6 February 2020
From 29 to 31 January 2020, CenSE Director Stephen Osborne was in Norway at the University of Stavanger, coordinating the 5th PUBSIC conference on public service innovation (PSI). Previous conferences took place in Shanghai, Budapest, Lillehammer, and Milan.
Over 120 participants gathered together for two days to discuss the state of PSI research. The conference commenced with a stimulating paper on political leadership and innovation from Eva Sorensen (Roskilde University). She offered a model for effective political leadership of PSIs. The conference then closed with Ilpo Laitinen (Helsinki City Council) talking about the pre-conditions for effective innovation as a part of ‘Smart cities’.
Between these keynote papers, the conference included panels on:
- HR and the pre-conditions for PSI
- Co-creation, co-production, and PSI
- Digital technology, AI, and the delivery of public services
- Strategy management and leadership, and PSI
Professor Osborne presented a paper with Dr Kirsty Strokosch (Research Fellow in CenSE) on co-creation and PSI. This was based on their work on the European H2020 CoVal project on value creation in Europe, and explored the dynamics of co-creation and the co-design of public services to produce effective PSI.
The 6th PUBSIC conference will take place at Ca’Foscari University in Venice, Italy in January 2021, and the 7th PUBSIC conference will be at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.