Public sector - what now?

Together they will discuss how public sector innovation, increasingly, contributes to economic growth. Prominent researchers such as Professor Eric Von Hippel, MIT (US) and Professor David Barry, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) will be present at the workshop.

MindLab is a cross-governmental collaboration between the Ministry of Taxation, the Ministry of Employment and the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs. MindLab is created to break down the boundaries of innovation. Paving the way for solutions across areas of legislation and involving citizens as equal sparring partners in the process.

The Minister of Taxation Kristian Jensen opened the workshop and, amongst others things, said as follows: "When we look at the demographical changes; the citizens' expectations to public service; the need for flexible solutions, which reflects that the normal workday is not necessarily from 8 to 16; then we have to rethink the public sector. We cannot solve it with more funding. We cannot solve it with more available hands - which we do not have. We need innovation."

Innovation in the public sector needs to be on the top of the agenda. Employees have to learn to think differently. The culture of innovation has to change. Can we rethink our public institutions, laws and processes to better support business and make our country more competitive? Can we make Denmark an even more attractive place for people to live and to work? Can we find better solutions that enable us to get more people who have fallen through the educational system out into the labour marked, and tap their productive resources? These are some of the questions that being an even more innovative public sector should help us solve.

The results from the workshop can be found here.

For further information about the workshop, please contact: Helle Vibeke Carstensen, tel. (+45) 4091 5599 or Christian Bason, tel. (+45) 2067 3628