Innovaap (Laboratorio Colaborativo de Innovación Pública – Collaborative Lab of Public Innovation) is a multi-stakeholder platform focused on co-creating sustainable solutions to address public issues in Costa Rica.

Innovaap was created in 2017 by the School of Public Administration of the University of Costa Rica. We are housed and receive oversight by the Dean of the University of Costa Rica, Dr. Henning Jensen Pennington.

Our values

  • We promote open and collaborative spaces based on trust, for the development and prototyping of alternative solutions to public problems.
  • We ensure that our solutions generate value for all stakeholders, through transparent processes.
  • Our proposals are creative and seek to generate the greatest possible impact on the solution of public problems.
  • We promote learning platforms and knowledge transfer to society.
  • We consolidate networks of change agents in different spaces and territories, which allows the sustainability of the projects and their results.

Lines of action

  • We innovate public management through the design and redesign of goods, services, and public processes, through spaces of articulation between social actors.
  • We organize and promote the use of data to improve decisions and visualize new action scenarios.
  • We train and transfer innovation tools for public management.
  • We provide spaces for the adoption of new technologies in public management.
  • We generate and disseminate new knowledge, based on the experiences and lessons learned.

Priorities as a partner of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

One of the main objectives of Innovaap is to develop institutional capacities for the use of data and evidence in decision making and public policy. Based on this principle of action, partnerships have been established with national and international organizations, focused on the application of data analytics and improving the quality of data in the country, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For example, in partnership with Cepei, we are putting together the first inventory of the status of Open Data in Costa Rica, as well as an analysis of a national biodiversity database with 100 years of historical data. Additionally, training was given to university students and local governments to promote skills in the use of instruments with help from Programa de Ciencia de Datos. Through the Trust for the Americas program, training processes are being developed with the support of international experts so as to develop capacities in the use of data and the promotion of open data within Costa Rican government agencies. With Proyecto Estado de la Nación, a local non-profit, we are developing a project to use data to understand water management’s public value. Finally, in 2018 we established a link with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Costa Rica in order to develop SDG-related projects.