Forthcoming Innovation Policy Briefs

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Policy Brief No. 5:
Policies Supporting Innovation in Public Service Provision 

This Policy Brief discusses different concepts and trends in public service innovation. It will analyse initiatives from various EU Member States and develop recommendations on this basis.

Innovation in the public sector means the creation and implementation of new ideas that can be manifested as new processes, products, services and methods of delivery with the aim of achieving significantly improved efficiency, effectiveness or quality of outcomes (Mulgan – Albury, 2003). Despite the growing literature, there has not been long discussed whether the policy engineering in this regard is directing Europe towards a more efficient public sector without neglecting recently emerged and more emphatic challenges.

 

The objectives of this INNO-Grips policy brief are:

  • to map current policies supporting innovations happening in the field of public service provision inside and outside of Europe;
  • to identify barriers and drivers of innovations that entailed relatively shorter time frame and provided significant cost-savings with improved service quality/accessibility before the recent global financial and economic crisis;
  • to collect innovation forms born in the public sector that are more likely to enhance multi-actor collaborations and hence bridge the gap between supply and demand sides and fosterthe trust level coming from the side of citizens and end-users;
  • and to contribute to the better understanding on how more efficient and reflexive public service provisions can be achievable via various types of innovation (irrespective if the innovation means an adaptation of a promising practice from the business sector) and how can these processes be sustainable.

The following research questions shall be answered:

  • What were those predominantly targeted fields by innovationthat resulted significant savings (not necessarily within the public sector, but elsewhere in the society) with improved service quality/accessibility within a few years?
  • What kinds of tools seemed to be conducive and to what extent to public service innovation in the respected areas (e.g. decentralisation, user-centric shared service delivery etc.)?
  • What are the basic preconditions of public sector innovations which seem to guarantee the sustainability and effectiveness within the confines of the described viewpoint?  
  • How to make collaborative efforts with the aim of increasing the perceived quality of public services by fostering joint policy learning?

Study team

The policy brief will be prepared by ICEG European Center, Budapest. ICEG EC staff and external experts will contribute to the work. The study team includes the following researchers:

  • Renata Anna Jaksa, Dr. Magdolna Sass, Adrienn Fekó, Olivér Kovács (all ICEG EC),
  • Cristiano Codagnone (Milan State University),
  • David Osimo (Tech4i2) and
  • Annaflavia Bianchi (senior economic researcher).  

 

For quality assurance , the study exposé and draft reports will be reviewed by two further external experts:

  • Marco Daglio (OECD, Public Sector Reform Division)
  • Mark Napier (The Centre for Public Innovation)

 

File Attachment: 
application/pdf iconINNO-Grips Policy Brief No. 4: Disruptive Innovation - Implications for Competitiveness and Innovation Policy (2012)