Mission-oriented innovation

Mission-oriented innovation has gained increasing national and international focus in recent years as a tool for addressing major societal challenges from green transition to defense and security.

For Innovation Fund Denmark, mission work is a strategic approach where we work with direction, partnerships and portfolios to create systemic change.

Below we share key perspectives on mission-oriented innovation based on national and international experiences, including Innovation Fund Denmark's work with the four green missions .

1. Missions require clear direction

Missions cannot be managed like traditional support programs.

They require:

• A clear political ambition about what you want to change
• A common direction around which actors can be mobilized
• Clear division of roles between political level, fund, secretariat and partners

Without direction, missions become project support. With direction, they become transformational tools.

2. Missions call for new collaborations

Missions create value by bringing together actors with different rationales – companies, universities, public actors and civil society.

However, cooperation does not happen by itself. It requires:

• Trust building
• Incentive voting
• Active facilitation
• Clear alignment of expectations

Mission work is therefore as much orchestration as financing.

3. Missions are managed as strategic portfolios

A mission is not a collection of individual projects – it is a strategic portfolio.

This involves:

• Analyses of systemic barriers and tipping points that can inform investments
• Coherence and coordination between projects
• Strategic learning, selection and opt-out

Transformation requires active portfolio management – not just grants.

Read more about Innovation Fund Denmark's impact framework , which, among other things, aims to support strategic portfolio management.

4. Missions require new organizational skills

Mission work places new demands on innovation organizations.

It is about building capacity to:

• System understanding and cross-functional coordination
• Co-creation and facilitation
• Managing uncertainty and complexity
• International outlook and cooperation

Mission-oriented innovation is an organizational task – not just a program design.

Read more about Innovation Fund Denmark's International Advisory Board , which advises Innovation Fund Denmark on mission-oriented innovation.

5. Missions place new demands on impact measurement

Systemic efforts cannot be measured solely through traditional output measures.

It requires:

• Formative evaluation rather than just final measurement
• Metrics and KPIs linked to transformation and tipping points
• Feedback loops between projects and mission direction
• Adjustment along the way rather than locking in from the start