David Albury and Geoff Mulgan are a leading duo in British government innovation research, who developed the innovation life cycle model for the public sector in 2003 within the Strategy Unit.
Their study (“Innovation in the Public Sector”) examines public organizations not from the perspective of market competition but from the perspective of learning processes, and emphasizes that innovation is not the idea itself, but its successful institutionalization.

The model distinguishes five basic stages:

1. Idea: formulation of new approaches, practices, technologies.
2. Development: adaptation and testing of ideas to real problems.
3. Implementation: introduction of working models into the organizational structure.
4. Dissemination: sharing of results, horizontal learning.
5. Embedding: long-term acceptance of innovation, its integration into rules and routines.

According to Mulgan and Albury, innovation in the public sector becomes sustainable when it is integrated into everyday operations and becomes the norm.

The theory highlights the role of “institutional learning”: successful innovation lies not in individual ideas, but in the organizational capabilities that enable change to be sustained.

This approach is particularly useful for analyzing community or municipal processes where the goal of experimental solutions is to be system-wide – for example, in participatory decision-making, local adaptation programs, or new forms of service.