Co-innovation in Welfare States Across Europe

Until now, innovation research has mostly focused on innovation in the private sector where private firms must innovate to stay in business. Today, there is a growing appreciation of the internal and external pressures for stimulating innovation in the public sector. Researchers and practitioners tend to agree that the public sector should pursue innovation, but there is little agreement about how this can be done. After a brief review of the limited innovation capacity of both the hierarchical forms of public bureaucracy and more market-based forms of New Public Management, this chapter seeks to define and analyze the new phenomenon of co-innovation that is based on complex processes of multi-actor collaboration enabling the co-creation of innovative public value outcomes. It also provides illustrative empirical examples of co-innovation in European welfare states and sets an agenda for further research.