than to always assume that new is better. Highlighted is also that many actors lead to differing opinions on how to measure progress and that this must be accepted. Furthermore, missions will always consist of bottom-up and top-down approaches and their operational leadership and coordination is in large part about creating interest and engagement in them and strategically managing resources and guiding collaboration. Lastly, achieving missions’ goals with this requires new capabilities and capacities, as well as new budget lines underwriting mission and transformation management functions.