How do you work in mission-driven innovation?

Working in mission-driven innovation requires a fundamental shift in mindset, moving away from simply funding research or providing support based on existing strengths toward actively setting an ambitious direction for systemic change. This approach is gaining traction as governments and organizations recognize that short-term, isolated solutions are insufficient for tackling grand societal challenges like the climate crisis or deep inequities. ^[3] At its heart, mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP) is about defining clear, measurable, and time-bound objectives—the missions—that guide innovation efforts toward a specific, high-stakes outcome. ^[3][6]

# Ambitious Goals

A mission must be ambitious and concrete. ^[6] Historically, innovation policy often centered on inputs, such as increasing national Research and Development (R&D) spending, based on the premise that knowledge generated would automatically translate into societal benefits. ^[1] Mission thinking refutes this indirect path. Instead, it operationalizes an innovation agenda where the public sector actively leads the charge to address complex issues. ^[1]

The classic illustration often cited is the Apollo program: setting the goal of landing a man on the moon before the decade was out. ^[6][2] This was a clearly defined, largely technical objective that mobilized massive resources and generated spillovers across various industries. ^[6][2] In contrast, many contemporary missions—tackling climate change, achieving carbon neutrality, or addressing health inequities—are far more complex. They are often defined as wicked problems where the objective is clear, but the path to solution involves conflicting stakeholder interests and requires multi-level institutional action. ^[1] While the moonshot was singular, today's missions demand transformative systems change, making the how of working just as important as the what. ^[1][3]

# Outcome Focus

The transition to mission-driven work marks a departure from policies that focused primarily on economic growth metrics alone, emphasizing instead the mobilization of science, technology, and innovation to meet identified societal needs. ^[1] This means the focus shifts from how much money is spent or which technologies are developed, to what tangible societal impact is achieved. ^[4]

This distinction is sometimes captured as the difference between mission-oriented and mission-enabled innovation. One perspective suggests that a purely mission-oriented approach prioritizes the social goal above all else, potentially diverting policy from growth-relevant investments. In contrast, mission-enabled innovation seeks a dual benefit: a real-world mission unlocks new, growth-oriented innovations as a byproduct, keeping competitiveness and productivity gains central to the strategy. ^[7] Regardless of the terminology, the central requirement is a strong directionality given to innovation efforts, something previous policy approaches sometimes lacked. ^[1]

How do you work in Mars mission planning?

# Public Role

Working within this paradigm requires a distinct posture from the public sector. It is not meant for the government to attempt everything alone, but rather to develop the capacity required to work effectively with others. ^[2] The public sector must act as an active convener and coordinator of actors around these cross-sectoral issues. ^[3] This active role contrasts with earlier, more hands-off or "market-fixing" policy styles. ^[2]

The required shift involves developing what is sometimes called an "Entrepreneurial State". ^[2] This involves governmental entities developing dynamic capabilities to shape markets, rather than simply responding to market failures. ^[2] This market-shaping capacity often manifests through instruments like outcomes-oriented procurement, where public purchasing power is used proactively to catalyze private-sector innovation toward the mission goal. ^[2] Furthermore, public support can be tied to conditions (conditionalities) that ensure businesses build a more inclusive and greener economy, mandating standards around emissions, wages, or profit reinvestment. ^[2]

# Experimentation

Given that today's missions are often "wicked problems" without established solutions, a crucial component of working in mission-driven innovation is embracing an experimental mindset. ^[6] Where previous generations of policy might have relied on established funding mechanisms, mission work must involve "learning by doing" to discover what works. ^[1]

Experimentation is more than just "trying something new"; it requires a commitment to learning from the process. ^[6] This can be applied across the mission lifecycle:

1. Defining Missions: Experimenting with public outreach methods to ensure broad involvement in priority selection. ^[6]
2. Convening: Testing different workshop styles or funding structures to see how best to bring diverse actors together to collaborate. ^[6]
3. Instrument Choice: Evaluating the performance of individual policy tools (e.g., grants vs. regulatory changes) to form the best policy mix. ^[6]
4. Optimizing Processes: Constantly tweaking the operational elements of policy tools, such as the assessment criteria for funding calls, to maximize impact. ^[6]

For example, in program iterations, this learning is evident. Early Swedish challenge-driven innovation programs had limited societal impact, leading subsequent programs to strengthen the focus on system change and problem-owner involvement. ^[1] This iterative, formative evaluation cycle over a long time horizon (10+ years) is necessary to allow for corrections and build the capabilities needed for complex initiatives. ^[1]

What Nonprofit Careers Are Mission-Driven?

