The first step in the comprehension of any concept is primarily to understand the context in which it develops or to which it is linked. The same applies to the subject of interest of this thesis: when we talk about public sector innovation, we cannot ignore the need to analyse the current context in depth.

First of all, it is necessary to make a premise that introduces what the historical moment in which this phenomenon takes place is. Today, we are talking about what is defined as the 'Service Revolution', that is namely the continuation of what was the Industrial Revolution in the twentieth century. The Present is witnessing the overwhelming emergence of a service-based economy, as, in a world saturated with physical objects, attempts are being made to redesign and rethink user experiences rather than the final physical product (Tassi, 2019).

Nowadays, we are additionally living in a world of quick changes and transformation, narrowed by the advent of new technologies that are radically shifting the reality we were used to. Innovative apps augmented reality, artificial intelligence, are just some among the multitude of technological protagonists of this ‘story’. In this scenario, technological evolution has therefore significantly contributed to the so-called 'servitization', i.e. an exponential growth in the role of services in everyday life. 

On the one hand, it is no longer possible to draw a clear line between what is considered a 'product' and what is instead a service: the two universes are increasingly inevitably connected, and this has contributed to eradicating the distinctive cornerstones of the society resulting from the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, this phenomenon has literally overwhelmed both the public and private sectors, forcing the two worlds to adapt to the changes taking place. 

Obviously, the 'slimness' of most companies has meant that this has not represented a big issue for the private sector. The same cannot be said of the public one. Therefore, this reality in continuous development, make classic models and standard structures not anymore suitable to face present challenges. Slow processes, paper-based procedures, old methodologies, and so on, are all obsolete elements that are not working in today’s scenarios. Administrations are trying to change and improve their current offer to go hand in hand with the developing technologies, also to take advantages from their vast potential in the public field. Governments all over the world are trying to understand how they can best deal with the advent of technologies to better face the future requests, trying to anticipate scenarios and possible situations and provide solutions also for hidden public needs.

The crisis is another actor to be considered in the Present ecosystem. If we think about the past, we can notice that, somehow, we are living, again and again, similar situations since a long time: many historical events seem to be a kind of cycle. For example, we know that many countries – no matter how big or powerful they were – have faced periods of crisis which have often been overcome thanks to changes. Nowadays, governments are living a new period of crisis, not merely economic in nature. To fight against all of this, a lot of public administrations are putting their trust in the power of innovation, and they are trying to change the public sector as a first step.

Moreover, this state of crisis has also affected and still affects citizens: more and more countries are experiencing a period of total distrust on the part of urban communities towards the public sector. In this case, the innovation required must also be directed towards bridging this gap and rebuild the public trust and confidence in the public administration.

Another key facet of the context is, of course, the geographic one. In particular, when dealing with public sector innovation is not possible to ignore the actual importance of cities. 

As previously mentioned, the public sector can have a national, provincial and local (city) dimension, but, due to context peculiarities, is usually very hard to make large scale innovation plans. For this reason, the urban dimension embodies the perfect space for test and innovation prototyping before stepping into a larger scale action. Cities represent then the experimental unit for more significant changes, given the importance that the urban sphere has acquired in the last decades. 

Moreover, accordingly to the 2018 United Nation’ report, “in 2018, an estimated 55.3 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban settlements. By 2030, urban areas are projected to house 60 per cent of people globally, and one in every three people will live in cities with at least half a million inhabitants” (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018). The realisation that cities contain more than half of the world's population has triggered fears and perplexity along with the urgency of having to prepare to meet the growing demands of the urban community of tomorrow's cities (Sudjic, 2016). Analysing trends, urbanisation patterns and citizens needs is fundamental to face the coming transformation and to respect of the 11th UN Sustainable Development Goal, “to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, in order to deliver a better world to tomorrow’ generations (United Nations, 2018).

Most people can agree that cities are places where large numbers of people live and work; they are hubs of government, commerce and transportation. This is the reason why innovating the public sector is the first primary step towards making urban realities more sustainable and more human-centred. 

As already mentioned, in order to delimit the perimeter of the research and define some reference contexts, the author has directed his analysis, part of the interviews and the research of the case studies, towards five cities in particular, three of them European (London, Milan and Helsinki) and two Asian (Singapore and Shanghai) (Figure4.5). 

Despite they may appear radically different, these five global cities are linked by common important aspects. All of them are the result of the last decades globalization trend and show in different and unique ways, the fruits of an innovation Era. Not for nothing, they all appear in the 50 most high-tech cities global ranking, published online by Business Insider (Leskin, 2019). Moreover, they have a strong international nature, one of the key aspects that significantly encouraged these realities to grow in the 21st Century. For this reason, it is possible to give them with the attribute of “global”. Global cities represent nowadays important commercial and economic joints, being simultaneously competitors, collaborators, but also connectors (Hu, 2017). They enjoy the most advanced services and technologies and their competitiveness is not only economy-based, but is linked with innovation, tolerance, sustainability, infrastructure and, of course, also governance. They represent big centers of human interaction and important nodes for cultural and economic exchanges. 

Figure4.5 – Cities overview

Another interesting aspect that allows an equal comparison among these five realities, is the fact that, due to the phenomenon of the globalization, cities become more similar since they follow analogous plans and strategies to foster success and innovation. This phenomenon encouraged in the past years the birth of the so-called ‘networked society’, where cities are not anymore an isolated unit, but they are incorporated into a larger system, becoming what experts call ‘informational cities’(Mainka, 2017). This concept refer to the urban realities not in terms of physical boundaries, but rather it interprets modern cities as a dense network of knowledge where citizens play a key role of translators who transform information into useful knowledge and vice versa. London, Milan, Helsinki, Singapore and Shanghai can be defined as 5 out of the total amount of 31 “informational cities” around the Globe. Additionally, accordingly to the Hofstede’s “Countries comparison” model, China, Finland, Italy, Singapore and United Kingdom, are all countries that are currently adopting a pragmatic approach, encouraging modern education as a way to prepare for the future (‘Compare countries’, 2017).

In the five cities, the creative industry is growing considerably, particularly in the last years and, while cities as London and Milan, have an already well-known and established fame, the other three are starting now to occupy higher position in global rankings (Metropolis, 2018; ‘The 16 Best Design Cities Around the World | Architectural Digest’, 2017).

Investigating the reality of the public sector innovation and, even more specifically, the service design-oriented one, it has been possible to make a distinction between pioneer realities and cities where the phenomenon is still under development. This was achieved by comparing research results, case studies and information from interviews. In addition, an analysis of external service design agencies that currently or previously collaborate with the public sector, has shown that their presence is mainly concentrated in London, Helsinki and Singapore, that are also the only locations (out of the five that the author analyzed) where there are studios completely focused in addressing public sector projects (two in London and Helsinki and one in Singapore). The following figure summarizes this analysis (Figure4.6).

In conclusion, London, Helsinki and Singapore are examples of pioneer cities, where the service design is currently working with the public sector toward an innovation process and the collaboration is already underway, while Milan and Shanghai, embody those contexts where the phenomenon is still developing, but the interest in the topic is growing.