Co-creation of public services: exploitation of digital technologies

Abstract

Inspired by the synergy between co-creation and digitalisation, the paper discusses a holistic digital approach to the practical implementation of co-creation at the level of public services. This is achieved by, firstly, a critical analysis of existing co-creation tools, and, secondly, presentation of the structure of the Co-Gov toolkit. The paper concludes that the existing offer of co-creation tools fails to tackle the service level; is limited to a specific policy area or specific phase of the co-creation process; and most importantly, lacks digital dimension. Hence, the Co-Gov toolkit aims to address the gaps noted with the help of its four digital tools: 1) the Co-Ready tool assessing organizational readiness for co-creation; 2) the Co-Serve tool supporting the selection of most suitable public services for renewal through co-creation; 3) the Co-Renew tool supporting the co-creation process during service renewal; and 4) the Co-Master tool assessing the quality of the co-creation process.