FAIR,
TRANSPARENT
AND FINAL

How it works

You nominate the projects. You choose the winners. We take care of everything else.

A project can enter the Innovation in Politics Awards in two ways:

Any citizen can nominate a project. If the project meets the formal criteria. The Innovation in Politics Institute will contact the politician in charge and encourage them to submit it to the awards.

A politician can submit his or her own project through the awards website, if it meets the substantial criteria.

What next?

After a project is submitted, the Innovation in Politics Institute evaluates it:

• Does it meet all formal criteria?
• Is information missing, e.g. pictures?
• If the submission is in a language other than English, it is translated for the jury.

After the submission deadline and once all projects are finalised, they will be presented to the citizens’ jury.

The ten projects in each category with the highest scores are announced as finalists. Out of these finalists, the highest-rated project in each of the eight categories are awarded the “Innovation in Politics Award” at the Gala.

Evaluation Criteria

The jury will evaluate all participating projects according to these four criteria:

To be considered for an award, a project must show, first and foremost, an innovative character, breaking new ground while meeting a challenge in its sphere of influence (municipality, region, country).

The innovation need not be a “world first”. What counts is a new approach in the country or region where the project was realised in recent years, and skilful adaptation to the local culture and needs.

If you want to get a feel for the jury decisions, just have a look in our showroom. There you can find the finalists from last year and all winning projects. These projects were considered to be innovative politics.

Projects score additional points if they motivate citizens to participate in an extensive or special way, if they bring people together from different parts of society or with different political views.

Projects score additional points if they strengthen trust in democratic processes and institutions.

Projects score additional points if they create lasting improvements in the lives of all those affected, and produce high output in relation to the financial input.