GRIPS newsletter no 9
editorial on public services. (full text that had to be edited down, below)

and a blast from the past:

S Metcalfe and I Miles, 1997, “Services: Invisible Innovators?” presented at: Conference on Service Sector Productivity and the Productivity Paradox Ottawa, April 11-12 1997 http://www.csls.ca/events/confers/metcalfe.pdf



Public Service Innovation

This editorial draws on a few of the ideas developed at the recent INNO-GRIPS policy workshop on Public Sector Innovation.

Discussion at the workshop reflected a consensus on at least three points. First, public services are often highly innovative- competitive pressures and social concern drive innovation here. But, second, there are strong barriers to innovation and its diffusion in many public service organisations. Third, social, political and economic arguments underline the importance of stimulating more innovation in public services. Public service innovation should support the objectives of these services and not just reinforce the agenda of specific professions or organisations. Social and technological changes mean, too, that we may need to reconsider the objectives of public services. The Grand Challenges that Europe confronts can be translated into Grand Ambitions for our public services, in a world where citizens are increasingly demanding and informed users of services and agents of change in their own right.

Many public service innovations remain localised when they could be adopted more broadly to great effect. Knowledge about such innovations is lacking and those confronting problems need ways of finding out what public service innovations have been successfully brought to bear on similar problems elsewhere and tools to help them assess the requirements for adaptation of these innovations in new contexts. Such relevant experience may come from private or third sector providers of public services, as well as national and local government bodies.

There is also the issue of service objectives and outcomes. While there are many incremental innovations to diffuse that can improve service quality, we also need to consider more transformative innovations that can ensure the achievement of social goals. This may mean borrowing models from private sector organisation and management – an example is the way in which NHS Direct in the UK, inspired by telephone banking services, provides a first port of call for people facing health problems to get advice on which public services to turn to. While there are issues of access to consider, newer technologies, such as the Web and mobile phones, and emerging devices like health monitoring systems, could be used to restructure relations between citizen/consumers and care providers in dramatic ways. Public services should learn from external experiences but they can also be sources of innovation in their own right, and influence innovation elsewhere through demonstration effects and procurement.

Public service innovation is important for addressing societal challenges, maintaining economic dynamism and improving quality of life But fostering such innovation is more than just a matter of better dissemination of information and sharing of experiences. It will involve the development of tools for service design and engineering, the creation of spaces for creativity and testing of ideas and learning methods of innovation management. It will require leadership that can promote innovation, pay attention to ideas emerging from all stakeholders, and challenge the risk-averse culture of many public organisations.

We cannot hope to achieve all of these conditions overnight, but progress on even a few of them could help unleash innovation, and good examples in one dimension or at one location may inspire change elsewhere. Then we can look forward to public services being seen, not as laggards, but as exemplary innovators.

New editorial for GRIPS newsletter:

Ian Miles 2009, Editorial, P2 Inno-GRIPS Newsletter n°7 April 2009
Available at:
http://grips.proinno-europe.eu/?p[n1]=newsletter

PRO INNO Europe: INNO-Grips
contributions to several issues of this:

Special issue (Feb 2009) : Kathryn Morrison, Paul Cunningham and Ian Miles, 2009 “What can innovation offer - in terms of faith, hope and charity?”

Ian Miles 2009 Editorial: “Riding Out the Storm - or Rising above it?”

(also editorials in issues 3 and 4)
Inno-GRIPS Newsletter n°6 January 2009: Yanuar Nugroho & Ian Miles 2009 "Linking Microfinance and Innovation"

Inno-GRIPS Newsletter n°4 July 2008 Ian Miles, "“Innovation Culture”

Thinking Ahead on e-Skills in Europe Executive Summary

(CEPIS, 2006) no attribution, but authors were: Matthew Dixon, Con Gregg, Ian Miles, Lawrence Green

The main report by these authors “Thinking Ahead on e-Skills for Europe” seems a little elusive online. but the Annexes are here


e-Skills Background report: This is:
THINKING AHEAD ON e-SKILLS FOR THE ICT INDUSTRY IN EUROPE:
Harnessing our Strengths and Diversity for the World Stage
Background Paper (separated out, at the request of the European Commission, from the Project Report on e-Skills Foresight Scenarios for the ICT Industry, provided for clarification purposes in support of that Report; mainly, if not entirely, prepared by Matthew Dixon; a lot of clarification on definitions etc.), Council of European Professional Informatics Societies
November, 2007

IMPRESS: Project
This project contains the report "The Impact of Clean Production
on Employment in Europe – An Analysis using Surveys and Case Studies" published in 2000
by (ZEW) Klaus Rennings, Thomas Zwick, Suhita Osório-Peters
(FEEM) Matteo Bartolomeo, Andrea Marsanich
(MERIT) Rene Kemp, Anthony Arundel, Leann Chervenic-Poeth
(PREST) Ian Miles, Steven Glynn
(FHSO) Najib Harabi, Mathias Binswanger, Annette Jochem
at: ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/impress/Finalreport_for3_2.pdf

