In 2025, Colombia did something that still feels rare in many countries: It asked people to help write the rules for how the state should innovate. Not in a closed room, but through an open online consultation.
The consultation on a new public innovation decree invited citizens, public servants, and organizations to comment on how Colombia should coordinate experiments, digital projects, and new ways to solve public problems.
A decree that sought to organize public innovation
The draft decree, published in July 2025, aimed to create a clear framework for public innovation, instead of leaving it as isolated pilot projects or temporary labs inside single institutions.
MinTIC, the Administrative Department of Public Function, the National Planning Department, ESAP, and Minciencias worked together on the text, using their experience with digital government and science policy.
The proposal fit into the National Development Plan 2022–2026, which promotes a more efficient and people‑centered State, and into Colombia’s Fifth Open State Action Plan, focused on transparency and participation.
Three new bodies for a more innovative state
The decree described three key bodies. The cross‑sector commission would set guidelines, promote methods, and build strategic alliances around public innovation.
A technical committee would design tools, coordinate actions, and follow up on the national innovation plan in the public sector, turning general ideas into concrete steps in ministries and agencies.
The National Network for Public Innovation would act as a collaborative space linking public entities, civil society, academia, and the private sector, sharing lessons and supporting experiments in different territories.
Together, these spaces seek to avoid a common problem, innovative teams working alone without coordination, shared standards, or stable support across government.
How citizens got involved through the consultation
The article from the National Digital Agency reminded people that the consultation stayed open until Aug. 5, 2025, through the SUCOP platform, where anyone could read the draft and send comments.
For citizens, researchers, and civil groups, this was a chance to suggest changes, ask for clearer language, or push for stronger roles for territories, data transparency, or evaluation of innovation projects.
The process followed Colombia’s rules for regulatory participation, which require draft decrees to be published for comment and encourage agencies to explain how they use that feedback.
This kind of consultation does not guarantee that every suggestion becomes law, but it opens a window for people outside Bogota or outside government to influence the final version.
Why a public innovation framework matters now
Public innovation may sound abstract, but it becomes real when a citizen uses a simpler online service, a municipality tests a new way to handle waste, or a ministry opens data to improve transport planning.
Colombia’s Open State Action Plan already mentions goals such as training public servants in experimentation, using data for decisions, and creating a National Network for Public Innovation and Knowledge Management.
Without a clear framework and bodies that survive political cycles, many good pilots risk disappearing when a program ends or a new government arrives. The decree tries to give innovation a stable home in the state.
For digital government, this connects with efforts to strengthen trust, cybersecurity, and online services, so that people feel the state is not only more open, but also more useful in daily life.
Citizens as co‑designers of the state’s future
By opening the draft to comments, Colombia treated citizens less like passive users and more like co‑designers. People could question, for example, who sits in the network, how territories are included, or how results will be measured.
International experiences show that when residents and civil society take part in designing public innovation rules, solutions tend to be more realistic and less focused only on technology.
A step toward a more open, experimental state
The public consultation on Colombia’s new public innovation framework has already closed, but its impact goes beyond one deadline. It signaled that experimenting in the state should be organized, measured, and open to citizen input.
If the final decree keeps that spirit, Colombia could move toward a public sector that tests new ideas more often, shares what works and what fails, and involves people in solving problems instead of only informing them after decisions are made.