On November 13th-14th 2017, the Co-VAL (Understanding value co-creation in public services for transforming European public administrations) project consortium held its Kick-off meeting. The meeting was hosted by Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences at the Scandic Lillehammer Hotel in Lillehammer, Norway.
The Co-VAL project is a new European research initiative, co-funded under the H2020 programme, which aims to discover, analyse, and provide policy recommendations for transformative strategies that integrate the co-creation of value in public administrations. To accomplish these objectives, research will be conducted on the paradigm shift from the traditional top-down model to demand and bottom-up driven models. In extend, the project will examine cases when citizens, civil servants, private, and third sector organizations voluntarily participate in the development of transformative innovations addressing changing needs and social problems.
Co-VAL will push the boundaries of both research and practice by providing:
- a comprehensive and holistic theoretical framework for understanding value co-creation in public services from a service-dominant logic and a service innovation multiagent framework,
- measurement and monitoring for transformations in the public sector by using both existing data and new metrics (large-scale survey),
- investigation on 4 public-service-related co-creation areas of public sector transformation: digital transformation (including open platforms, big data, and digital service delivery), service design (including service blue-printing), government living labs, and innovative structural relationships (public-private innovation networks and social innovation), and
- generation of sustainable impacts in public administration policy and practice by delivering actionable policy recommendations that build on the research findings, by tracking and monitoring how governments’ pilot projects and actions are in line with the research-based recommendations , and by facilitating peer to peer knowledge exchange to facilitate implementation.
The main objectives of this meeting included:
- Official initiation of the project and partner introductions;
- Foster a common vision and approach for the project among partners;
- Ensure partner responsibilities, activities and tasks outputs are aligned;
- Introduce the project management approach and explain coordination procedures including administrative requirements;
- Determine key priorities for the first phase of the project;
- Agree on a detailed plan for the next six months period.
The Co-VAL project is a collaboration between 12 partners from 11 countries: Athens Technology Center SA (Greece), that is coordinating the project; Universidad de Alcalá (Spain); The University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Universitat Konstanz (Germany); Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille – LILLE I (France); The Lisbon Council for Economic Competitiveness and Social Renewal asbl (Belgium), Universiteit Maastricht (Netherlands), Høgskolen i Innlandet (Norway), Roskilde Universitet (Denmark), Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy), Budapesti Cornivus Egyetem (Hungary), and PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory SpA (Italy).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 770356.