"Digital Governance Awards" Competition for the public sector

With the motto "Transforming digitally, Changing Greece" the Ministry of Digital Governance  is launching the first "Digital Governance Awards" competition for the public sector, which will be held annually from now on. The competition is being organised by the General Secretariat for Digital Governance and Simplification of Procedures, with the support of the National Documentation Centre (EKT).

The purpose of the competition is to reward civil servants and public officials who, through their actions and ideas, have contributed to the digital transformation of the Greek Public Administration sector and to the improvement of the provision of public services for citizens. Eligible for participation are public bodies or civil servants and public officials, who have designed or implemented, either collectively or individually, innovative applications, on the one hand for the digital transformation and the improvement of Public Administration and on the other for raising awareness and providing information on important issues related to the digital strategy of the country.

In particular, the "Digital Governance Awards" competition targets all civil servants or public officials with a public or private employment law relationship of open-ended or fixed-term duration, who work in any public body of the first or second degree local authorities, as well as legal entities under public or private law in the public sector. Detailed information is available in the entry criteria.

Themes and Award Categories

The Digital Governance Awards are divided into the following categories:

• Public Administration, Local Self- Government and Justice, which awards applied or planned ideas for the better organisation and operation of public administration of local government or justice,  including civil protection and the general security of citizens, 
• Economy, Growth and Entrepreneurship, which awards applied or planned ideas for rural development, tourism, shipping, investment, outreach, innovation, industry, trade, consumer protection, fiscal and taxation policy and ideas in general related to improving the business environment and reducing bureaucracy in business,
• Health and Social Affairs, which awards applied or planned ideas for health, employment, social security, welfare, human rights, protection of vulnerable groups, family or demographic policy, gender equality and issues related to social cohesion and the protection of public health,
• Education and Culture, which awards applied or planned ideas in the field of education, culture, sports and
• Citizen Security, which awards applied or planned ideas  promoting or enhancing the security of the citizen.

Each category is divided into the following two subcategories: (a) Best Practice Idea, which reward ideas that are either in production or on trial for at least three (3) months until the start of applications and (b) Best New Idea , which rewards ideas that are in the conception or experimental stage, but have not yet been put into production or trial mode.  Due to the special conditions created by COVID -19 worldwide, the first year of the competition will award ideas and proposals for the years 2020 and 2021.

Awards & Distinctions

In each category, the first two applied and new ideas will be awarded, with the winners receiving a cash prize.

In addition to the Digital Governance Awards, two special honorary distinctions will be awarded each year: (a) Special Honorary Distinction for Digital Transformation by a Civil Servant or Public Official who has made a significant contribution to e-government and digital transformation of  Greek Public Administration  and (b) Special Honorary Individual Award, in which the ideas of individuals, natural or legal persons, who have applied and improved public services or have used Public Administration data to develop applications successfully.

Procedure & Schedule

Applications should be submitted online on the digitalawards.gov.gr platform. Detailed information is available at https://digitalawards.gov.gr/apply.

Those interested should submit their proposals for evaluation before February 18, 2022. The winners will be announced on March 31, 2022 and at a later date a special event will be organised to award the winners.

The competition is being organised and overseen by the General Secretariat for Digital Governance and Simplification of Procedures with the assistance of the National Documentation Centre (EKT), a supervised body of the Ministry of Digital Governance, which has undertaken not only the operation of the  digitalawards.gov.gr platform for the submission and evaluation of the proposals but also organisational support for the competition.