ANAPTYXIAKI DIADIMOTIKI ETERIA PSIFIAKES POLIS KENTRIKIS ELLADAS AE OTA (INTERMUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY DIGITAL CITIES OF CENTRAL GREECE SA)

Their core work

Digital Cities of Central Greece is a Greek intermunicipal development company — a special-purpose vehicle created by the municipalities of Thessaly to manage digital transformation at the city level. Based in Trikala, one of Greece's earliest smart city pioneers, they bring operational municipal infrastructure and citizen-facing deployment capacity to EU research consortia. In EU projects, their real contribution is as a real-world deployment environment: they provide access to smart city networks, public services, and vulnerable citizen populations where new digital health technologies can be piloted and validated. They translate research prototypes into working services embedded in the daily operations of local government.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (ACTIVAGE, 2017), the focus was broadly on IoT infrastructure for smart living — the technical question was whether connected devices could meaningfully support older people ageing at home. By the time they joined GATEKEEPER (2019), the framing had shifted from infrastructure to outcomes: the keywords move explicitly to early detection and intervention for social and health risks, meaning the technology is now assumed, and the challenge is identifying which citizens are at risk and acting before a crisis occurs. The trajectory is clear: from building smart city plumbing to using that plumbing for targeted social and public health interventions.

They are moving deeper into preventive public health — projects where smart-city data and connected-home technology are used to flag vulnerable citizens before they reach a crisis point, a direction with strong alignment to post-COVID health policy priorities across the EU.

How they like to work

Digital Cities of Central Greece participates exclusively as a consortium partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project, which is typical for municipal deployment entities whose value lies in what they can provide on the ground rather than in project management. Both projects they joined were large, multi-country innovation actions, meaning they are comfortable operating inside complex consortia with many players. With 102 unique partners across just 2 projects, their network breadth is high, but this reflects the composition of the large consortia rather than a web of direct bilateral relationships they personally cultivated.

Their two projects brought them into contact with 102 unique consortium partners across 17 countries, spanning research institutions, technology companies, hospitals, and other municipalities from across Europe. Their network is European in breadth but essentially inherited from the large-scale innovation actions they joined rather than built through independent outreach.

What sets them apart

Trikala has a decades-long reputation as one of Greece's most digitally advanced cities — the municipal ecosystem this organisation represents is not a generic local authority but one with real operating experience in smart city services dating back to the early 2000s. For a consortium building a smart health or active-ageing project that needs a Southern European deployment site with genuine city-level digital infrastructure already in place, this organisation offers something rare: a functioning smart city that is also a public institution and can provide both the technical environment and legitimate access to citizen participants. This combination of municipal authority, operational digital infrastructure, and geographic positioning in a less-represented EU region makes them a credible and fundable consortium partner for Innovation Actions requiring multi-site real-world validation.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ACTIVAGE
  The largest of their two projects (EUR 175,438) and part of a major European IoT large-scale pilot; established their positioning as a smart-city deployment site for ageing-well technologies.
• GATEKEEPER
  Signals a strategic evolution toward social risk monitoring and preventive health intervention, extending their role beyond IoT infrastructure into the domain of digital public health.