Public Innovation through Collaboration and Design

While innovation has long been a major topic of research and scholarly interest for the private sector, it is still an emerging theme in the field of public management. While ‘results-oriented’ public management may be here to stay, scholars and practitioners are now shifting their attention to the process of management and to how the public sector can create ‘value’.

One of the urgent needs addressed by this book is a better specification of the institutional and political requirements for sustaining a robust vision of public innovation, through the key dimensions of collaboration, creative problem-solving, and design. This book brings together empirical studies drawn from Europe, the USA and the antipodes to show how these dimensions are important features of public sector innovation in many Western democracies with different conditions and traditions.

This volume provides insights for practitioners who are interested in developing an innovation strategy for their city, agency, or administration and will be essential reading for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of public policy and public administration.

Christopher Ansell is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is also the US Editor of Public Administration: An International Quarterly.

Jacob Torfing is a Professor in Politics and Institutions at Roskilde University, Denmark. He is also the Director of the Centre for Democratic Network Governance and Vice-Director of a large-scale research project on Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector.