Measuring the Impact of Innovation Activities in Government

As the government increasingly allocates resources to innovation, questions arise as to how innovation organizations measure their performance, and ultimately their effectiveness, in supporting government missions. Innovation organizations are expected to demonstrate their impact. Researchers from the MITRE Corporation assessed how governmentfocused innovation organizations advance innovation and evaluate their results. The research team collected information from a total of 39 government innovation organizations to understand their roles, activities, and measures of success. This article presents MITRE’s findings on the current state of pursuing and measuring innovation in government, as well as recommendations for metrics based on the different types of innovation organizations. MITRE recommends that innovation organizations focus on identifying and collecting outcome metrics that are critical to aligning innovation activities and products with government missions.