Research

As institutions seek to become more effectrive in how they work, they often lack baseline information about the current state of skills in the organization. Among those who do mission-driven work, we know very little about current skills and competencies, the institutional environment for problem-solving, and how people want to learn. 

Here is some of what we learned: 

Awareness of innovation skills among public officials is low: Only 50% of respondents said they could explain the above innovation skills to someone else.

Very few public officials use the above skills in their projects: Fewer than 30% of respondents said they have used any of these skills in the past year. But those who said they use these skills, use them very often. 

Over 70% of respondents said learning these skills is important to them.

Yet, despite the demand, fewer than 25% of respondents said that they have received training for innovation skills

The public entrepreneur skills surveys asks about 9 innovative "public problem solving" skills, enabled by new technology, that foster more informed ways of working. We randomized the order in which we asked about these skills and asked each person to respond about 6 of the 9 to lessen the burden on the respondent.

Asking people what they know is hard hence the questions focus on asking what skills people can explain versus those they have used in order to obtain a more objective picture.

To ensure a common understanding of the meaning of a skill, each question also offers a brief definition and an example of each skill in action.