On November 22-23, Corvinus University Budapest hosted a succesful seminar on co-production of which Taco Brandsen (Radboud University Nijmegen and WILCO Coordinator) was one of the organisers.
Co-production has been defined as ‘the mix of activities that both public service agents and citizens contribute to the provision of public services. The former are involved as professionals, or ‘regular producers’, while ‘citizen production’ is based on voluntary efforts by individuals and groups to enhance the quality and/or quantity of the services they use’. Public management research has devoted increasing attention to it, witnessed by various publications and events of the past years.
Accidentally but fittingly organised in the year of the death of Elinor Ostrom, whose work has inspired much of the literature on this topic, the seminar brought together most of the leading scholars working on co-production, including John Alford (University of Melbourne and Australia and New Zealand School of Government) who gave the keynote speech.
The seminar was organised by the International Research Society on Public Management (IRSPM) in collaboration with the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA), the British Academy of Management (BAM), the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and with the WILCO project. A selection of the presented papers will be published in the Public Management Review in 2014.
