Coworking that promotes cooperation between authorities

The initiative is called Samverket - an innovation hub for the public sector. The purpose is to open up for coworking and co-creation at a workplace designed to create conditions for innovative public administration both between authorities with different areas of responsibility and between municipalities, regions and state authorities.

- This is a new way of thinking based on the fact that authorities need to work more together to meet complex societal challenges. At the same time, the public sector needs to prepare for a hybrid workplace after the corona, where we will work both remotely and from the office. We need solutions that are adapted to that, says Darja Isaksson, director general of Vinnova.

After a call for proposals, Vinnova has decided to finance a pilot initiative to develop a concept where the public sector will be offered to try coworking and hybrid work on premises in Östersund and Stockholm. The project is led by the County Administrative Board of Jämtland County together with the state-owned Vasakronan, the coworking environment Gomorron Östersund and the innovation and vision strategist Niklas Huss. It will be possible to introduce the concept in other parts of the country after the two-year pilot project has been completed.

- The project will create a government-wide solution for creative and innovative work where relevant functions are established, including a digital community tool. We want to see how it can strengthen the commitment of government employees, inspire and increase the ability to find new solutions to our societal challenges and generate knowledge and insights about cross-government challenges and needs, says Niklas Huss.

The concept will include a coworking area for government employees who work remotely.

- It is about meeting the future eligibility requirements of government employees in a flexible workplace and at the same time evaluating the need for infrastructure and the requirements for leadership that arise in a distance-independent world. The project will also look at the value of a common workplace for government employees that do not belong to the same public authority but who are at the same place and with the same need for belonging, inspiration and physical workplace. For a couple of years now, we have led a successful regional government collaboration and have seen what positive effects it has to meet across organizational boundaries, says Marita Ljung, Governor of Jämtland County.

Read more about Samverket

Facts about the Cooperation

Project partners in the two-year pilot initiative to develop coworking and hybrid work for the public sector are the County Administrative Board of Jämtland, Vasakronan, Gomorron Östersund, under the project management of Niklas Huss AB. The pilot has been granted SEK 3 million in support of Vinnova. Vinnova will announce support of up to SEK 600,000 in funding to public organizations that want to test using coworking. The initiative is supported by a reference group consisting of Clas Olsson, director general of the Swedish Financial Management Authority, Christina Gellerbrand Hagberg, chairman of the Swedish Employers' Agency and national bailiff, Anders Danielsson, governor of Västra Götaland County, and Linda Schön Doroci, director at Swedish Public Employment Service.