The IDHUS Institute

  When governments want to preserve what they know, they tend to create places in which knowledge can be stored. They build databases, document procedures, maintain archives, publish guidance, create…

  Public institutions have become very good at acquiring things that promise to make them smarter. They build databases, commission analytical platforms, recruit specialists, purchase decision-support systems and, increasingly, experiment…

  When we describe an institution as capable of understanding a problem, remembering a past decision, detecting an emerging risk or making a judgement under uncertainty, it can sound as…

  It is tempting to imagine institutional intelligence as a property of what an organisation contains. We look for knowledgeable people, reliable databases, strong analytical teams, well-designed procedures, effective technologies…

Imagine asking a large public institution a relatively simple question: why does a particular process work the way it does? One person may know the legal history behind it. Another…

  We talk about institutions as if they were things we could point to. A ministry occupies a building. A university has campuses. A hospital has wards, employees and equipment.…