Re-designing public–private partnerships: Case study – Green Hydrogen Hub, Denmark

Public and private actors are increasingly realizing that the hypercomplex challenges that societies are facing require them to collaborate in different manners than current structures and best practices cater for. Private–public partnerships (PPP) and public–private innovation (PPI) are familiar constructs. However, politicians, public and private actors, and academics increasingly point out that society’s complex, wicked problems require new forms of collaboration structures that allow for solutions to be co-created in order to create real impact. Novel collaboration structures are emerging worldwide, and early studies indicate that they demand a radical change of governmental behaviours in order to sustain these, often long-term, relationships. This case study examines the cross-sectoral co-creation initiative, Green Hydrogen Hub (GHH). GHH is designing and developing a society-scale green energy storage capacity that will play a key role in the green electrification of Denmark. Specifically, it investigates the change of role, self-perception and orchestrating capabilities of the governmental actor, Gas Storage Denmark, in its role in the public–private co-creation (PPC) consortium. Through a series of qualitative interviews with both public and private actors within and surrounding the co-creation consortium, this study has identified one overarching necessity for driving successful PPC: the ability to juxtapose public actors’ for-purpose obligations and private actors’ for-profit obligations in a non-oppositional setup. The case shows how this is obtained through three key indicators: 1) an ability to establish a resilient team, 2) a strong focus on storytelling about the overall purpose, 3) a plasticity from the actors to deliver on the purpose. As such, this article brings a deeper understanding for both public and private organizations as to how they can effectively engage in co-operative complex innovation activities.