# Portfolio Management

A mission cannot be delivered by a single program or instrument; it necessitates managing a portfolio of interconnected activities across the entire innovation cycle, from research to market deployment. ^[3][1] Effective work requires moving beyond funding isolated projects to managing how these projects interact to achieve the system-level objective.

This demands sophisticated portfolio management capabilities to ensure horizontal and vertical coordination within the mission stakeholders. ^[3] Vertical coordination links the overarching national mission down to local efforts, while horizontal coordination ensures that different policy fields, sectors, and disciplines are working together. ^[3]

A failure point in some national attempts has been fragmentation at the project level. ^[1] While broad stakeholder engagement occurs at the high-level agenda-setting stage, if the actual funding disbursement reverts to traditional, competitive calls where program offices have limited influence over the final project selection or implementation, the portfolio may not cohere around the system change required. ^[1] For the work to succeed, the teams implementing the mission must have the authority to steer activities that benefit the "problem-owners" who are responsible for taking up the solutions. ^[1]

It is vital to establish a direct thread from the highest strategic goals down to the smallest tasks completed by teams. If organizational systems do not connect that individual work (e.g., a specific JIRA ticket) all the way up to the mission's purpose, teams become de-motivated and strategic alignment breaks down, wasting resources on misdirected effort. ^[5]

Working in mission-driven innovation is inherently about reciprocity—a symbiotic relationship where public investment in R&D or market creation is balanced by stakeholders committing to the mission’s broader societal goals. ^[2] This means that teams must move past thinking of external partners merely as contractors or recipients of grants; they must be treated as co-owners who share in the risks and rewards of achieving the breakthrough. ^[2] If the public sector invests heavily, it should seek mechanisms, such as conditionalities on public support, to ensure that the resulting success is socialized and reinvested into productive activities, rather than solely financialized. ^[2] This shared ownership fosters the high engagement and innovation required for truly transformative outcomes. ^[5]

# Wicked Problems

The nature of modern missions—addressing issues like achieving net-zero emissions or combating global pandemics—means the work is often spatially complex and context-dependent. ^[1] Unlike the Moonshot, where the solution path was relatively clear scientifically, today's challenges require acknowledging regional strengths, weaknesses, and institutional contexts. ^[1]

A critical aspect of how one works is avoiding "spatial blindness". ^[1] If mission design ignores geographical variation, the approach risks marginalizing less-developed regions that may lack the institutional capacity to immediately compete for large-scale program funding. ^[1] Successful work therefore often involves tailoring strategies, perhaps adopting a "small wins strategy" for underdeveloped areas, focusing on location-specific challenges that feed into the larger mission. ^[1] This emphasizes that organizational capacity—the ability to govern transitions and lead systemic change—must be intentionally built within the public institutions executing the mission. ^[1]

How do you work in fair work platforms?

# Governing Transitions

The day-to-day operation within a mission-driven structure requires dedicated internal structures to manage the complexity and rapid learning cycles. Organizations launching missions often need specific 'mission teams'. ^[4] These teams are tasked with overseeing activities, ensuring tools and knowledge are exchanged among partners, and critically reflecting on pilots to maximize learning. ^[4][1]

These teams must guard against the natural tendency for complex initiatives to revert to familiar methods. For instance, if most funding is still disbursed via traditional, bottom-up calls for project proposals, the overall portfolio may lack the necessary directionality to achieve a system transformation, even if individual projects are scientifically sound. ^[1] The working part of MDI is thus about consciously designing governance mechanisms—like negotiated strategic projects or program offices with real steering influence—that ensure the distributed activities actually pull toward the defined mission, rather than drifting toward individual actor priorities. ^[1]

Working in mission-driven innovation, therefore, is less about following a single proven blueprint and more about commitment to a demanding cycle: defining a bold destination, assembling a diverse coalition, experimenting continuously to navigate uncertainty, and establishing governance that prioritizes systemic impact over incremental project success. ^[1][6] It demands that leaders and practitioners accept that success is measured not by meeting activity targets, but by achieving the difficult, publicly valuable outcome set at the start.