The trend towards "open innovation" has revitalized firm's interest in tapping into external innovation sources. Firms purposively open their business models to connect internal and external ideas, and to co-create value with partners and users. Internet-based crowdsourcing and co-creation platforms have changed the way how firms implement open innovation. They allow new participatory problem solving and value-creation processes. However, the current discussion on open innovation has hardly touched upon the public sector. This paper investigates if crowdsourcing platforms can be applied in the governmental context, and under which conditions. Results show that crowdsourcing may generate strong interest among citizens and may serve as source of new high quality input. However, our findings also indicate that design principles derived from open innovation projects in the corporate world may not be directly applied in the governmental context; they need to be adjusted and complemented.