ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, innovation has become an increasingly dominating concern in public service. A large number of innovation projects are designed to improve the quality and effciency of the services that are provided to citizens. Sometimes the focus is on the development of new public services, professional competences and new ways of organizing public sector institutions; sometimes the aim is to involve various stakeholders in a collaborative development of innovative solutions to multidimensional problems such as environmental pollution, increased obesity, or fragmentation in spatial planning. Moreover, some of the problems society faces today are known as ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber 1973); they are complex, they cross administrative and functional boundaries, and they have no clear or permanent solutions (Agranoff and McGuire 2003; Koppenjan and Klijn 2004). In any case, a broad range of actors, including politicians, professionals and citizens, currently pin their hopes on innovation as the solution to a wide variety of societal problems.
