Overview

Editor:

Jason Potts
School of Economics, The University of Queensland

The public sector is by far the dominant service provider in the modern economy, particularly with respect to health, education, infrastructure, social insurance, culture, defence, security and justice. Yet its innovation record is often weak and its innovation practices are regularly dysfunctional. Despite the vast literature on public economics and management, there still remains a deficit of analysis of public sector innovation.

This special issue redresses that gap with a particular focus on:

1. Public sector innovation incentives

2. Public sector innovation practices and outcomes; and

3. Public sector innovation models and solutions.

The innovation performance of the public sector is significant in respect of the evolutionary capabilities of the entire economy. The opportunity costs of 'sub-prime innovation' in the public sector are thus cumulatively significant. Investment in  development of innovation in this sector is thus an unambiguous although widely unrealised public good.

In an evolving economy where the activities, technologies and industries are continually changing, so too must policy adapt and change simply to keep up: an evolving economy requires evolving policy. Public policy innovation is a basic criterion for the public sector to maintain position and relevance with the business and economic evolution of the private sector and the socio-cultural transformations that it drives. Public sector innovation is thus necessary to keep pace with, in the words of Will Baumol, 'the free market innovation machine'.

These two reasons give rise to a third consideration: the role of experimentation and its implications in public sector innovation practise. It is widely recognised that a major difficulty in public sector innovation is that the incentives to try new ideas are weak or even perverse, both from within the career paths of the public sector, and without in terms of public willingness to accept policy experiments. That issue is explored in this special edition.

This collection contains contributions from researchers of innovation and the public sector, proposals for improvement, reports of innovation policy experiments, critiques of innovation policy practise, and comparisons of public versus private sector innovation. It encourages a stronger innovation culture and is important reading for public sector employees and academics.

Table of Contents