Theory Meets Practice: getting missions right
Making sure missions are not old wine in new bottles
Mission-oriented government has moved from an idea to a reality. From Brazil's new industrial strategy focused on ecological transformation, to the EU's €100 billion Horizon Europe program, to Labour's adoption of missions in the UK, governments worldwide are embracing this approach to tackle their greatest challenges. But as these ideas gain traction, the risk of misapplication grows. As I mentioned in my welcome post, I had considered calling this Substack "Theory and Practice" because the continuous feedback loop between ideas and implementation is crucial - especially now, as we see mission-oriented thinking being adopted globally. At the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), which I founded in 2018, we use this approach to support policymakers in their specific problems, whether these be around public banks, procurement strategy, or the design of an industrial strategy. The cycle of learning, exchange, dissemination, and training allows us to develop theories that are sensitive to the real dynamics that play out in complex systems.
In Brazil, we are working with President Lula's government to embed missions in their new industrial strategy, focusing on the ecological transformation of the economy. Our work with the Scottish National Investment Bank showed how public finance can be mission-oriented. From Barbados' efforts to become the world's first climate-resilient island state to South Africa's just energy transition, we see how different contexts require different approaches but share common principles. Each of these experiences enriches our understanding of how theory and practice evolve together. In the next post I will look more at these particular experiences. In this post I want to make sure we remember why missions must mean doing things differently—not old wine in new bottles.
The UK government's adoption of missions presents an important opportunity to examine this interplay between theory and practice. Since 2013, I have been advocating for the state to have a different role in our economies: not just fixing market failures ex-post, but shaping markets ex-ante. Mission-oriented thinking means having a goal, and designing policies and partnerships to accomplish those goals.
Part of the UK government’s inspiration to adopt missions may have come from my work with the European Commission. I worked with Carlos Moedas, Former European Commissioner for Research & Development in 2017-2019 and wrote two reports on the opportunities around developing and governing SDG-aligned missions for the EU: Mission-oriented research & innovation in the EU: A problem-solving approach to fuel innovation-led growth and Governing missions in the European Union.
As part of this work, we used mission maps to show how missions connect with the other pieces in the policy puzzle. Grand challenges are the difficult but important, systemic, and society-wide problems that do not have obvious solutions, while the missions are the concrete goals that, if achieved, can help to tackle a specific grand challenge. Meanwhile, mission maps can also help visualize the different sectors that need to be involved and bottom-up projects that need to be catalyzed to tackle the mission.
For example, in my first report for the European Commission, one of the example missions was to achieve the “Reduction of 90% in plastic entering the marine environment and collection of more than half of plastics present in our oceans, seas, and coastal areas by 2025” (in line with SDG 14). This mission would require sectors across Europe’s economies – from the chemical industry and biotech to waste and design – to come together around new projects that would not have been invested in otherwise.
Off the back of this work, the Commission integrated five missions at the heart of its €100 billion Horizon Europe research and innovation programme around adaptation to climate change, cancer, healthy oceans, climate-neutral cities, and soil health. Following consultations with different groups, the Commission refined the healthy oceans mission "to reduce plastic litter at sea by at least 50 percent by 2030.” In the UK I was in conversations with Labour politicians (on the shadow team) like former MP Chuka Umunna (member of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015) and MP Chi Onwurah (Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy, Science and Innovation from 2016 to 2020), on how to embed mission thinking into Labour’s strategy. But the real work was with the Coalition government due to the interest in this approach by the then Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, Greg Clark on transforming the UK’s sector based industrial strategy into a challenge-oriented approach.
In 2018, the challenge oriented industrial strategy was launched, and we worked for a year helping the “challenge” teams turn them into missions. For example, the sustainable mobility challenge was turned into a mission to “By 2040 put the UK at the forefront of safe, sustainable, universally accessible travel, creating congestion- and emission-free, zero-accident systems.
I have now come full circle, trying to inform the new Labour government’s use of missions in government. But as I've emphasized throughout: details matter.
These details are crucial because they determine whether missions genuinely reshape how government works or become merely a rebranding exercise. When missions work well, as we've seen in our partnerships from Camden to Brazil to Colombia they break down ministerial silos, reshape the tools of government from procurement to public investment, and catalyze innovation across sectors. When poorly designed, they risk confusing outcomes like growth with the concrete goals needed to achieve them. The difference lies in the implementation - in how theory meets practice.
In our recent report, Mission-oriented industrial strategy: Global insights, we reflected on lessons learned from governments around the world in their efforts to redesign the nitty-gritty tools, institutions, and capabilities to align with this new mission-oriented policy approach.
For example, public procurement is a critical lever for governments. The total value of global public procurement budgets is approximately US$13 trillion per year and accounts for about 20–40 per cent of national public spending among OECD countries. For the most part, public procurement has been approached with a view to managing down costs and risks and prioritising efficiency, fairness and the prevention of corruption. But if governments align procurement budgets with strategic goals, then they would get much more out of their existing budgets. In doing so, procurement policy can be used as a highly influential demand-side policy tool that has the potential to shape new market opportunities that act as a stimulus for innovation and investment in line with government policy priorities.
