Designing and implementing innovation policy in the public sector : the Italian experience

Abstract

Compared to other industrialised countries, Italy has generally lagged behind, at least in chronological terms, in the introduction and concrete implementation of New Public Management (NPM) principles. Nonetheless, the public administration system showed remarkable dynamism in designing and implementing public innovation policy and, particularly, in traducing the policy into initiatives and projects able to spread the very concept of innovation and support it, though unevenly and haltingly, throughout the country.

In order to understand the scope and the drivers of the innovation policy in Italy, it seems important to introduce some features the country presented in adopting NPM philosophy and techniques, focusing then on the Italian public administration reform in the 1990s, and particularly on its critical aspects.

This premise is important because the very innovation policy addresses many of these critical aspects. After positioning the very public sector innovation policy field in the debate on innovation management and on administrative reform, the paper analyses more in depth the concrete experiences of implementing this policy through programmes mostly carried out by the central government.

The 100 Projects, the Finalised Projects, and other initiatives either awarding or supporting the innovation exchange among different administrations, are studied in order to assess the changes and adaptation of these tools and to figure out which have been the critical aspects and the challenges in implementing the innovation policy in the public sector. The ultimate goal of this paper is to contribute to the debate on innovation in the public sector by clarifying which role central co-ordinating agencies might have in designing and implementing the innovation policy in the public administration.