This paper presents the results of the content analysis of 139 Web of Science papers focused on collaborative innovation with external stakeholders of public administration, specifically on co-production and co-creation. The analysis included papers published between 2009 and 2018 and was based on a coding scheme consisting of 12 parameters grouped into four groups: paper descriptors, financial support of the research, methodological framework, and co-creation characteristics. The results reveal a considerable increase in researchers’ interest in co-production and co-creation in the context of public administration in the last few years. This is particularly the case in Northern and Western Europe, where Anglo-Saxon and Nordic administrative traditions dominate. Furthermore, the results show that co-creation is most often placed in the contexts of social policy and welfare, as well as health care. Over the selected period, research seldom addressed companies as a target group in the co-creation of public services—in comparison to citizens and internal users. More than three quarters of the papers observed were empirical and less than 20% were quantitative. In general, a lack of conceptual clarity was often identified through the interchangeable usage of the terms co-creation and co-creation and the low level of international comparison—the majority of the papers focused on case descriptions at a national level, even though collaborative innovation is strongly related to administrative traditions dominating in specific regions.

Purpose: This paper aims to develop a model that supports public organisations in making informed strategic decisions as to which public services are most suitable to be improved through co-creation. Thus, it first identifies the features that make public services (un)suitable for co-creation and then applies this knowledge to develop a multi-criteria decision support model for the assessment of their co-creation readiness. Design/methodology/approach: The decision support model is the result of design science research. While its structure is determined by a qualitative multi-criteria decision analysis, its substance builds on a content analysis of Web of Science papers and over a dozen empirical case studies. Findings: The model is comprised of 13 criteria clustered into two groups: service readiness criteria from the perspective of service users and service readiness criteria from the perspective of a public organisation. Research limitations/implications: The model attributes rely on a limited number of empirical cases and references from the literature review. The model was tested by only one public organisation on four of its services. Originality/value: The paper shifts the research focus from organisational properties and capacity, as the key co-creation drivers and barriers, to features of public services as additional factors that affect the prospect of co-creation. Thus, it makes a pioneering step towards the conceptualisation of the idea of “service readiness for co-creation” and the development of a practical instrument that supports co-creation in the public sector.

The paper addresses the issue of ex-ante evaluation of e-government projects. Many methodologies have been developed in the last 15 years in order to support such evaluations, but we still know very little about the impact of these evaluations on the

Purpose: The paper adopts a holistic approach to studying the scale and scope of organisational change resulting from the COVID-19 crisis within the Slovenian public administration. It aims to go beyond the relatively narrow research focus of existing literature, which is confined to short-term responses to the crisis affecting specific organisational aspects of public administration. Design/methodology/approach: Theoretically underpinned by Nograšek and Vintar’s (2014) upgrade of Leavitt’s diamond model, the paper employs a multi-case study design to explore the long-term implications of COVID-19-induced changes within the Slovenian public administration. Findings: The findings reveal an uneven impact of the COVID-19 crisis across Slovenian state administration organisations in terms of the scale and scope of changes, noting that the two key long-term changes – telework and new digital communication channels – have not become equivalent alternatives to traditional work and communication methods. Moreover, the paper identifies changes within the element “people” as the primary disruptors of organisational equilibrium, triggering a ripple effect of changes within other organisational elements. Originality/value: The paper debunks the myth about the “radical” impact of COVID-19 by concluding that long-term changes have not altered the essence of (Slovenian) public organisations, characterised as traditional public administration. Theoretically, it demonstrates the need for a new adaptation of Leavitt’s diamond model to explain organisational changes in turbulent/crisis times.

This article presents a decision support model (DSM) for assessing the quality of co‐creation processes and critically reflects on its applicability in the context of climate change mitigation in urban settings. While cities have become pivotal in addressing climate change, often through co‐creation, tools for evaluating urban climate‐related co‐creation initiatives remain scarce. Rather than advocating for a tool specifically designed for this context, the article seeks to offer a universal DSM developed through a systematic literature review and empirical case studies within the framework of the COGOV Horizon project. The DSM incorporates 19 attributes across three phases of co‐creation: stakeholder identification and mobilisation, the act of co‐creation, and its effects. The model is tested on the Bee Path initiative of the City of Ljubljana, a successful co‐creation project aimed at fostering a bee‐friendly urban environment and promoting self‐sufficiency. The results confirm the DSM’s applicability in assessing the success of co‐creation in the context of climate change policies at the city level of governance. Moreover, this tool offers a foundation model for further integration with emerging technologies to enhance decision‐making and guidance for public organisations. As such, the DSM serves as a practical tool enabling public organisations to critically reflect on their roles in co‐creation initiatives, identify areas for improvement, and enhance their capacity as co‐creators in future urban climate policies and beyond.

In April 2018, the Faculty of Administration of the University of Ljubljana organised a two-day international workshop on the role of public administration in public policies' design. The workshop consisted of four parts: three sessions and one round table. In the first session, discussion was about evaluating public administration and public governance. The second session focused on the identification of the key success factors for effective public policies in Slovenia. These sessions were initiated based on the research project “Development of the model for monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects in public sector”, known as the ATENA project. The project is co-funded by the Slovenian Research Agency for the period 2016–2019 (no. J5-7557) and led by prof. dr. Mirko Vintar (cf. Mencinger et al., 2017). The third session was motivated by the European research project EUPACK (European Public Administration Country Knowledge), focused on the analysis of public administration characteristics and performance in EU Member States (see Thijs, Hammerschmid & Palaric 2018). A special part of the workshop was devoted to the 15th anniversary of the Central European Public Administration Review. Here, a round table was conducted with the editors-in-chief of established public administration journals from the region, followed by an editors and reviewers recognition awards ceremony. The discussions were all very fruitful, also thanks to the participation of several internationally recognised scholars from the Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia, as well as around twenty representatives of Slovenian ministries, other administrative authorities and non-governmental organisations. In a dynamic debate that comprehensively covered the evaluation in public policy cycle and the role of public administration and university therein, numerous issues were discussed. Below is a report on the main topics discussed in the workshop.