Strengthening the Innovative Capacity of the Public Sector of Bulgaria

4. Towards a widespread innovative capacity in Bulgaria: From insights to action

Abstract

This chapter summarises the key challenges and recommendations for Bulgaria to enhance its public sector’s innovative capacity to improve the State Administration’s responsiveness and, as a result, foster greater public trust in public institutions.

Bulgaria’s State Administration is starting to drive public sector innovation (PSI), yet these efforts are nascent. Several innovations associated with research and development and digital transformation have been introduced gradually in the Administration, as a result of top-down directives. However, today’s innovative capacity is unlikely sufficient to address the country's challenges and accelerate social and economic convergence towards more advanced economies. As shown in Table 4.1, this assessment has identified 5 priority areas for strengthening the innovative capacity of the public sector in Bulgaria:

1. Strategic steering of public sector innovation: Innovation is influenced by varied drivers with insufficient prioritisation of governmental objectives, and many organisations lack alignment on their innovative efforts. To address this, Bulgaria should develop a comprehensive public sector innovation vision and action plan aligned with the 2030 National Development Programme. The Council of Ministers’ Administration (CoMA)’s role in PSI should also be strengthened with further financial and human resources to better coordinate, guide, and monitor innovation efforts across sectors, ensuring alignment with government priorities.

2. Leadership, management, and support for public innovation: Innovation is primarily top-down, concentrated in specific areas, with limited participation from different levels of the administration. Furthermore, innovation ideas mainly stem from within the public sector rather than from a broader societal input. To overcome these challenges, the State Administration could foster a bottom-up culture that encourages innovation at all levels. Providing resources, training, and communication that promote innovative behaviours, especially among less senior staff, will support an innovation-driven cultural shift. Additionally, CoMA should develop programmes to explicitly support public sector innovation, such as an innovation lab to incubate and scale solutions, along with supporting the upgrading the current innovation network and innovation competition, managed by the Institute of Public Administration (IPA).

3. Funding, evaluation, and communication for public sector innovation: Currently, budgetary mechanisms to support public sector innovation are insufficient, and monitoring and evaluation practices are inexistent, limiting communicating and learning from public sector innovation results. To improve this, the Ministry of Finances, along with CoMA and line ministries, should establish systematic spending reviews for public sector innovation and consider creating an innovation fund that supports both incremental and transformative projects. Additionally, the development of a monitoring and evaluation function, alongside evaluation capacity-building initiatives, could strengthen the administration’s ability to assess and enhance innovation outcomes.

4. Skills and competencies to innovate at all levels: Training on public sector innovation has been sporadic and largely focused on senior staff, leaving many public servants without the necessary skills to engage in innovative projects. To address this gap, CoMA and IPA should expand training opportunities to include all hierarchical levels and functions across civil service. Furthermore, they should establish learning-by-doing cross-government capacity-building programmes for innovation that combine skills for applied innovation process, digital and data, and citizen participation. These programmes should span different durations and scopes and implement regular assessments to ensure their relevance and efficacy.

5. Workforce strategy and incentives for widespread public sector innovation: Public servants in Bulgaria reported low levels of permission to innovate, and there is an absence of innovation-related competencies in performance assessments that hinder the recognition of these practices. To address this, the Administration should update its competency frameworks and performance management guidelines to explicitly include innovation behaviours. Furthermore, a strategic workforce plan should focus on innovation, including formal incentives and leadership training, which could help create an environment that nurtures and rewards the uptake of innovative approaches across the public sector, along with improving the Administration’s attractiveness as employer.

Table 4.1. Main challenges and key recommendations

The table below shows the challenges and key recommendations identified in this assessment.

