As the CoSIE project aims to advance the active shaping of service priorities with end users, we want to share all the gained knowledge as it accumulates during the lifetime of this project. Here you can find all significant findings, publications and videos of CoSIE as soon as they are published.
This publication draws together some of the ‘big ideas’ emerging from the Horizon2020 project CoSIE (Co-creation of Service innovation in Europe) in the form of a discussion paper aimed at European, national and regional policy-makers. The big ideas emerging from CoSIE can be grouped together as ideas associated with 1) conceptualising co-creation, 2) implementing co-creation and 3) evidencing and evaluating co-creation in public service reform.
CoSIE assumes that co-creation becomes innovative if it not only concerns the reduction of the public expenditure, but if it manages also to meet social needs, and to empower the beneficiaries of policies, by changing socio-political relations and redistributing socio-political responsibilities.
More specifically, it aims to a) advance the active shaping of service priorities by end users and their informal support network and b) engage citizens, especially groups often called ’hard to reach’, in the collaborative design of public services. One way it does this is through the development of ten pilot cases, embedded in national contexts, which strongly differ in socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-economical dimensions.
Complex societal challenges, such as an ageing society in conjunction with austerity in public services are immune to quick-fix solutions. Societal challenges are wicked in a sense that they have multiple possible solutions and the ‘goodness’ of each solution always depends on the adopted approach.
This policy brief acknowledges the conventional approach to social innovation in terms of innovative activities and services that are motivated by the goal of meeting societal needs. Such needs are predominantly disseminated through organisations whose primary purposes are societal, and who call for changes in both our thinking and our actions. Wicked challenges should not be thought of as problems to be solved per se, but conditions to be managed.
Drawing on public service logic, service-dominant logic for value (co)-creation and complexity thinking, this policy aims to broaden policymakers’ mindsets and provide heuristic tools to practitioners to capture emergent social innovation.
It proposes the following five recommendations: 1) support self-organisation and enable emergence, 2) cultivate the ecosystem of social innovation, 3) tackle uncertainty by providing small wins, 4) ensure diversity by promoting feedback and sense-making and 5) enrich interaction through digital technology. The recommendations emphasise the interactive nature of social innovation and speak of the need for systemic change.
The policy brief includes several highlights from the CoSIE project.
Various ‘co-processes’ (co-initiation, co-design, co-production, co-implementation) are enthusiastically celebrated initiatives for improving public services. While there are many similarities between the concepts, the distinctions lie in the role of key stakeholders particularly citizens and their representatives.
This paper argues that complexity of public innovation cannot be ‘solved’, but rather must be ‘managed’ in collaborative ways. Innovation is not seen as something that can be created in isolation in ‘laboratory settings’ and then delivered to the users/citizens. Instead, the paper’s rationale is based on the premises that public service innovations should be co-created with citizens and relevant stakeholders. Theoretically, the paper draws on public service logic and service-dominant logic for value (co)creation.
This paper draws together ideas about co-creation, social innovation, social investment and individual and collective values that underpin the CoSIE project and shows the relationship between these concepts and how they can support innovation in public services.
Publication: Rapid Evidence Appraisal of the Current State of Co-creation in Ten European CountriesThis Publication aims to shed light on the concepts of co-creation and social innovation as well as to investigate how they are used and utilized in Europe. REA has been used to identify and present co-creation policies in each participating CoSIE country. This report includes the presentation and evaluation of each policy, highlighting the gaps found in the field and the best practices implemented.
Policy Brief: Relevance, Understanding and Motivation – The Key Catalysts of Co-creation
This policy paper highlights the state-of-the-art of co-creation in service design in ten European countries and also lists some of the key challenges and successes of co-creation. The Policy Brief states that when successfully implemented, co-creation gives people a possibility to communicate, express their views and ideas and feel part of the design and implementation process but it can also have unintended and unwanted consequences if implemented without proper design and grassroots knowledge of the target group.
Towards a Roadmap for Co-creation – Practical Ideas and Useful Tools
This roadmap should be considered as a first stepping stone towards a roadmap for the co-creation of public services that will include many more types of stakeholders and will be constantly modified throughout the course of the CoSIE project. The roadmap looks to incorporate reflection and lessons learnt from all our pilot public service programmes in an effort to advance knowledge and share best practice in co-creation.
Publication: Enabling Co-creation through Twitter – A Guidebook for Research Project Communication
This guidebook instructs how social media, particularly Twitter, can effectively be used for communicating projects’ aims and achievements and for interacting with stakeholders. Although the guidebook focuses on Twitter, we believe that the findings can also be applied to other social media sites.