Why and for what purpose a public innovation lab at INAP?

Abstract

Public administrations need spaces for co-creation, design and experimentation different from the usual, very formalized and hierarchical, in which collaboration, empathy, communication and creativity encounter barriers and difficulties of different kinds. The most irrelevant thing is what we call these spaces, although lately the proliferation of innovation laboratories promoted by and in the public sector, with different configurations, according to the prevailing design centered on the user or citizen, or on the authorities or public professionals, is well known. The National Institute of Public Administration (INAP), currently under the Ministry of Finance and Public Function, has joined this search for new spaces for design in 2022, following the study “13 proposals for the reform of the State Administration”, produced and published in the INAP, with the creation of the Public Innovation Labotatory. The design of this laboratory can be peculiar considering its incardination in the INAP not as an organic unit, but as a transversal function to support with all its means and resources innovation projects promoted by public entrepreneurs (whatever their legal configuration), which intend to solve public problems and generate tangible and measurable results.