Owen Abroad

Moonshot: A Policymaker’s Guide to Innovation

After three decades of working on innovation, technology and public policy, from various perspectives, I am working on a book setting out a policymakers’ guide to innovation: why does it matter, which innovations are priorities, and how should the government go about supporting them? The book both summarises what we have learned, but also brings together realistic policy prescriptions which would transform the way that government supports innovation. As the leader of the team that developed the world’s first Advance Market Commitment, I am well placed to guide readers through the complexities of this essential, topical but little-understood area of public policy.

Current research

As well as putting ideas about innovation into an accessible book, I want to set out these principles in a more formal way for peer-reviewed publication. My current research priorities are:

• Better Benefit Cost Ratios – How to appraise investment choices and take account of social value. (I think this might be one of the most ground-breaking things I have ever worked on.)
• Credible commitments: growth hates uncertainty; but government lack credible ways to commit to stability. I propose a new, simple instrument for governments to make credible binding long-term commitments, using the example of emissions targets but with many other applications.
• Innovation & Public Purpose: The Haldane Principle prevents research priorities from reflecting social value. We should update the principle for the 21st Century.
• Economic Growth and Development. Innovation and growth are an unexplained residual in most economic models. Characterising growth as an emergent property of a Complex Adaptive System provides key insights into how to promote and sustain growth.
• Tinbergen’s Rule for Public Authorities. Most public authorities have multiple goals. Tinbergen taught us that for each goal, you need at least one instrument. But we usually create separate instruments for each goal. This achieves each goal far less efficiently than if we cooperate across instruments to achieve multiple goals with multiple instruments.

Getting a job

I miss leading a team with a mission I care about. I miss the energy, the satisfaction of supporting my colleagues to succeed, and the sense of achievement when we bring about real-world change.

I don’t need to be the CEO again, as long as I get to lead a team of passionate people making a positive difference to people’s lives.

I am particularly interested in returning to public service, but open to other ideas. If you know of any mission-driven organisations looking for a colleague like me, please let me know.

An start-up: crowd-sourced advice for ethical consumers

Many consumers want to direct their spending to products and services whose values they share. Some people may be concerned about the environment; some about the gender pay gap; and others about the political donations of the company owners. But the time and difficulty of finding out about firms and individual products makes that impractical for all but the most dedicated activist. Self-reporting by companies is practically useless. An app – on our phones, and as a browser plugin – could give us frictionless guidance on which product most aligns with our concerns. It would link every product barcode to a traffic light for each dimension, based on reporting by communities of expert volunteers scoring companies and products (think of Wikipedia). The aim is to build a trusted, non-commercial platform that protects your data, which integrates easily into your shopping, and simplifies consumer choice.

Advisory services

I enjoy the variety of consulting on strategy, analysis and communications. My specialisms are economics (especially innovation, development, public finance, health and climate change) and using evidence to inform choice. I am available to support organisations and programmes with strong social values.

Executive coaching

I lead with integrity, kindness and purpose. I have led high-impact teams in the public and private sectors – ranging from a managing large teams and multi-billion annual budgets in the civil service, to leading a data-science and tech based information service for low-income farmers through ten-fold growth in impact. I mentor next-generation leaders, providing a mixture of advice, networks and, where necessary, a sympathetic ear.

Podcast: Development Drums

I used to present, produce and edit the Development Drums podcast – one of the first, successful podcasts (I estimate it was downloaded a few million times). It got squeezed out by other commitments: and I’m interested in reviving it. In the last incarnation, many of the episodes were two white dudes talking and I am pretty sure that the world does not need more of that. But we do need a long form, in depth, evidence-based exploration of issues in global economics. So I would welcome ideas on whether and how to revive Development Drums.