CPP recently held a launch event for a new book titled How to Make an Entrepreneurial State: Why Innovation Needs Bureaucracy (Yale University Press), co-authored by Dr. Wolfgang Drechsler, CPP Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Value. 

The book is a ground-breaking account showing how the public sector must adapt yet also persevere to advance technology and innovation. Against the background of the different ways governments are exploring new technologies to transform how we live, innovation has become important to states worldwide. Self-driving cars and smart grids are among the examples.

Dr. Drechsler and his co-authors, Rainer Kattel, Professor and Deputy Director at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and Erkki Karo, Associate Professor and Head of Department at the Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, TalTech, explore how public bodies pursue innovation and how new policies are designed and implemented. Presenting a wealth of examples from Europe, the USA, and Asia, the authors show how different institutions systematically catalyze, finance innovations, and share cutting-edge information. 

They argue for the importance of ‘agile stability’, demonstrating that to successfully innovate and steer inclusive green transformation, state organizations must move nimbly like start-ups and simultaneously ensure stability. The combination gives state bureaucracies a unique capability to cultivate change and creativity while embedding innovation gains into governance arrangements. Moreover, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments need both long-term policy and dynamic capabilities to handle crises.

More information on Dr. Drechsler’s book is available from Yale University Press at the link.