Enhancing Innovation Capacity In City Government

Cities are reinventing themselves to adapt and respond to their evolving contexts. One instrument that local government is leveraging is innovation. To understand how cities approach public sector innovation, the OECD and Bloomberg Philanthropies carried out a survey on innovation capacity across 89 cities in OECD countries and non-OECD economies. The focus of the survey was to unpack the capacity to innovate in the local public sector and explore the resources – human, financial, and institutional – and how they can work to boost innovation in a city.

Cities are reinventing themselves to adapt and respond to their evolving contexts. One instrument that local government is leveraging is innovation. To understand how cities approach public sector innovation, the OECD and Bloomberg Philanthropies carried out a survey on innovation capacity across 89 cities in OECD countries and non-OECD economies. The focus of the survey was to unpack the capacity to innovate in the local public sector and explore the resources - human, financial, and institutional - and how they can work to boost innovation in a city. This report explores the approaches and goals, staffing and structure, data, financial resources, and evaluation efforts that local administrations are making to innovate. It also reviews the outcomes that are resulting from these measures, especially related to resident well-being.

Cities are reinventing themselves to adapt and respond to their evolving contexts. One instrument that local government is leveraging is innovation. To understand how cities approach public sector innovation, the OECD and Bloomberg Philanthropies carried out a survey on innovation capacity across 89 cities in OECD countries and non-OECD economies. The focus of the survey was to unpack the capacity to innovate in the local public sector and explore the resources - human, financial, and institutional - and how they can work to boost innovation in a city. This report explores the approaches and goals, staffing and structure, data, financial resources, and evaluation efforts that local administrations are making to innovate. It also reviews the outcomes that are resulting from these measures, especially related to resident well-being.

Innovation has become an important focus for governments around the world over the last decade, with greater pressure on governments to do more with less, and expanding community expectations. Some are now calling this ‘social innovation’ – innovation that is related to creating new services that have value for stakeholders (such as citizens) in terms of the social and political outcomes they produce. Innovation in City Governments: Structures, Networks, and Leadership establishes an analytical framework of innovation capacity based on three dimensions: Structure - national governance and traditions, the local socioeconomic context, and the municipal structure Networks – interpersonal connections inside and outside the organization Leadership – the qualities and capabilities of senior individuals within the organization. Each of these are analysed using data from a comparative EU research project in Copenhagen, Barcelona and Rotterdam. The book provides major new insights on how structures, networks and leadership in city governments shape the social innovation capacity of cities. It provides ground-breaking analyses of how governance structures and local socio-economic challenges, are related to the innovations introduced by these cities. The volume maps and analyses the social networks of the three cities and examines boundary spanning within and outside of the cities. It also examines what leadership qualities are important for innovation. Innovation in City Governments: Structures, Networks, and Leadership combines an original analytical approach with comparative empirical work, to generate a novel perspective on the social innovation capacity of cities and is critical reading for academics, students and policy makers alike in the fields of Public Management, Public Administration, Local Government, Policy, Innovation and Leadership.

This open access book represents one of the key milestones of DESIGNSCAPES, an H2020 CSA (Coordination and Support Action) research project funded by the European Commission under the Call "User-driven innovation: value creation through design-enabled innovation". The book demonstrates that adopting design allows us to embed innovation within the city so as to arrive at feasible answers to complex global challenges. In this way, innovation can become disruptive, while also sparking a dynamic of gradual change in the "urbanscape" it acts within. To explore this potential, the book puts forward the concept of "design enabled innovation in urban environments" and examines the part that the city can play in promoting and facilitating the adoption of design among public and private sector innovators. This leads to a potential evaluation framework in which a given urbanscape is assessed both in terms of its capacity for generating innovation, and of the nature (more or less design-dependent or design-prone) of the innovative initiatives it hosts. This thread of reasoning holds many promising implications, including a possible "third way" between those who dream of an alternative economic model where revenues and growth are sacrificed on the altar of social and environmental respect, and the supporters of the traditional market-based view, who feel it is enough to add a touch of responsibility and concern to a system that should continue rewarding the profitability of innovations. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The assessment report explores the innovative capacity of the Latvian public sector to understand how innovation can be better supported and leveraged to improve the public sector's effectiveness and impact. It provides an evidence base for the development of a public sector innovation strategy and action plan.

This report is a first-of-its-kind work to provide evidence on how cities’ investments in innovation and data use can pay off in powerful ways for residents. It offers analysis on the different ways local governments build capacity at the strategic and technical level, from organisational structure and strategy, to resource allocation and outcome evaluation.

In a time of unprecedented turbulence, how can public sector organisations increase their ability to find innovative solutions to society's problems? Leading public sector innovation shows how government agencies can use co-creation to overcome barriers and deliver more value, at lower cost, to citizens and business. Through inspiring global case studies and practical examples, the book addresses the key triggers of public sector innovation. It shares new tools for citizen involvement through design thinking and ethnographic research, and pinpoints the leadership roles needed to drive innovation at all levels of government. Leading public sector innovation is essential reading for public managers and staff, social innovators, business partners, researchers, consultants and others with a stake in the public sector of tomorrow. This is an excellent book, setting out a clear framework within which the practical issues involved in public sector innovation are explored, using insights drawn from extensive practical experience of implementing and supporting it. It draws on an impressive range of research and relevant wider experience in both public and private sectors and is written in a clear and persuasive style. The book offers an excellent synthesis of principles, practices and tools to enable real traction on the innovation management problem - and it ought to find a place on any manager's bookshelf. John Bessant, Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer and Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Exeter Business School

A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publication Sandford Borins addresses the enduring significance of innovation in government as practiced by public servants, analyzed by scholars, discussed by media, documented by awards, and experienced by the public. In The Persistence of Innovation in Government, he maps the changing landscape of American public sector innovation in the twenty-first century, largely by addressing three key questions: • Who innovates? • When, why, and how do they do it? • What are the persistent obstacles and the proven methods for overcoming them? Probing both the process and the content of innovation in the public sector, Borins identifies major shifts and important continuities. His examination of public innovation combines several elements: his analysis of the Harvard Kennedy School's Innovations in American Government Awards program; significant new research on government performance; and a fresh look at the findings of his earlier, highly praised book Innovating with Integrity: How Local Heroes Are Transforming American Government. He also offers a thematic survey of the field's burgeoning literature, with a particular focus on international comparison.