Another tool that governments can use is conditionalities. Conditionalities can allow governments to define which firms can access which benefits by being embedded in the contracts that establish the terms of public–private partnerships. Conditionalities can require firms to behave in ways that align with the public interest, including by prioritising:
Access: Ensuring equitable and affordable access to the resulting products and services (e.g., through pricing and intellectual property rights).
Directionality: Directing firms’ activities towards socially desirable goals (e.g., reduction of carbon emissions).
Profit-sharing: Requiring profitable firms to share returns with the government (e.g. via royalties or equity stakes).
Reinvestment: Requiring profitable firms to reinvest profits in productive activities (e.g., research and development or worker training) rather than unproductive ones (e.g., shareholder buybacks).
These are just two examples of redesigning tools that all governments have at their disposal. The same can be said for public development banks, budgeting processes, policy evaluation processes, and much more.
The recent budget in the UK signals some promising shifts in thinking about public investment. In September, alongside Lord Gus O'Donnell (former Cabinet Secretary), Lord Jim O'Neill (former Commercial Secretary to the Treasury), Mohamed El-Erian (former IMF deputy director) and others, I wrote to the Financial Times warning that under-investment was a central cause of the UK's poor economic performance.
We argued that the challenge of renewing Britain requires rebuilding crumbling public services while investing in clean infrastructure - a challenge that cannot be met by the private sector alone. The government's subsequent changes to the fiscal framework in the budget acknowledge this reality. As we noted in a follow-up letter to The Times, while significant challenges remain, the budget's emphasis on public investment and changes to the fiscal framework to take a longer horizon for returns on public investment are welcome. The new system of spending reviews and annual fiscal events provides needed stability for both government and investors, though proper independent oversight will be crucial to ensure new investment is targeted and cost-effective.
However, having the right fiscal framework is only the first step. How this investment is directed is crucial. When I look at the government's five missions, I see a concerning confusion between means and ends. Growth, for instance, should not be a mission itself. History shows that governments achieve the strongest growth when pursuing concrete, ambitious goals. NASA's moon mission generated $5-7 in economic spillovers for every dollar invested, not because growth was the goal, but because solving complex problems required innovation across sectors. Similarly, a well-designed mission for net zero would be cross-sectoral driving investment and innovation across mobility, infrastructure, food systems and more. Growth should be seen as the outcome of well-designed missions that catalyse public and private investment toward concrete goals that matter to people.
I reflected on many of these issues at the Labour Party Conference earlier this year, where I spoke alongside my friend Georgia Gould. Previously the leader of Camden Council and now Labour MP for Queen's Park and Maida Vale, Georgia has been a key partner in demonstrating how mission-oriented policies can drive real change at the local level. Our panel discussion (a collaboration between the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and IPPR) explored how the lessons from Camden's experience could inform national policy. This brings me to the concrete example of the Camden Renewal Commission, which I co-chaired.
Camden developed four specific missions focused on concrete outcomes: diverse leadership, economic opportunity for young people, access to sustainable food, and sustainable estates. These missions have shaped the design of practical tools like Camden's new £30 million Community Wealth Fund and transformed their procurement policies to focus on public value creation rather than just cost reduction. The fund is designed to be evergreen, with returns reinvested to create lasting impact. Their procurement approach moves beyond traditional cost-benefit analysis to encourage innovation and cross-sector collaboration.
These local experiments mirror developments happening globally. From Brazil's new approach to procurement to Sweden's transformation of school meals as part of their fossil-free welfare mission, we see how missions can reshape the tools of government to create new market opportunities aligned with societal goals.
The opportunity before us is significant. The UK's economic challenges stem from systemic under-investment rather than overspending. Had public investment matched the OECD average over the past two decades, it would have been £500 billion higher at 2022 prices. The private sector's investment levels are equally concerning - 7th in the G7 and 28th in the OECD. The new fiscal framework creates space to address this, but only if we get the details right.
This requires more than declaring missions - it demands new ways of working across government, new tools for implementation, and new metrics for success. In future posts, I'll explore how different governments around the world are experimenting with mission-oriented approaches, and what we can learn from their successes and failures.
Yes. I like to refer to this , hopefully dynamic process, as a ‘meet in the middle’ model. It’s not just top down or bottom up. ( element of OKR here). It evolves and adapts on an exponential growth curve .
I agree with ‘mission led’ project based approach and I would say it works best when it’s backed by an ‘elevated purpose led’. For me, it’s blend of new economics, neuroscience and organisation dynamics and culture. It’s leadership architecture.
Ultimate ROI :
Return
On
Impact .
Ps. I think this Government needs to communicate their purpose , the big challenges they are prioritising and work down to a plan they can be held accountable for. He has said the country belongs to us. So, where do we see that reflected in plans and policy?
Love the idea that growth is a consequence not a goal. Even as a consequence, it should be traced through to impacts on citizens. Does it boost socioeconomic metrics? Or does it trickle up to the asset economy?