Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector: Theories, Methods and Practices

Short description:

The Ph.D.-course aims to give an overview of the current theoretical debate about what public innovation is and how it should be pursued, with a particular focus on the emerging concept of collaborative innovation that grows out of different strands of governance theory, innovation theory and public administration theory. A specific ambition is to point out important drivers and barriers for public innovation. In addition the course aims to draw an image of how innovative the public sector is compared to the private sector, and differences between selected countries. The course will also go into depth about which methods to use in studies of public innovation. Finally, it will discuss how different forms of management and leadership can contribute to enhancing the innovative capacity of the public sector.

Aim of the course

Public innovation has become a hot issue among social science researchers as well as among practitioners. The gap between what citizens expect the public sector to deliver and the resources available to meet these demands as well as mounting difficulties solving wicked problems with existing methods and forms of governance has brought public innovation into focus as a potential means to increase the capacity of the public sector to meets demands and solve problems.

The need to enhance the innovative capacity of the public sector was already voiced as a goal in the New Public Management (NPM) reform program, and was expected to result from a more competitive public sector, and from entrepreneurial leaders. The NPM reforms did however tend to focus more on enhancing the efficiency of the public sector than on making it more innovative. Currently, a new interest in enhancing public innovation is gaining ground among researchers and practitioners who perceive collaboration between multiple stakeholders as a core driver of public innovation.

The Ph.D.-course aims to give an overview of the current theoretical debate about what public innovation is and how it should be pursued, with a particular focus on the emerging concept of collaborative innovation that grows out of different strands of governance theory, innovation theory and public administration theory. A specific ambition is to point out important drivers and barriers for public innovation. In addition the course aims to draw an image of how innovative the public sector is compared to the private sector, and differences between selected countries. The course will also go into depth about which methods to use in studies of public innovation. Finally, it will discuss how different forms of management and leadership can contribute to enhancing the innovative capacity of the public sector.

The goal of the course is to give the participating students:

• An analytical understanding of what public innovation is, and what signifies collaborative as well as other forms of public innovation

• An overview of the most important drivers of and barriers to public innovation

• An insight into the innovative capacity of current public sectors

• A list of techniques that managers and leaders can use to enhance public innovation

• A variety of methods to use in studies of public innovation

• An international network of young researchers interested in studying public innovation

The course includes several types of activity, as also indicated in the program below:

• Interactive lectures which presents the state of the art of the field (= lectures)

• Discussions between lecturers and PhD-students on core readings which focus on central questions and topics (= discussions)

• Application of theoretical skills in empirical analysis (= exercise)

• Field trip to an innovative public institution (= excursion)

• Presentations by PhD students of their own work (= PhD presentations)

PhD-presentations

The course has 3 sessions in which the PhD students get a chance to present their research project to the other PhD students and senior researchers. The PhD-students will be divided into two groups according to the topic of their thesis.

Each student must prepare and circulate a 10 page project description in advance. The oral presentations must be organized around the following questions: 1) What are the research questions and how are these to be investigated? 2) What role does public innovation play in the study? 3) What role does management and leadership play for enhancing public innovation? 4) Which theories and methods will be applied in the study? The oral presentation should not take more than 15 minutes. It will be followed by feedback from senior researchers and the peer group.

Please, observe concerning your paper:

- it must be sent to paper@polforsk.dk no later that nov 25.
- it should be in PDF-format,
- the file name should start with YOUR SURNAME and include the titel and number of pages.
- there should be NO BLANKS or special characters (parantheses, ö, æ, ø, å, é, etc) in the file name
- example: doe_john-politics_of_lazyness-12_pages.pdf

Program

The course lasts for four days and each day is devoted to discussion of a core theme in the field of public innovation.

The first day focuses on why public innovation has surged as an important research agenda, how different theories define public innovation and the theoretical foundations of the concept of collaborative innovation.

The second day focuses on research about public innovation, including methodologies used in the literature, highlighting research based on information provided in applications to innovation awards.

The third day views public innovation from a practitioner perspective, focusing on techniques would-be innovators can use to implement innovative ideas.

The fourth day will focus on innovation management and leadership. What is innovation management and how can public administrations and politicians lead collaborative innovation processes? This day’s program includes a field trip to a nearby municipality that has taken radical steps to become more innovative. The PhD-students will get a chance to go into dialogue with the involved politicians and public managers.

The course program is outlined below.