The Government Outcomes Lab: Researching new models of collaboration for better social outcomes

Oxford Policy Pod

Governments worldwide face major challenges such as homelessness, education access, and healthcare support and there is wide recognition that governments can’t tackle these issues alone. Governments need to work effectively with non-profits, with social enterprises, business, and philanthropies to achieve better social outcomes. In recent years, outcomes-based partnerships (cross-sector partnerships whereby funding is contingent on the achievement of measurable outcomes) have emerged as a promising way to enable more effective and more impactful public-private collaboration. However, do these approaches live up to their promise? And how can we ensure that these partnerships are designed and managed as effectively as possible, building on existing evidence, data and best practice?

Our hosts, Nikki Lucenario and Gloria Wawira, are joined by Andreea Anastasiu, the Executive Director of the Government Outcomes Lab (GO Lab) at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford to discuss how outcomes-based partnerships are becoming a useful tool for governments around the world.

Founded in 2016 by the Blavatnik School and the UK to deepen the evidence around the use of innovative outcomes-based partnerships. Their work promotes an inclusive and responsive approach to generating evidence and seeks to bridge the gap between research and practice by curating opportunities for knowledge exchange for scholars, policymakers and practitioners around the world.

This episode is produced by Paul Austin.

Follow more of the GO Lab’s work at https://golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk/

INDIGO Dataset: https://golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk/knowledge-bank/indigo/

GO Lab’s Social Outcomes Conference 2023: https://golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk/community/events/soc23/