Eva Sørensen Roskilde University

 Why the innovation agenda is key to transforming governance  What’s so special about public innovation?  How collaboration can drive innovation  Where are the main barriers to collaborative innovation in the public sector?

 Innovation has moved to the top of the reform agenda, …. and with mayor impact  The innovation agenda ◦ Introduces a new mindset among those involved in public policy making and service provision ◦ Brings content and quality into focus - rather than procedure and quantity ◦ Directs energy towards the exploration of possible futures - rather than the mending of present insufficiencies

 Innovation takes place in a political context  Public service innovations must be politically sanctioned, legitimized and motivated with reference to contingent perceptions of public purpose  Policy innovation is a separate target area – defined as ‘the formulation, implementation and diffusion of new normative visions of and goals and strategies for realizing good society in relation to specific issue areas’

ProductProcedureOrganization Policy innovation Policy (vision, goal and strategy) with new form and content Ex. New Nordic School New ways of formulating, implementing and diffusing a policy Ex. Musicon – Emerging planning New institutional framing of policy making Ex. Ad hoc policy committees Service innovation New form and content of a service Ex. Rehabilitation for the elderly New way of providing a service Ex. Co-creation with volunteers New institutional framing of service delivery Ex. Area based administration

 Hierarchy and competition drives innovation by motivating actors to innovate  Collaboration spurs the formulation, realization and diffusion of new creative ideas  Collaboration has the potential to: ◦ Create disturbances that trigger new ideas ◦ Promote a broad ownership that paves the way for implementing new practices ◦ Activate many criteria in evaluating success and failure ◦ Recruit many ambassadors in diffusing innovations

ProductProcedureOrganization Policy innovation Late involvement of stakeholders produce policies based on ill defined problem definitions ‘Management by objectives’ schemes establish a distance between policy makers and relevant stakeholders Silo-organized governance hampers problem-oriented policy innovation Service innovation Traditional role perceptions hamper mutual learning Performance measurement and budget models encourage in-house orientation Project-organized collaborative innovation is difficult to mainstream

One liner: Collaboration is not only an important driver of service innovation but also of policy innovation