Is it going to be an adventure? The innovation of public-private partnerships and co-design in social protection

Public and private partnerships (PPPs) can be regarded as one of the most relevant forms of organizational and institutional innovation in the field of social welfare. The analysis of the forms of inter-organizational collaboration in services codesign constitutes a very interesting direction for examining the reconfiguration of the relationships between public administrations and private actors. To this purpose, an explorative multiple case study involving three different PPPs was conducted. The results confirm the polymorphism of co-design practices, both on an organizational level and on a more strictly administrative level. Clearly, these are very dissimilar and, in many ways, irreconcilable experiences. Three analytical dimensions were identified: a) the breadth of the partnership and the scope of the co-planning work; b) the role of the funding body in the governance of the co-planning process; c) the level of integration among the participants.