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Public sector innovation is a necessity, if we are to reduce public spending and address changing demographics. The public sector is lagging behind the private sector in transforming ideas into innovation, which made me question whether we are pursuing the wrong approach. This is not to say that I am questioning the abilities of people working in the public sector, but merely provoking a dialogue with the reader. You are all invited to join in!

Since 2009 we have been suffering a serious global economic crisis and the situations in most small countries, including Denmark, has been very difficult due to growing unemployment and unsustainable public finance deficits. This crisis has occurred at a time of structural problems related to an ageing population. InnovationManagement interviewed Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Professor in the Department of Business Studies at Aalborg University, on the role of innovation and innovation policy in this context.

The most recent European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS, 2009), ranks Denmark among the top-five innovation leaders, an impressive number that hides a rather grim reality. Denmark and two other of the countries in the top-five, Sweden and the United Kingdom, have not experienced annual growth in innovation performance and thus are the slow growers among the innovation leaders. In Denmark’s case, one of the reasons for this is that Danish companies are not entering into external collaborations, according to Jeffrey Saunders, Futurist at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, in a presentation to the Danes Abroad Business Group Online forum. The EIS shows an 8% decline over the last five years in the collaboration among innovative SMEs in Denmark.

‘Early adopters’, ‘trendsetters’, ‘opinion leaders’, ‘first movers’ – are the labels describing those who are ahead of the mainstream, who are keen to try out new things. But do these terms describe the same attributes – or are there subtle differences? If so, what is the difference and how can companies proactively incorporate using these groups and their insight into their innovation management process.

It is coming our way, and we had better be prepared and ready. What (probably rightly) began in the legal industry is hitting management consultancy: an outcry against paying by the hour and paying premium rates for consultants just out of business school. Let me be straight out: I am worried but excited! Worried because I foresee a market shift that will erode and potentially eradicate the business model of management consultancy as we know it today. Exited because we (the readers), through InnovationManagement, have the chance to innovate the business model!

The paradigm of innovation as driven primarily by technology and science is passé. A new paradigm is emerging, with the publication of success stories of companies innovating through other ways. The Danish and Finnish governments jointly funded a study into the new nature of innovation, as a contribution to the OECD’s work on innovation strategy. Innovationmanagement.se asked the FORA team behind the report to present the highlights. FORA is a research and analysis division under the Danish Authority for Enterprise and Construction

We have flipped the calendar and entered a new decade. It is a month since the closure of COP15, and we are still analysing results. Innovations were claimed to be the drivers required to reduce CO2-emissions. And, in this context, COP15 kicked off an innovation management process, involving heads of states, and a steering committee, and it was hoped would show the way to a better tomorrow. What went wrong and why did it go so wrong?

1 December 2009 was the date when the Lisbon Treaty came into force. It is aimed at streamlining the internal decision-making process to make the EU a more democratic, efficient and transparent union. Does this mean a more prominent role in facilitating innovation?

From an innovation management perspective, we think Denmark is a really interesting country. For example; the world’s first government sponsored user driven innovation program with an aim to strengthen the diffusion of methods for user driven innovation is to be found in Denmark. So is SPIRE, the newest research centre at the Mads Clausen Institute which is concerned with research in participatory innovation in collaboration with social scientists, human scientists, local industry and a theatre group.

The countdown has started; the last bilateral negotiations are becoming frenzied as we approach the opening date for the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. A pattern is emerging where countries are embracing this opportunity to show leadership and managing the event as a contingency. The pattern is one of A and B teams of countries, a pattern similar to that in Danish companies investing in innovation.