Rafael Popper, Michael Keenan, Ian Miles, Maurits Butter, Graciela Sainz de la Fuenta 2007, Global Foresight Outlook 2007 for the
EFMN Network at

http://www.foresight-network.eu/files/reports/efmn_mapping_2007.pdf

Hidden innovation in the creative industries

Ian Miles and Lawrence Green, July 2008, Hidden Innovation in the creative industries published by NESTA, London

Innovation has been a subject of serious academic and policy interest for several decades. The ‘creative industries’ have been studied for a shorter period of time, but perhaps more intensely. However, we do not understand well the process of innovation within the creative industries, nor how waves of innovation from elsewhere impact upon them. Since they represent a large and fast-growing part of our economy, this gap in our understanding needs to be remedied.

This research project uses the tools of ‘traditional’ innovation research to explore, analyse and compare innovation in four sectors that are critical to the UK’s creative future: videogames development, product design, advertising, and independent broadcast production. Technology is an important driver of innovation in all four sectors, but much innovation remains ‘hidden’ – uncounted by traditional innovation indicators. Moreover, the sectors studied display varied abilities to adapt to new technologies and increasing competition.

AT
PRO INNO Europe: INNO-Grips
"Editorial" p2 in Inno-GRIPS Newsletter n°3 April 2008, special issue on innovation for development

Short enough to reproduce here:

"Our preoccupation with the new challenges of climate change and an ageing population is understandable, given their seriousness. But many
of the old problems that beset humanity are still very much with us. Many people remain locked in extreme poverty, confronting hunger and disease
on a daily basis. Yes, there are political factors at play: bad governance, cross-border and domestic conflict, and lack of investment in nurturing human
capabilities. Is it too presumptuous to think that innovation will be part of the solution? After all, there has been considerable progress in many
regions of the world, in terms of economic growth and raised living standards (though often at a cost).

Innovation – in terms of technology transfer and diffusion; use of advanced technologies; and some advanced organisational techniques and service activities –
is certainly a substantial part of these success stories.

Of course, the theme of science and technology for development is
a long-established one. In Europe, the last peak in research and
practice was probably in the 1970s, before the neoconservative
approach to politics persuaded many decision makers that practically all problems would be solved by freeing up trade and investment, and
letting markets operate more freely. The world has changed substantially since then.

New fundamental technologies, globalisation, geopolitical change,
environmental problems, the rise of new “emergent economies”, and many other factors have redrawn the context for development. Or have they?

In the 1970s the situation facing developing countries was substantially different from that facing the industrialised countries a century or so
earlier. We were in a world where technologically advanced nations were investing heavily into further technology development; where corporations were organising their production and distribution in a new international division of
labour; where notions of “catch up” were counterposed against those of “appropriate
technology”. This did not prevent some countries from transforming themselves dramatically, in short periods of time, though this rests on the
basis of long-term investment and strategy.

Now, the countries that seem most locked into cycles of low growth and persistent poverty are facing a situation that is in some ways more
extreme (faced, for example, with the impacts of climate change). But there are also lessons to be learned from how others have achieved some
degree of development and even “catch up” (though the term is very imperfect): new
technologies; growing understanding of how innovation and knowledge
transfer strategies may differ from technology policies; decades of
practical experience in both top-down and grassroots mobilisation of
innovation for development.

It is in this context that INNOGRIPS organised its Think Tank
meeting on Innovation and the fight against Poverty, Hunger and Disease
in Rabat last December (2007), exploring how approaches to
innovation and development are responding to the new global context, and what lessons could be drawn from various approaches. A rich discussion
highlighted important areas for further work and identified issues to consider in policy formulation.

We hope that it will be the beginning of an ongoing set of dialogues on these themes. In this special edition of the newsletter we present a variety of interesting articles linked to these themes, which include an expert's view on
breaking down barriers to innovation and unlocking potential in developing countries; exploring the potential of the internet in transforming civil society organisations in a developing country, and we feature an example of
progress in doing innovation based business in India."

Patterns of innovation in service industries

IBM Systems Journal | Vol. 47, No. 1, 2008 - Service Science, Management, and Engineering

Patterns of innovation in service industries 2008, I. Miles
at

IBM
Systems Journal Vol 47 No 1 pp115-128 at
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/471/miles.html

Powered by ScribeFire.

found while surfing at http://lirne.net/resources/netknowledge/miles.pdf

which is Information Society Revisited: PICTuring the Information Society by
Ian Miles,
in Networking Knowledge for Information Societies: Institutions & Intervention

Edited by Robin Mansell, Rohan Samarajiva and Amy Mahan

2002 Delft University Press, all at http://lirne.net/resources/netknowledge/

DTI - Economics Papers related to SIA
on this page (lots of good stuff)n is:

