The Italian public administration is confronted with two challenges peculiar to the current times, which share some common features: on the one hand, the use of ever-changing digital technologies; and, on the other hand, the role in social innovation processes involving multiple actors. In the first case, the emergence of public digital platforms calls for re-organization processes based on greater integration among internal departments, and stable relations between different administrative levels and between public and private actors. In the second case, the social demand for innovation in public services and policies leads to the development of ways of involving different actors in collaborative processes that are configured as innovation ecosystems. The thesis of this contribution underlines how the analysis of these modes of collaborative governance constitutes a relevant field for evaluation research, also because of the opportunity to integrate some significant elaborations developed by policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]