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Government Capacity
Blog
A pre-mortem on OPM’s HR 2.0 initiative: Imagining failure in order to support success

OPM’s new HR 2.0 initiative is entering hostile terrain. Those who have followed federal HR modernization for years desperately want this effort to succeed.

03.02.26 | 26 min read
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Government Capacity
Blog
Everything You Need to Know (and Ask!) About OPM’s New Schedule Policy/Career Role: Oversight Resource for OPM’s Schedule Policy/Career Rule

This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it. 

02.13.26 | 8 min read
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Government Capacity
Policy Memo
Report
Rebuilding Environmental Governance: Understanding the Foundations

Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.

02.12.26 | 27 min read
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Government Capacity
Policy Memo
Report
Costs Come First in a Reset Climate Agenda

Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.

02.12.26 | 42 min read
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Government Capacity
Policy Memo
Report
Bureaucracy as Social Hope: An Argument for Renewing the Administrative State

The American administrative state, since its modern creation out of the New Deal and the post-WWII order, has proven that it can do great things. But it needs some reinvention first.

02.12.26 | 29 min read
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Government Capacity
Policy Memo
Report
From Ambition to Action: A Policy Primer

Remaining globally competitive on critical clean technologies requires far more than pointing out that individual electric cars and rooftop solar panels might produce consumer savings.

02.12.26 | 41 min read
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Government Capacity
Report
Philanthropy Partnerships Summit Report: Building Collaborations for Impact

The Philanthropy Partnerships Summit demonstrated both the urgency and the opportunity of deeper collaboration between sectors that share a common goal of advancing discovery and ensuring that its benefits reach people and communities everywhere.

02.03.26 | 20 min read
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Government Capacity
Blog
Introducing Digital Service Retros: Back to the (Digital) Future

We’re launching a national series of digital service retrospectives to capture hard-won lessons, surface what worked, be clear-eyed about what didn’t, and bring digital service experts together to imagine next-generation models for digital government.

01.28.26 | 3 min read
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Government Capacity
Report
Barriers to Building: A Framework for the Next Era of Electricity Policy

To maximize clean energy deployment, we must address the project development and political barriers that have held us back from smart policymaking and implementation that can withstand political change. Here’s how.

12.15.25 | 26 min read
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Government Capacity
Blog
Demystifying the New President’s Management Agenda

In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.

12.11.25 | 20 min read
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Government Capacity
day one project
Policy Memo
A Digital Public Infrastructure Act Should Be America’s Next Public Works Project

Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.

12.08.25 | 18 min read
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Government Capacity
day one project
Policy Memo
Increasing the Value of Federal Investigator-Initiated Research through Agency Impact Goals

To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.

12.04.25 | 11 min read
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