The EU research project PUBLIN – on innovation in the public sector – delivers its final report
Publin, a three year long research project on innovation in the public sector, has delivered its final report to the European Commission.
The overall objective has been to contribute to the knowledge base for the European and national policy development in this area. This applies to the need for a broad based holistic innovation policy that goes beyond the call for reform and increased efficiency and looks at learning and creativity in public institutions and at their interaction with private and non-governmental organisations and with various knowledge institutions.
The Publin team consists of researchers from 10 institutions in nine European countries, and has been led by the Norwegian research institute NIFU STEP. The study consists of literature reviews, case studies of innovation in the health sector and in social services, interviews and surveys and more.
Publin has found that there are a lot of innovation activities taking place in the public sector in the European countries. Even if there is no pressure to generate profit, as often found in private companies, public employees try to improve their ways of doing things. They are motivated by idealism, the joy of creating something new, an interest in the topic at hand, career ambitions etc.
In order to learn and innovate, the actors must interact with others, these being people, organisations or various sources of information. Their ability to innovate is dependent on their ability to find such relevant competences, understand them and make use of them. The better the actors are at developing networks that can help them get access to relevant competences and partners, the greater are the chances that their innovation processes will succeed. This applies to organisations providing services, as well as institutions for policy development, the researchers argue.
Publin has mapped different types of barriers and drivers for such learning and innovation processes, i.e. social phenomena that hinder or encourage innovation activities in such institutions, and gives various policy recommendations on the basis of this. Publin also gives recommendations regarding the development of indicators for measuring innovation in the public sector.
The final report with an executive summary can be downloaded from the Publin web site (www.step.no/publin/).
Publin has been part of the Programme for research, technological development and demonstration on "Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base,1998-2002" under the EU 5th Framework Programme.
For more information on Publin, see www.step.no/publin
For more information on the programme, see www.cordis.lu/improving/
The following institutions have been part of Publin:
NIFU STEP, Norway (Publin coordinator)
Coordinator: Per Koch
University of Haifa, Israel
Coordinators: Eran Vigoda-Gadot and Aviv Shoham
MERIT, University of Maastricht, the Netherlands
Coordinators: Friso den Hertog and Rene Kemp
PREST/CRIC, University of Manchester, UK
Coordinator: Ian Miles and Paul Cunningham
VINNOVA, Sweden
Coordinator: Lennart Norgren
Comenius University, Slovakia
Coordinator: Ludmila Malikova
University of Alcalá, Spain
Coordinator: Luis Rubalcaba Bermejo
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Coordinator: Paul Windrum
UniversityCollegeCork,Ireland
Coordinator: Seamus O'Tuama
The MykolasRomerisUniversity (LawUniversity of Lithuania)
Coordinator: Rita Bandzeviciene
For more information, see the Publin web site at www.step.no/publin or contact the project coordinator Deputy Director Per Koch at NIFU STEP (per.koch@nifustep.no).