ARCHIVE - Public innovation: what, why, but above all how

Séminaires pour spécialistes et cadres (SSC)

Contemporary public administrations face challenges on an unprecedented scale. Societal problems are becoming ever more complex, citizens’ expectations are constantly growing and new technologies are evolving rapidly (the digital revolution, big data, social networks, etc.). The challenges are not only great but also urgent. One only has to think about the environmental and ethical imperatives currently pushing administrations towards action. And all this must be done without losing sight of the ever-present internal challenges linked to respecting financial rules and human resources management practices which often create highly restrictive frameworks within which political leaders and public administrators are forced to work. Faced with this, and more than ever before, public services must have the capacity to anticipate and analyse needs for change and then implement innovations which render public actions more coherent and effective. Those public services must also remain faithful to the foundational values of a democratic State, within the law and in line with the political projects framing administrative action.

To a large extent, public innovation depends on the capacity of managers at all levels to understand the mechanisms of innovation, provide leadership that is favourable to it and put in place the conditions necessary for their colleagues’ transformational energies to be unleashed. But how should that be done?

By the end of the seminar, participants will have analysed and compared their public innovation practices with the help of the following inputs or aids:

• An overview of the principal challenges and opportunities linked to public innovation
• The application of a diagnostic tool to estimate their department or organisation’s capacity for public innovation
• The use of a three-dimensional exercise (organisational, departmental, managerial) enabling administrators to catalyse their capacity to innovate, using examples and practical tools, and resulting in a personalised action plan
• An exchange of experiences on the steps implemented by the participants, four months later (morning of 29 May).

This seminar is targeted at all persons with executive management roles or specialists heading projects aimed at transforming public action, whether at the strategic level (public policy) or at the operational one (public services). It is also designed for the heads of transversal public services such as finance, human resources or information technology.

• French is the main teaching language for this program
• More information available on the corresponding pages