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’
Product
Procedure
Organization
new form and
content
New ways of
formulating,
implementing and
diffusing a policy
New institutional
framing of policy
making
Ex. New Nordic
School
Ex. Musicon –
Emerging planning
Ex. Ad hoc policy
committees
Policy
Policy (vision, goal
innovation and strategy) with
Service
New form and
New way of
innovation content of a service providing a service
Ex. Rehabilitation
for the elderly
Ex. Co-creation with
volunteers
New institutional
framing of service
delivery
Ex. Area based
administration
Overview of public innovation tasks



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
Product
Procedure
Organization
Policy
innovation
Late involvement of ‘Management by
stakeholders
objectives’ schemes
produce policies
establish a distance
based on ill
between policy
defined problem
makers and relevant
definitions
stakeholders
Silo-organized
governance
hampers
problem-oriented
policy innovation
Service
innovation
Traditional role
perceptions
hamper mutual
learning
Project-organized
collaborative
innovation is
difficult to
mainstream
Performance
measurement and
budget models
encourage in-house
orientation
Barriers to collaborative innovation
One liner:
Collaboration is not only
an important driver of
service innovation but
also of policy innovation