The case for change

In the midst of a fragile economic recovery across the European continent and stressed public finances, many governments are faced with long-term issues such as ageing societies, mounting social security and healthcare costs, high youth unemployment and an outdated public service infrastructure that lags behind the needs of modern citizens and businesses. The ICT driven explosion of new business models, geographical dispersion of production and social media are also challenging the way governments operate and, above all, how they are perceived.

Research has shown that the public sector has been fostering innovation in the private sector, from smaller innovations to more radical ones like railroads and the Internet. The public sector provides both funding to private companies and develops key technologies itself, like nanotechnology, by investing in the early stages of these technologies when uncertainties are too high for private companies.