Main challenges	Key recommendations
1. Strategic steering of public sector innovation
Bulgaria’s State Administration lacks a unified strategic framework for public sector innovation across the whole of government, limiting sustained demand for innovation. Current PSI efforts are driven by many factors without clear prioritisation.	Connect public sector innovation with government priority agendas: Develop a vision of how public sector innovation can contribute to the government’s national priorities and to the 2030 National Development Programme. Articulate an action plan and a working group that puts forward a coordinated approach for implementation, defining clear objectives, measurable outcomes, indicators, and timelines for implementation.
Several sector-specific government strategies lack clear innovation priorities or fail to coordinate efforts effectively. Additionally, many organisations lack strategic planning for PSI, and the centre of government has limited resources to support, guide and monitor these efforts.	Reinforce the strategic steering of public sector innovation from the centre of government: Reinforce the Council of Ministers’ Administration’s role in aligning investments in public sector innovation capacities with government priorities, steering, coordinating, and monitoring cross-government innovation efforts. Provide high-level guidance for strategic public sector innovation planning across the administration by providing templates, tools and capacity-building to steer and monitor progress.
2. Leadership, management, and support for public innovation
Innovation is largely driven from the top rather than emerging from various roles within the State Administration. Innovation initiatives are concentrated in specific policy areas and levels. Moreover, public innovation ideas predominantly come from the public sector itself rather than any other societal groups feeding in.	Ensure a widespread and integrated approach to public sector innovation: Foster a bottom-up approach to innovation by developing a public administration culture that values and supports innovation. Provide civil servants with the resources, time, training, and internal communications to encourage innovative approaches at all levels of the State Administration, especially less senior staff.
Public servants in Bulgaria face challenges to sustained innovation due to limited collaboration and resource constraints related to technology and data availability. Collaboration through public-private partnerships (PPPs) and innovation procurement are established in Bulgaria but complex procedures and limited risk financing hinder their full potential.	Tackle limited collaboration and resources for public sector innovation: CoMA should consider implementing initiatives such as improving awareness of the public servants' mobility programme, supporting innovative procurement procedures, and providing financial incentives to enhance internal collaboration and resource allocation in the State Administration. Target these initiatives with the focus of increasing digital and data skills as part of adopting innovative working methods within the Administration. Improve practices for setting organisations’ innovative priorities and for engaging citizens in innovative projects.
Deliberate support for public sector innovation in Bulgaria is underdeveloped. The current innovation network and competition suffer from a low scope and a narrow range of activities. Support for innovative practices such as strategic foresight is also missing.	Build government-wide support to promote and encourage public sector innovation: Establish deliberate support for public sector innovation, including a programme to incubate and scale solutions. Upgrade the current innovation network and competition with formal mandates and financial resources to increase their scope and promote innovation more widely. Use these mechanisms to provide dedicated guidance and training for innovation-complementary approaches such as behavioural science and strategic foresight.
3. Funding, evaluation, and communication for public sector innovation
Bulgaria has limited budgetary mechanisms and dedicated funding for public sector innovation. Current innovations focus mainly on incremental approaches, thereby limiting more transformative opportunities.	Direct public sector innovation through funding and portfolio management: Create a cross-government innovation project portfolio, using spending reviews to identify areas to target operational efficiencies. Consider stimulating direct budget allocation for public sector innovation and setting up a central fund for innovation to support more long-term transformative projects that improves public outcomes.
Bulgaria lacks consistent monitoring and evaluation of public sector innovation. As such, learning mechanisms such as after-projects reviews are notably absent in the Administration.	Introduce systematic monitoring and evaluation of public sector innovation: Enhance monitoring and evaluation practices by establishing a monitoring and evaluation function within the Council of Ministers’ Administration, developing a framework for monitoring public sector innovation efforts, and enhancing capacity for evaluation through training and guidance.
In Bulgaria, internal and external communication about innovation is generally missing, limiting visibility of efforts, stakeholder engagement, and an innovation-driven culture.	Increase public sector innovation awareness through enhanced visibility and communication: Increase the awareness about innovation results in the public sector by developing a communication plan, setting up a central innovation repository of successful cases, and promoting communication of efforts through a yearly innovation event.
4. Skills and competencies to innovate at all levels
In Bulgaria, limited and sporadic training on public sector innovation has been concentrated on senior staff. A small portion of public servants has innovation skills, a determinant for engaging in innovative projects.	Build up innovation skills: Expand current State Administration training offer in innovation to encompass all levels and functions across the civil service. Establish learning by doing cross-government capacity-building programmes that combine skills for applied innovation, digital and data, and citizen participation, spanning different durations and scopes, and implement regular assessments to ensure their relevance and efficacy.
5. Workforce strategy and incentives for widespread public sector innovation
Public servants in Bulgaria have reported generally low levels of permission to innovate, particularly among administrative and professional staff. This is compounded by the absence of innovative behaviours in the existing cross-government competency framework and performance assessments, which hinders the explicit recognition of their ability to innovate.	Give permission to innovate: Update the State Administration’s current competency frameworks and performance management guidelines to explicitly include innovation-related behaviours and competencies. Support and monitor implementation across all talent management areas and provide complementary training to ensure the competency framework’s effective adoption.
Bulgaria lacks a strategic framework for its government workforce, and deficiencies in both recruitment and career development limit innovation. Public servants rely on intrinsic motivation to innovate, but concrete incentives are missing. Moreover, Bulgarian public servants experience low psychological safety, limiting risk-taking and innovative behaviours.	Foster structured incentives to innovate beyond personal motivation: Develop a strategic workforce plan where innovation is central for recruitment and professional development and support improving the Administration’s attractiveness as employer. Consider formal incentives and rewards mechanisms, leadership training and mentorship to improve supportive risk-tasking, and safe spaces to practice innovation competencies in the civil service.

Source: OECD