About public:START

Public Entrepreneurship – yet another theoretical competence framework? It couldn’t be further from the truth. The 21st century presents the public sector with a variety of complex challenges, such as climate change, the energy transition or migration. Many of the public sector’s established working methods can no longer provide an adequate framework for innovative problem-solving efforts. Thus, a new set of skills is required to transform public servants into public entrepreneurs.

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Public entrepreneurs act within public institutions and, at heart, are a blend of two different roles: that of a public servant, and that of an entrepreneur. The underlying premise is that these roles are usually distinct but the skill sets they require need not be. Entrepreneurial and transformative skills will enable public sector staff to understand the nature of complex challenges, build new relationships, leverage resources, work across sector lines and to act, and sometimes fail, fast.

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In order to foster these competences, the public:START project will deliver a Public Entrepreneurship Digital Learning Programme (Project Result I) and an On-the-Job Learning Tool (Project Result II). Both tools will nurture a new generation of public entrepreneurs who are able to respond to complex socio-economic challenges in a meaningful way.