Innovation mechanisms for the Swedish rescue services - the pilot phase 2016-2018

Saving lives and mitigating the negative impact on public rights requires continuous societal crisis capability renewal. Therefore, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) annually invests 120 MSEK in research. The agency's research strategy values the utilization of the results of the research it finances, for instance, new innovations such as products and services. Despite this expectation, governance in terms of instructions and rules for reinvigorating societal crisis capability is largely missing. In 2016, MSB therefore decided to develop an "innovation mechanism." In turn, the Swedish defense research agency FOI was assigned by MSB to support the work by using actions research methodology. FOI was to document the process and thereby add to the innovation mechanism in terms of stakeholder learnings during as well as after the pilot phase. The results show that the development of an innovation mechanism is not a simple process, not the least as interest on what is considered valuable changes continuously. This report contributes to new knowledge on the organization of innovation mechanisms and has implications for other areas of society that need innovation.