What Have We Learned? Twenty Years of the Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal

This is the 20th anniversary of publication for The Innovation Journal/La Revue de l'innovation, an anniversary that presents an opportunity to consider what have we learned, what the journal has and has not accomplished, and what remains to be addressed.Public sector innovation was a matter of keen interest when I (EG) created the journal and the Innovation Salon, a dinner meeting, from within the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) of the Government of Canada during the mid-1990s. Personnel of the TBS believed that innovation was a potential major contributor to deali ng with the Government of Canada's (G°C) deficit and debt, when had grown to worrisome amounts during the economic recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The TBS government introduced a program of loans to departments to fund cost-sharing innovations but the loans had to be paid back, whether the innovation was successful at saving money or not; accepting a loan was therefore a risky proposition for departments, and the entire risk was to be assumed by the department. Around the same time, the Treasury Board introduced a policy requiring departments to self-fund any new programs. Interest in innovation in the G°C has never been the same.By 1995, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to call with the message that the G°C had to deal with its deficit through restraint. The G°C complied and introduced a major cut-back program that reduced all grants and contributions by thirty per cent and most programs. TBS eliminated its innovation and quality program. I decided to continue TIJ outside government, and secured permission to do so. The government abolished almost all its periodicals at this time.TIJ has been a success, in our opinions, in all ways except one. We have:1) Created a venue for publishing material on public sector innovation2) Published in both English and French3) Created an open access source for finding information about public sector innovation worldwide by publishing: Prior to this issue, we published:a) Five booksb) 238 peer-reviewed papersc) 146 discussion papers (also peer-reviewed)d) 57 case studiese) 22 Review Essaysf) 172 book reviewsWe have solidly contributed to the process of creating an international literature on public sector innovation, and for some authors on innovation we are the journal of first choice for such material. TIJ is a resource that all can access freely. During this time, TIJ and LRI have also become widely read, with around 100,000 individuals reading TIJ per year. In 2014, for example, TIJ was visited by 99,402 unique IPs ("unique visitors") who returned to read TIJ an average of 6.24 times. TIJ has also become widely cited, ranking 39th among 1157 public administration journals during 20121 and 68th among the top public administration journals in 2013.We have published about public sector innovation in many places (e.g. Malaysia, Norway, Denmark, India, the Middle East, Canada, Great Britain, the USA, etc.). With this issue, we expand that scope to Russia. We have also published on many subjects, including health, education, public administration, ethics, collaboration and many others. We have published special issues at the forefront of innovation, such as those on leadership, processes and tools, education, empowerment, research, policy informatics, the Middle East, collaboration and democracy. We have also published on innovation patterns and a framework for a research program on the fate of organizations that innovate. The scope and depth of our work is remarkable.Consider a selection of topics covered in TIJ over the last five years, which might give a tangible sense of the extent and reach of coverage of the field in the journal, with topics ranging from healthcare system innovation to regional governance, network governance, informatics, and public ethics:1. Volume 20 (1), 2015. Special Issue on Innovations in Health Care System Reform in OECD Countries, with peer-reviewed papers on System Reform in OECD Countries, key competencies for promoting service innovation in the health sector, the role of regional agencies in performance management for innovation, New Governance and its influence in the long-term care sector in Ontario, Canada, innovation through public-private partnerships in the Greek healthcare sector, and applications of a Systemic Innovation Model for public sector Innovation Practice. …