Case Study Library

Together with partners from 5 other European countries, the Province of Fryslân developed an innovation model (so-called Tipping Approach) to catalyse and stimulate bottom-up innovations and harness ideas from local stakeholders. Complementing this, a governance model is being developed to provide civil servants with tools to implement these innovations in the social process in a simple and user-friendly way.

A lot of innovative activities are carried out by Dutch and other governments. Unfortunately, the impact is limited. Innovations are stand alone projects, not implemented or scalable within primary processes. This reference model supports the implementation of an innovation management system for governments. The starting point is an Innovation Maturity Scan. Tooling, training and handouts are available supporting a social and process innovation transition at governmental organizations.

Better ecosystem understanding is needed in the Western Balkans where governments face the challenge of aligning with the European Green Deal and Circular Economy amid EU enlargement discussions. This project implements an innovation policy for sustainable growth by introducing tools for territorial analysis to support development policies. It is the first regional effort of this kind, positioning existing circular economy challenge owners in a system viewpoint as part of a co-creation process.

Cities are confronted with complex problems which require collaboration across different levels and sectors of society. City Deals are issue-based partnerships for urban sustainable innovation between frontrunners in the public and private sector. Ministries, local and regional governments, and businesses working together to experiment and develop solutions for issues such as circular buildings, smart cities and shared electric mobility.

The iSPEX is a small attachment that can be fitted to any mobile phone to measure particulate matter in the air. The fact that this piece of technology empowers anyone to monitor air quality (citizen science) creates a raft of new possibilities to collect large volumes of data in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner. Aside from that, it raises awareness of particulate matter among the population.

Organisational development in a municipality within a framework set by the municipal council is not new. However, a local authority can still be innovative in how it designs such development and the role employees play in it. In Nijkerk (approx. 43,000 inhabitants), this has led to an organisation made up of 28 self-managing teams that come directly under the authority of the municipal clerk. Nijkerk went through a process where employees and the development of their talent came first.

The 3D map of the Netherlands has been available from the Dutch Land Registry Office since 2014 on an open data basis. This map is intended as a basic file that institutions from across the public and private sector can use for their purposes, such as to link data to and run analyses. It can, for example, be used to assess and calculate how wind turbines affect the local environment in terms of noise, flows of air, and the shadows they cast, but also to assess their visual impact in the…

The municipality of Zeist (approx. 64,000 inhabitants) faced the challenge of having to cut its spending by 6.2 million euros. A decision was made to take the innovative approach of engaging with citizens in a social discussion on possible spending cuts. Through this process of co-creation with its residents, the Zeist local authority not only managed to balance the budget, but it has also helped the local authority forge closer ties with the community and garner broader support for cutbacks.

Where organisations in the criminal law domain used to originally operate in a chain, things changed when a different approach to dealing with common crimes was adopted. The police, the Public Prosecutor's Office, victim support, and the probation service are all based at one single location, enabling them to handle complete cases within a time span of only nine hours. With this new working method, cases are kept simple, settled quickly, handled together, and treated as selectively as possible.

The Energy and Resources Factory is a collaborative venture by the Netherlands’ 21 water boards. It is an organization that is focused on turning wastewater into a source of renewable energy and resources.