EPSA 2019 Home / EPSA in a nutshell / EPSA 2019 Winners, Nominees, Best Practices & first results

EPSA 2019 Winners, Nominees, Best Practices & first results

EPSA 2019 Winners

European and National category

"Simplex+ Program”, submitted by Portugal’s Administrative Modernisation Agency 

It is a national programme for the simplification and digitalisation of administrative procedures across all parts of government.
As independent reviews have shown, the programme measures make it easier for citizens and businesses to use public services in Portugal and save them time when they do. Many of them have also saved working time for the public sector.
The Simplex+ Program has led directly to other excellent projects from the Agency which have won Best Practice Certificates in EPSA 2019 such as Citizen Spots (supported assistance for citizens to access digital services) and ASET - Automatic Social Energy Tariff (automatically offering affordable energy tariffs to low income consumers).


Regional category

"Groeipakket”, submitted by Kind en Gezin, Agentschap Informatie Vlaanderen and Agentschap Uitbetaling Groeipakket (BE)

The project integrates in one family policy, and in one single IT application child benefits for education and child care with automatic allocation without having to apply. It is the result of the collaborative efforts of all departments in Flanders connected to family policy, breaking silos and working in teams. The scope of this initiative is unprecedented, managing the transition of responsibility from federal to regional level without interruption from one system to another, and going beyond the objectives of the previous system. The results are already evident, resulting in less poverty and equal treatment between the working and non-working poor. Other regions in Belgium are adopting the Groeipakket model, based on allowances granted automatically and expansion to more children to minimise the risk of child poverty.


Supra-local and Local category

"Rooftop Gardens: Growing greens for social inclusion", submitted by the Municipal Institute for People with Disabilities of the City of Barcelona (ES) 

This project is an example of out-of-box thinking as it creates synergies and produces impact at several levels. It is about taking advantage of unused public space, such as rooftops of municipal buildings, to set up rooftop gardens with innovative urban farming methods that are operated by people with disabilities to foster their social inclusion and increase their quality of life by changing their role from that of being beneficiaries (passive role) towards being contributors producing goods for the community (active role). Additionally, it supports the circular economy as food waste is minimised by donating any surplus of fresh vegetables to local food banks and associations. Moreover, it enriches the local community by creating networks between the occupational centres managing the rooftop gardens, local food banks and associations as receivers of fresh food.


In different ways these three winners have shown why EPSA 2019 invited the public sector in Europe to show how they can be citizen-centric, sustainable and fit for the future.


EPSA 2019 Nominees

The high-level EPSA 2019 Jury selected the 9 EPSA 2019 nominees in the three award categories (3 nominees per category) on 10 October.

List of EPSA 2019 Nominees


EPSA 2019 Best Practices

In the first two steps of the EPSA evaluation methodology, all applications underwent first a remote and online evaluation by external and independent evaluators (academics, practitioners or PA consultants). Then, these evaluators met in Maastricht on 13-14 June to discuss any differences in scoring and reach a consensus on the projects they had assessed. The aim of this consensus meeting was to identify the Best Practice Certificate (BPC) among all the eligible projects.

Out of all the applications submitted to the EPSA 2019 40 projects from 14 different European countries have been identified as being a Best practice.


Best Practices of the supra-local and local category

Best Practices of the Regional category

Best Practices of the European and national category

Total list of Best Practices


EPSA 2019: First results

The application phase of the EPSA 2019 ended on Sunday, 5 May 2019. The EPSA received nearly 160 projects from 28 different countries, 1 EU agency and 1 EU Justice-related international organisation, which present citizen-centric solutions aiming to make their administrations sustainable and fit for the future.


This year’s edition, which is taking place under the overarching theme “New Solutions to Complex Challenges – A public sector citizen-centric, sustainable and fit for the future”, received contributions dealing with areas such as public administration modernisation and reform, information society and digitisation, education, health, and public order and safety, justice and human rights.

81 projects were submitted in the European and National administrative category, 23 in the Regional administrative category and 54 in the Supra-Local and Local category.

The countries which submitted the highest number of applications are Spain, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Norway.