Aca-article: Powering Collaborative Policy Innovation - Can Innovation Labs Help?

This article  examines the history, role and functioning of Denmark’s MindLab, an innovation lab that today is part of the Ministries of Business & Growth, Taxation, and Employment. We emphasise how the development of MindLab over time reflects a typology of different generations of innovation labs. Finally, we reflect on potential future directions for platforms for collaborative innovation in the public sector.

Authors: Helle Vibeke Carstensen, Director of Innovation, Ministry of Taxation, Copenhagen; Christian Bason, Director of Innovation, MindLab, Copenhagen.

Published in The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Volume 17(1), 2012, article 4.

Access the article for free: http://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/christian_bason_v17i1a4.pdf

Abstract
There is nothing inherently new in the idea of cross-cutting collaboration, “joined-up government‟ and “networked governance‟ (Pollitt, 2003; Hartley, 2005; Mulgan, 2009). However, in the last decade, new forms of internal units have been set up within public sector organisations with the explicit purpose of supporting innovation efforts. And in at least one case, such a unit has evolved into a permanent governance network – designed to foster crossgovernmental innovation. We start by discussing the underlying change logic of innovation labs.

The article then examines the history, role and functioning of Denmark’s MindLab, an innovation lab that today is part of the Ministries of Business & Growth, Taxation, and Employment. We emphasise how the development of MindLab over time reflects a typology of different generations of innovation labs. Finally, we reflect on potential future directions for platforms for collaborative innovation in the public sector.

Keywords: Innovation labs, collaboration, governance, policy development

Access the article for free: http://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/christian_bason_v17i1a4.pdf