J Butler, H Cameron, I Miles 2000,

Grasping the Nettle: a Feasibility Study concerning a Programme for research into the measurement and valuation of intangible assets

Report prepared for DTI: CRIC & PREST, University of Manchester, March 2000 49pp

at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file18830.pdf

Now on IPTS website:
Ramon Compañó, Corina Pascu, Jean-Claude Burgelman (JRC-IPTS),
Michael Rader (ITAS-FSK),
Roberto Saracco, Graziella Spinelli (TILAB),
Bernhard Dachs, Matthias Weber, Sami Mahroum (ARC-SYS),
Rafael Popper, Lawrence Green, Ian Miles (PREST) 2006
Foresight On Information Society Technologies For The European Research Area (Fistera): Key Findings
IPTS, Technical Report Series, EUR 22319.en
ISBN 92-79-02753-0 and ISSN: 1018-5593
is now downloadable from: ftp://ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/eur22319en.pdf

see the page at http://www.jrc.es/cfapp/reports/year.cfm?year=2006 for other IPTS reports, including some FISTERA.

CORDIS: Science and Technology Foresight
at this site, this publication:
PREST, TNO, SERVILAB, ARCS (2006) [IM main author] 2006
The future of R&D in services: implications for EU research and innovation policy
Brussels, European Commission DG Research (S&T Foresight Unit) Directorate K Unit K2
EUR 21959 ISBN 92 79 01209 6 available at: ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/foresight/docs/ntw_conf_services_report-en.pdf

Found on a Google Search:
The FISTERA Final REport has been opublished and seems to be onine unofficially as yet, at http://www.madrimasd.org/tic/Seleccion/Downloads_GetFile.aspx?id=5695:
This is:
Ramon Compañó, Corina Pascu, Jean-Claude Burgelman (jrc-ipts),
Michael Rader (itas-fzk),
Roberto Saracco, Graziella Spinelli (tilab),
Bernhard Dachs, Matthias Weber, Sami Mahroum (ARC-SYS),
and Rafael Popper, Lawrence Green, Ian Miles (PREST) 2006
Foresight On Information Society Technologies For The European Research Area (Fistera): Key Findings IPTS, Technical Report Series, EUR 22319.en ISBN 92-79-02753-0 and ISSN: 1018-5593

Manchester Knowledge Capital

This is the place to find:
PREST/CRIC The Institute of Innovation Research, 2006 (Sally Randles, Elvira Uyarra, Evita Paraskevopoulou, Brian Eaton, Ian Miles, Jeremy Howells)
The Use and Limitations of Indicators in the Context of City-Region Development Strategy: A Discussion Paper
prepared for Manchester: Knowledge Capital 24 May 2006

At the conference website for "The Measurement and Analysis of Innovation and Productivity Growth" 10-11 November 2005, Groningen GGDC Dseries
you'll find my paper:
Ian Miles “Services and R&D: Measurement and More”
http://www.ggdc.net/conf/wp9_conference/miles.pdf
Powerpoints for this are also available at http://www.ggdc.net/conf/wp9_conference/miles.ppt

Foresight
at http://www.foresight.gov.uk/Publications/Current%20round%20General%20Publications/Foresight_Evaluation_2006/Foresight_Evaluation_Final_Report_June_2006.pdf
PREST 2006 (Hugh Cameron, Luke Georghiou, Michael Keenan, Ian Miles, Ozcan Saritas)
Evaluation of the United Kingdom Foresight Programme: Final Report
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Mismatches in Priorities for Health Research
Carol M. Grant-Pearce, Ian Miles and Philip Hills 1998
Mismatches in Priorities for Health Research between Professionals and Consumers
Report to the Standing Advisory Group on Consumer Involvement in the NHS R&D Programme,
PREST mimeo, September 1998
Available online at: http://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/centres/engineering-policy/publications/reports.htm

CORDIS: Innovation Portal::

Three publications here:
Ian Miles and Paul Cunningham (with inputs from Deborah Cox, Christina Crowe and Khaleel Malik) 2006
Smart Innovation: A Practical Guide to Evaluating Innovation Programmes
Luxembourg, European Commission, available at:
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/innovation/docs/sar1_smartinnovation_master2.pdf
accompanied by ANRT/LLA/PREST reports (multiauthored)
Draft Terms of Reference for an EC Pilot Initiative
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/innovation/docs/sar2_draft_terms_ec_pilot_initiative_master2.pdf
Supporting the Monitoring and Evaluation of Innovation Programmes – Final Report
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/innovation/docs/smeip_finalreport_master2.pdf

Publin, innovation in the public sector, reports
and another report is contained here, mainly written by Paul to be honest (I did some interviews and a lot of editing, but he wrote 90% of this):
NHS Direct, An Innovation in Social Trust
By Paul Cunningham, Lawrence Green, Ian Miles and John Rigby
at
http://www.step.no/publin/reports/d12-3ukum.pdf