Both, public and private sector, have a potential to be an active instigator of innovation. However, currently only the private one is perceived as actively pursuing this role while the public one is mostly depicted as constrained and uninventive regulator of public life. What is even worse, the latter also often believes in this depiction and restrains itself from creating an additional section of innovation to be added to a country’s or region’s portfolio. This situation is mostly noticeable in Europe, which despite all the favorable legal framework towards innovation, is yet to catch up with the inventiveness of the USA and some of the Asian countries.
When it comes to innovation in many countries within Europe, public sector is often perceived as a regulator of the field, maybe throwing one or two incentives for the private sector to take part in it, but not overindulging in the action itself. This assumption is misleading as public sector can play an active role in acquiring possible innovative solutions from businesses or research institutions for challenges that otherwise could not be effectively solved by traditional methods. All it needs is an open minded and enthusiastic spirit within the different levels of the authority institutions, better understanding and applicable skills of public procurement procedures and instruments that would reduce the inherent risks of innovations.
This means that both, managing authority of the public institution and the team of experts who execute its policies, have to be onboard with innovations stemming from the public sector. Moreover, these experts have to be skilled in public procurement procedures, understanding the legal framework behind it and finding opportunities rather than limitations in applying it for innovation. Finally, this means that there have to be measures applied to reduce the risks of innovations for their instigators (public sector) and creators (mostly private sector). Innovations are costly and they do not always work, therefore both sectors have to have some level of protection from those risks, either in a form of financial subsidies or as consultancy services.
Basically, if public authorities along with civil servants in Europe could be encouraged to take a proactive role in creating demand for innovation within the public sector and then receive relevant training materials to indulge into the craft of innovation public procurement reinforced with financial and consultancy instruments for public and private sector, innovation can become a major driving force for economic growth and competitiveness in the region. Let alone, it could lead to better quality and more efficient services from the public sector, save public official time in solving social challenges and reduced expenditure of tax payers’ money.
This is why we created iBuy – an international network of public institutions, innovation and procurement experts along with business support organizations that have achieved reasonable success in the area to share their experiences and provide support to the less advanced ones. It aims at convincing policy makers and other relevant stakeholders in different countries to enhance the culture of inventiveness in the office, make innovation public procurement part of the agenda and provide measures for civil servants and businesses to engage in the process of innovating.
We started by identifying public sector institutions and other projects that have taken steps towards innovation in public sector and extracting the best learning points out of them. There are regions that are far ahead of others in terms of public sector boosting a demand for innovation and private sector trying to provide solutions for the challenges given to it. These regions either did something right or have right conditions for cooperation in the spirit of innovation. This is something other regions can relate to or start their own path from it.
We then created an online library for innovation public procurement in seven European countries gathering all sorts of information on different regulations, implementation techniques and success factors in order to provide public sector with better understanding of the field and maybe some ideas for developing training materials in the future.
And finally, we will provide arguments for public authorities to proceed with innovation in public sector by innovation public procurement in every European country represented by the iBuy network so that they can become more innovation-prone entities and increase general competitiveness of the region.
By the end of the implementation of the project we expect countries represented in the iBuy network to set some sort of goals for boosting innovation in the public sector. With iBuy we strive for innovation to become a regular object of procurement enhancing the overall inventiveness and competitiveness of regions involved in the project.
