Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CoSIE (Co-creation of service innovation in Europe)

Teaser

The rising rate of complexity based on increasing uncertainty and interdependencies challenge the top-down approaches associated with governmentality. The top-down, centralized and hierarchical governance mechanisms and management practices need to be revised with more...

Summary

The rising rate of complexity based on increasing uncertainty and interdependencies challenge the top-down approaches associated with governmentality. The top-down, centralized and hierarchical governance mechanisms and management practices need to be revised with more collaborative and participative approach. This also answers to citizens’ expectations for effective and impactful citizen-centric services. The CoSIE project states that public sector service innovations and social innovations can be achieved by creating collaborative and co-creative partnerships between service providers and service beneficiaries.

The project contributes to democratic dimensions and social inclusion through co-creating public services by engaging diverse citizen groups and stakeholders. Utilizing blended data sources (open data, social media) with the innovative deployment of ICT (data-analytics, Living Lab, Community Reporting) the project introduces a culture of experiments for co-creating service innovations that encompasses various stakeholders. While the CoSIE consortium will actively search for new ways to use digital tools and open data as an enabler of co-creation in public services, our focus is on the human dimensions of co-creation and the role of co-creation in public service and social innovation. We implement CoSIE as a joint venture of 24 partners from 10 EU countries.

Work performed

According to GA, CoSIE is committed to produce 1) new co-creation skills 2) new knowledge and 3) new insight. During its first year, the project has contributed to all of these promises.

New skills are produced continuously along with the development of the project. For example, the UK and Swedish pilots both devoted substantial effort and resources to developing the skills and attitudes of street-level workers for co-creative practice.

The main contribution to 1) new skills is expected to rise from the two main methods used in the project: Community Reporting (CR) and Living Lab analyzing (LL).

The CR consists of methods that support citizens to express their opinions via stories and videos. To make this possible, we train pilot staff and peer group representatives to operate as community reporters, who interview and document the insights of the target groups. During the first year, 86 Community Reporters have been trained. In addition, 116 people have engaged in CR activities such as storytelling sessions and Conversation of Change events. So far, we have gathered 180 insight stories. These stories examine issues pertinent to the pilots (i.e. unemployment, youth marginalisation, experiences of probation services) and reflections on the co-creation and CR processes. The first versions of the written analyses and edited audio-visual content are produced in the UK, Spain, Estonia and Finland.

The LL enhance sense-making and co-creative design of the pilots and stakeholders by helping them to develop a set of models for roles, structures, processes and capacities.
Visual models support the exchange and learning between the pilots by giving them common language to represent their visions, developments and outcomes.

In 2018, we developed initial virtual and visual models in three pilots in Sweden, United Kingdom and Italy. We shared and presented these models in the internal Knowledge Transfer workshop in November. This event was essential to share emerging lessons with forthcoming pilots and to ensure learning from the more advanced pilots. The event provided forthcoming pilots concrete tools for working with their stakeholders. In addition, the event allowed the method to be refined, These sessions have been crucial for partners in clarifying the concepts of co-creation.

CoSIE’s main contribution to 2) new knowledge can be found in the actions of the first three pilots. All CoSIE pilots concentrate on finding more effective and innovative solutions to persistent problems of societies by innovation in ways to incorporate the legitimate knowledge of service receivers (end users). Already some success has been demonstrated for example in Sweden, where the pilot activities were integrated with the policy level programme (Dialogen).
Pilots apply and test co-creation methodologies in a pragmatic manner evaluated by academic partners via several methods, such as participatory observations, interviews, conversations and document collection.

We have prepared two documents to guide formative evaluation as well as evidence of impacts and lessons learned: Reporting Requirements & Evaluation Framework and CoSIE Evaluation Guidance. The first project report from November covers implementation and evaluation of the first pilots. The report documents and reviews background, initial implementation and preliminary findings from the pilots in Italy, Sweden and the UK. The conclusive report focuses on facilitating factors and challenges of co-creation. The main messages from the pilot evaluations are at:

- micro level: There is evidence of achievement in developing skills and attitudes of front-line workers through dedicated training with time for reflection.

- meso level: Co-creation implies interaction across organizational boundaries involving a wide range of stakeholders with diverse expectations and worldviews. Orchestrating collaborative interaction is demanding. Therefore realistic resources need to be allocated in pi

Final results

The CoSIE project has tackled one of the fundamental and most difficult challenges in involving both end users and service provides as well as decision makers in development process of services: to create a common language and common understanding about the co-creation process itself. The Living Lab method gives tools to visualize the complexity of the matters and tools to build a visual map for steps needed to achieve the expected change. Moreover, the Living Lab method is a forum for deliberation, where conceptions are modeled in collaboration. As such, the method provides a strong democratic dimension.

The Community Reporting method allows hard to reach groups to participate in service development by providing them innovative channels for delivering insights.

Utilizing blended data sources (open data, social media) with the innovative deployment of ICT (data analytics, Living Lab, Community Reporting) the project introduces a culture of experiments that encompasses various stakeholders for co-creating service innovations.

Succeeding in the overall effort to generate a model for co-creation – by co-creation – will create a remarkable tool for future public service development, going beyond the state of the art.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.cosie-project.eu.