Background

Why is innovation in government necessary?

In recent years, the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) has become increasingly widespread and has not only resulted in improvements in economic productivity but had crucial impact on governments looking to move from rigid, rule-based and hierarchical models of administration to more citizen friendly, transparent and accountable, people-oriented public services.

Globally, innovations has made a huge difference in addressing urgent and pressing development challenges such as by responding to climate disasters, by improving avenues to engage citizens in political processes and governance, and by promoting more transparent and responsive governments.

Further, the high level panel on the post 2015 development agenda has called for a “data revolution” to dramatically accelerate the progress towards sustainable development. Around the world we are now witnessing the emergence of a variety of new innovations and data alliances that point to a whole new way for governments to inform their policy work with evidence and forge new partnerships with academia, the private sector, think tanks and citizens.

What is the regional appetite for Innovation?

Innovation is not new to Thailand and Asia-Pacific region. To operate in such a dynamic and often challenging context requires foresight, innovative thinking and agile solutions. Recognizing this, it is observed that governments in Thailand are increasingly investing in various instruments to promote innovation for start-up and within their services. All governments need institutions to catalyze innovation and many leaders at national and sub national leaders recognize this and continue to invest in dedicated teams, units and funds to structure and embed innovation methods and practice in government. Besides more widely known lab models in the West – such as MindLab (Denmark), eGov Lab (Sweden), MaRS (Canada), and the UK Policy Lab, some of the leading governments in the Asia Pacific region are increasingly investing on innovations by establishing National Strategies, Teams, Councils including Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The region also boasts over 50 innovation labs oriented towards social innovation and improving the design and delivery of public services.

What hinders innovation in Governments?

While governments have often led pioneering initiatives on innovation and experimenting with nationally constituted models, constraints remain in finding the necessary ‘space’, frameworks and capacity to take the agenda forward; to be able to engage citizens, non-profits and other partners including the private sector to co-design innovative ideas that benefit from the knowledge of the local context; transforms processes, skills and culture of government, and develop pathways to ultimately achieve wider policy and systems change that affects impact at scale.

A safe-to-fail space to prototype various programmatic methodologies for development programmes require transforming the bureaucracy culture and no longer stands in a business-as-usual scenario. Research shows that the lack of agility within the public sector, politics, ineffective and untimely communications as well as miscommunications, the absence of a defined framework for exploring new ideas and rewarding status quo are often cited as challenges to driving innovation in government.

It is the build-up of innovation capacities that has played a central role in the growth dynamics of successful developing countries.[i] These countries have recognised that innovation is not just about high-technology products or a one-time project but rather requires a shift in thinking, a disciplined approach, strong leadership and collective commitment to ensure sustainability of tested innovative ideas. Therefore, innovation capacity has to be built early in the development process in order to possess the learning capacities that will allow “catch up” to happen. Ultimately, a successful development strategy has to build extensive innovation capacities to foster growth and embed innovation into the main field rather than remain a fringe investment.

How cross-sector collaboration adds value?

The capacity for governments to embrace social innovation may seem limited, but the work of MindLab, a cross-governmental Danish innovation unit, reveals how new solutions can be developed through collaboration, by co-creating policies with citizens and stakeholders like the private sector through qualitative research and design-led thinking.  Similarly, MaRS in Canada also brings together educators, researchers, social scientists, entrepreneurs and business experts under one roof to harness the full potential of social innovation and drive economic and social prosperity. These initiatives demonstrate that while private sector adds value in technology expertise, business acumen and ability to harness new frontier competitive thinking, pairing this with Government enhances the scalability of solutions and offers a proactive space that encourages citizen engagement to inform policy development.

 This collaborative approach facilitated through a lab model allows for cross-agency interaction involving public servants, private sector technologists, academics, and citizens to co-design the next generation of solutions for social problems.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective of the Assignment & Scope of Work:

The designer works closely with research team and UNDP team in understanding a government innovation lab research in order to transform and design the information communicatively and effectively.

• Understanding the importance and nature of Government Innovation Lab project;
• Transforming all the data and information to be visualized and easy to communicate and understand;
• Design an appropriate art direction for all indicated materials;
• Information graphics, diagram, and icons are needed to be designed well and communicative as required;
• Working closely with production company and control the quality to its best.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

 The consultant is expected to deliver the followings:

- Art direction or identity design for government innovation lab printing materials;

- Consistent layout design and information graphic design for:

1. Government Innovation Lab Report
2. Handbooks for innovation team in setting up Government Innovation Lab with case study; both for Central and Regional context.
3. Pamphlet

- Good quality of printing production in full colours as indicated amount for:

Institutional Arrangement:

 The research lead will work under the guidance of UNDP Thailand Team and report directly to the Team Leader/Programme Specialist Democratic Governance and Social Advocacy Unit. The consultant will also work closely with the Social Innovation Facility Manager who will review the progress and quality of assignment upon outputs prior to issuance the payment.  Review/approval time required to review/ approve outputs prior to authorizing payments is 7 – 10 days.

Duration of the Assignment:

 13 December 2017 – 28 February 2018 with maximum 50 days worked

Duty Station:

Bangkok, Thailand with no travel required.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
• Strong sensibility of design skills;
• String Motivation to create change;
• Strong understanding of Thai culture and ways of communication.

Required Skills and Experience

I. Academic Qualifications:

• Bachelor Degree or above in communication and design studies, innovation studies, development studies.

II. Years of experience:

• At least 5 years of experience in communication and identity design;
• Experience in design for social, design education, community development or social innovation projects;

• Demonstrated experience in communication and identity design or innovation process workshops.

III. Language:

• Excellent command of English, both spoken and written.

Payment Terms:

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer:

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

• Criteria 1 Eg. Relevance of Education – Max 20 points
• Criteria 2 Eg. Special skills, Language, etc.- Max 10 Points
• Criteria 3 Eg. Relevance of experience in area of specialization (Communication Design)– Max 30 points
• Criteria 4 Eg. Relevance of experience in key areas (Identity design) – Max 10 points

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the total technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Required Documents:

Interested individuals must submit the following documents /information to demonstrate their qualification, experience and suitability to undertake the assignment.  Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

1. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details email and telephone number of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
2. Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and financial proposal using the template provided in Annex III. Note: National consultants must quote prices in Thai Baht.
3. The Sample of the previous works

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. The short listed candidates may be contacted and the successful candidate will be notified.

Annexes:

Annex I - TOR_ Government Innovation Lab – Designer and Production Consultant

Annex II- General Condition of Contract

Annex III - Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability for IC and Financial Proposal

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=42704