Innovation is often articulated as a panacea for addressing social, environmental and economic problems in the modern world. The concept of innovation in any field is seen as capable of driving and catalysing significant changes and transformations. These transformations are increasingly urgent in view of the many wicked problems that our societies are facing today. This conference focuses specifically on the contribution of public innovation, broadly understood as innovation of governance, policies, services and arrangements in the public sector.

In the public sector, innovation has long since taken on multiple meanings with an emphasis on the transformations and innovation required in the management, delivery, and governance of public services. Governments need to innovate their institutions, systems, and processes to balance the dimensions of sustainable development and to manage change. They need to rethink how they support coherent policy frameworks and institutional arrangements and how they make decisions by engaging all stakeholders.

Further, in innovation and change, particular attention is increasingly being paid to sustainability, which has become a value and guide for public institutions, especially during the pandemic and post-pandemic years. This includes both the need for sustainable public services and for sustainable communities and a sustainable environment.

The PUBSIC conference series is committed to supporting and profiling research on public service innovation (PSI) that addresses this need. Previous PUBSIC Conferences have now taken place in Shanghai, Budapest, Lillehammer, Milan, Stavanger, and Venice. The 2025 conference in Utrecht will focus specifically on the relations between public innovations and societal transformation. It will explore:

• How public innovation can contribute to the different transformations of society, the social, sustainability and digital transformation;
• To what extent public innovation actually strengthen current practices rather than stimulating fundamental transformation;
• Whether we can strengthen our theoretical understanding of public innovation by bringing in transition theory;
• What we as scholars can do to contribute to the transformations that are urgently needed in response to the wicked problems our societies are facing.

The PUBSIC Conference is supported by the Horizon Europe Project PADST. The PADST Project is an innovative EU-funded project led by the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at TalTech. The project mission is to enhance research excellence in the realms of public administration, digital transformation, and sustainable transitions. At the PUBSIC Conference, there will be a series of specific sessions on the ‘twin transition’, the interconnection between the digital and the sustainability transformations. For that reason, we would like to specifically invite contributions that focus on government capacities for the twin transition.

For further information on PUBSIC 2025, contact either  the conference chair prof. Albert Meijer (a.j.meijer@uu.nl) or the conference manager Fleur Stalenhoef (e.f.stalenhoef@uu.nl).