New publication: Governance structures and strategies to support innovation and adaptability
While innovation has recently become a buzzword in the public and private sectors, new research has shown that there are multiple benefits to the public sector for innovative thinking in the water sensitive city arena.
A report by the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities research team for Better governance for complex decision-making (Project A3.1) examined local and international case studies of projects - that used innovative techniques - to identify lessons and strategies that practitioners can adopt in their own organisations.
In the report, ‘Governance structures and strategies to support innovation and adaptability’, Dr Yvette Bettini and Professor Brian Head from the University of Queensland set out an innovation model for influencing governance change.
They argue that to make the fundamental changes needed to support water sensitive cities, “incremental policy changes which progressively challenge these institutions need to be actively fostered”.
“The ambition (of the report) was for the public sector to become more innovative; less trapped in red tape and routine and more focused on adding value, increasing customer choice, and being more responsive to external developments.”
The authors drew on their previous research that explored the history of urban water governance in Australia and reviewed a range of literatures on transformative system change and policy studies.