Measuring public innovation in the EU: the STARPIN methodology

This work accounts for, and synthesises the main results of, the StarPIN project — Statistical Reporting on Public Innovation — developed by the Dipartimento di Economia, Società, Politica (DESP) of the University of Urbino, Italy, with the support of dialogic — innovatie. interactie, Utrecht, the Netherlands. The StarPIN project was supported by Eurostat’s Unit working on innovation statistics. The StarPIN team was composed of Annaflavia Bianchi, Claudio Cozza, Giovanni Marin, Robbin Te Velde, Antonello Zanfei, and Emy Zecca. Gregor Kyi and Giulio Perani were the Eurostat project managers and Stefania Panaitescu ensured editing and support. The project proposes a theoretical and a methodological framework for enriching the measurement ability of public sector innovation, and discusses the implications for data collection and analysis. A preliminary test of the framework is carried out by means of pilot applications to specific public services. The project focuses on public service innovation as a key locus of value creation for society, choosing an object-based rather than the more commonly adopted subject-based approach. Issues concerning the measurement of public service innovation are addressed in statistical terms and consistently with the official public sector functions classifications. The approach places particular emphasis on web-scraping to capture the technological level of websites used by public administrations, and to evaluate the degree of innovativeness of specific services within selected public functions. Data collected through web-scraping can be combined with administrative data at the level of individual services. The paper presents pilot applications to specific public services in a limited number of countries. The paper is structured according to the following steps: First a theoretical framework is sketched for the analysis of innovation in the public sector, focusing on service innovation and public value creation. Second, the consistency between public functions, public institutions and public service classifications is discussed. Third, the indicators of innovativeness are generated for selected public services. Fourth, the paper illustrates the main lessons learnt from the pilot application of the methodological framework, and draws implications for future research. A user manual is annexed to the paper for replicating the pilot tests described in the paper.