Gov Innovator Podcast

Tom Kane of the Harvard Graduate School of Education discusses how states can use the Every Student Succeeds Act to focus education spending on what works.

Kelly Fitzsimmons provides an overview of Project Evident, a new initiative to help nonprofits and their funders develop and implement multi-year evidence-building plans.

Bryan Garcia of the Connecticut Green Bank explains how the Bank is leveraging private-sector dollars to help finance green energy infrastructure.

The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) recently celebrated five years of C-Stat, its performance management and leadership strategy and one of the leading examples in the U.S. of data-informed decision making in human services. Through C-Stat, CDHS reviews about 100 measures each month. Two-thirds of those measures have maintained or beat their goals set in […]

In 2016, the District of Columbia launched The Lab @ DC, based in the Office of the City Administrator within the Office of Mayor Muriel Bowser. Its mission: To embed the scientific method into the heart of day-to-day governance of the city to provide decision makers with high-quality evidence in order to improve results for the city. […]

Statistics New Zealand (@Stats_NZ) is the government department of New Zealand charged with collecting and producing statistical information. It is known as a leader in terms of linking data from different data sets in order to enable research and insights into important and complex policy challenges with the goal of improving outcomes for New Zealanders. For over […]

How can public agencies link data across programs and with providers, given seemingly insurmountable privacy laws? We get insights from Allegheny County, PA, which is a leader on this topic.

Howard White of the Campbell Collaboration discusses lessons from Europe and the U.S. in evidence-based policy and practice.

Professor Bob Behn of the Harvard Kennedy School discusses when reorganization is useful and when it risks wasting time and talent in government.

One of the most innovative new approaches in Federal policy is known as Performance Partnership Pilots, also called P3. In 2014, Congress authorized several Federal agencies, including Education, Labor and HHS, to enter into up to ten Performance Partnership agreements per year with states, regions, localities, or tribal communities. These agreements allow these jurisdictions to […]

In 2015, a unique collaboration was launched call the Rhode Island Innovative Policy Lab (RIIPL). It is a partnership between researchers at Brown University and the Office of the Governor of Rhode Island, with the goal of helping state agencies design evidence-based policies to better serve Rhode Island families. RIIPL’s goal is to use data […]

In this podcast episode, we explore two real-life stories from the front lines of government performance improvement efforts that highlight the importance of replication and validation in evidence-based policy. In the U.K., the department of revenue and customs, in conjunction with the U.K. Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), tested new versions of the letter sent to people who were […]

Carrie Conaway discusses how the Office of Planning and Research within the Massachusetts Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education informs policymaking with research.

Because many of the most important functions of state and local governments involve contracting for goods and services supplied by the private sector, improving procurement processes is an important way to strengthen outcomes for citizens. That is the motivation behind our series on results-driven contracting. Our focus today is Seattle, Washington, whose Human Services Department […]

Greg Duncan of UC Irvine discusses key findings from the Pre-Kindergarten Task Force, including four levers for state policymakers.