The public sector has been an early user of digital technologies – sometimes a lead user – and has contributed significantly to the development of the base technologies. This concerns funding received from military sources, space programmes or financing of academic research within or outside of public sector research facilities. The long-term impact of these investments and actions is now triggering the next big reshaping in the organisation and working of the public sector.

e-government comes with a change agenda as digitalisation offers new technological opportunities that demand product, process, organisational and marketing innovations, as well as retraining of employees and reorganising processes and workflows. This change process has been ongoing for quite some years but is far from being finished in the public sector. Digital technologies allow to make public processes more transparent, granting wider access to data online and interaction directly in two-way communications with citizens to provide new services, source knowledge and experience, and get inspiration for policies and actions.

The potential of digitalisation for  public sector innovation is not only created by technological innovation but by the diffusion of agile innovation approaches like lean startup, design thinking and behavioural economics. The resulting “cocktail” demands a cultural change that might be one the biggest challenges in this process.