Recognising the significant role of collaborative innovation in Innovation Studies is something of paramount importance. As seen in the ‘Public Service Innovation Networks (PSINs): Collaborating for Innovation and Value Creation’ report included in the Deliverable ‘D6.1: 4th Empirical approach to value co-creation in public services: structural transformations’ there have been serious advances in the collaborative and network nature of research and innovation.
Benoît Desmarchelier, Faridah Djellal and Faïz Gallouj from the University of Lille introduce a new form of expression of innovation networks called PSIN (Public Service Innovation Network), which takes seriously innovation in public services or in public service, the participation of citizens and third sector organizations, and the intangible forms of innovation. At the same time, PSINs can be considered as forms of innovation, instruments for public policy, and palliative solutions for deprived and weakened public services.
In specific, PSINs are defined as ‘multi-agent collaborative arrangements that bring into play a variable number of public and private agents, especially citizens, in order to co-produce technological and non-technological innovations and ultimately co-create value, in the field of public services (sectoral perspective) or public service (functional perspective)’.
By examining what distinguishes PSINs from the three paradigms of public administration, Traditional Public Administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance, the authors aim to establish a dialogue between ‘service studies’ and ‘public management studies’. In order to further understand innovation, Benoît Desmarchelier, Faridah Djellal and Faïz Gallouj investigate how these paradigms can be associated with the assimilation, demarcation and integration perspectives used in “Service Innovation Studies”.
In addition, in the literature review, the authors identified five types of innovation networks, Traditional Innovation Networks (TINs), Public Private Innovation Networks in Services (PPINSs), Market Services Innovation Networks (MSINs), Public Service Innovation Networks (PSINs), and Public Service Innovation Networks for Social Innovation (PSINSIs) that reflect the ‘tertiarization’ of the innovation network concept. As a result, this report aims to explain this ‘tertiarization’ and to provide an original mapping of the innovation networks, in the wider context of the service economy.
Last but not least, the report analyses in-depth the PSINs, both from a structural and a dynamic point of view and attempts to distinguish them from traditional innovation networks (TINs) and public-private innovation networks in services (PPINSs). To summarize the results, the shift from TINs to PPINSs and MSINs and then to PSINs and PSINSIs can be said to reflect the rise of services and non-market activities (the tertiarization of the concept of innovation network) and therefore of invisible innovation (including social innovation), and non-planned and emergent innovation.
Traditional innovation networks (TINs) can be said to constitute the visible tip of the iceberg of innovation networks, while the other less known types of innovation networks are the submerged parts. However, the different types of innovation networks are not independent of each other, as it is shown in the Figure below.
The innovation network iceberg
Overall, PSINs constitute an important socio-economic issue now acknowledged by the public authorities at the national and European level. Although PSINs are increasingly taken seriously in contemporary economies, efforts are nevertheless needed to theoretically reinforce this concept. On a political level, it is necessary to envisage public policies (in particular vertical or specific ones) that would help support the formation, functioning and performance of these networks, by taking into account the diversity of forms of PSINs that we have highlighted in this research.
About Deliverable 6.1: Fourth empirical approach to value co-creation in public services: structural transformations
This deliverable aims at understanding how the interaction between public and private actors is leading to the collective creation of value. This document includes (i) a general theoretical framework, (ii) five reviews of the national literature carried out in partners’ countries (Denmark, France, Hungary, Norway and Spain), and (iii) a series of empirical case studies conducted in these five countries.
You can read the Deliverable D6.1 with the included report ‘Public Service Innovation Networks (PSINs): Collaborating for Innovation and Value Creation’ here.
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay.