The presentation examines which design features make ARPA-style innovation agencies effective and whether they can be transferred to Europe. Based on 25+ interviews with leaders across DARPA, ARPA-E, ARPA-H, IARPA, UK ARIA, and Germany's SPRIND, it identifies core organizational practices that drive breakthrough outcomes and tests whether EU-compliant adaptations can deliver comparable results. The talk shares early findings on where the adapted model works, where it falls short, and what that means for the emerging landscape of European innovation agencies.



*Jasper Doeninghaus is a McCloy Fellow and MPP candidate at Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on innovation policy and institutional design. He is a Social Innovation and Change Fellow at Harvard and co-founder of Myranda, an AI startup that helps users understand and take control of their social media algorithms. Prior to HKS, Jasper co-founded CarbonTag, a carbon intelligence system for food and beverage product carbon footprints, and was a technology consultant in the German public sector.