Collaborative innovation in the public sector: the argument

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in the question of how to spur innovation in the public sector, and recent research points to multi-actor collaboration as a superior innovation driver. This article explains why and how multi-actor collaboration may spur public innovation. It also discusses why we should expect different public and private actors to engage in demanding processes of collaborative interaction in order to produce risk-filled public innovations. Finally, it reflects on how it is possible to overcome the barriers to collaborative innovation through a combination of institutional design and the exercise of leadership and management.