Study title

The objective of «From Service Provider to Network Node: Does the Counties' Coordination Role Contribute to Goal Attainment and Public Sector Innovation? 2016» was to attain new knowledge on the counties' new role - from serving as service providers to becoming multi-level coordinators. This was investigated by studying three policy areas where the county municipality was supposed to act as a coordinating node for a large number of actors: Public health, regional (economic) development and implementation of the EU's Water Framework Directive. The main question was how the counties practiced their role as coordinators and to what degree this coordination contributed to goal attainment and innovation in the public sector. The project therefore attained new knowledge about conditions for sustainable planning at the regional level. Results from the Norwegian study were compared to Danish and Swedish research regarding regional government.