PSI through co-production : learning together how to learn from experience

Pragmatist approaches to PSI (public sector innovation) is best engaged through research-action which gives the
possibility of organising concrete activities engaging the actors themselves. The article will propose the very first
analysis of a recent research action developped in Belgium in the sector of “emergency planning and crisis
management” : many actors (local officials and associated disciplines such as police, firemen, urgency medical
groups and the army) asked me to help them develop at the level of their territory new approaches for developing
management tools enhancing the possibility of “learning by experience”. The demand was addressed to me
because my research group has been associated to these professionals for the last 10 years as we organised
together workshops, training sessions for newcomers in the field, etc. which means also that the level of trust
between the participants and us as “metagovernor” was very high. I quickly understood that this intervention had
to be participatory as most actors were very interested in the project.
The research developped a “Living Labs” environment, which is user-centric and contribute to strengtheni users’
involvement and access to common resources, fostering the possibility for open innovations (Schaffers et al.
2011) with techniques such as “context mapping” (Sleeswijk Visser 2005) and “generative” techniques which can
reveal tacit knowledge and expose latent needs (Sanders, 2000). The real-life context of the innovation process
contributes to a better understanding of the tacit and domain-based knowledge needed to assess needs and built
feasible, appropriable solutions. The participatory techniques must respect some principles to ensure the
sensitization of participants but they are to be adapted by the research group to the specific issue at stake.
The protocole was based on focus groups, interviews, Delphi on line inquiries, scenario workshops in order to 1)
visualise the processes and concerns of the participants, 2) help them creatively imagine and design alternative
approaches and 3) test the propositions in local setting before launching the design dynamic upfront (Bason
2017). The main issue was to organise cooperation between these groups of professionals from different
disciplines to help them develop together a shared undertanding of what means “learning from experience in each
discipline and between disciplines.
The fieldwork was organised to “follow the actors and the objects”, with an interpretative methodology for
analysing framings, boundaries, institutional discourses, actors identities and relations, in order to understand
how these change and develop overtime during the activities which were proposed to help develop a creative
design.
The presentation will concentrate on the analysis of some of the most significant steps and points of
achievements to show the potentialities of pragmatist interventions in adequate processes fostering policy design
and innovation.