DIMOS KATERINIS

Their core work

The Municipality of Katerini is a Greek local public authority that engages with EU-funded research to modernize its public administration through responsible digital transformation. It participates in projects exploring how emerging technologies — blockchain, artificial intelligence, and robotics — can be applied to public services while managing associated ethical and social risks. Its core contribution is as a real-world public sector testbed: a living municipal environment where digital governance concepts can be piloted, evaluated, and validated against citizen-facing services. In both its H2020 projects, Katerini brings the perspective of a practicing public body rather than a research institution, grounding policy and technology debates in operational municipal reality.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both of Katerini's H2020 projects started in 2020, so a longitudinal evolution within the dataset is limited — there is no early versus late phase in the traditional sense. Within that narrow window, however, there is a visible thematic shift: TOKEN brought a focus on blockchain as a transformative tool, while ETAPAS broadened the lens to encompass the full ethical and social risk landscape of digital technologies including AI, robotics, and digital democracy. This suggests the municipality moved from technology-specific exploration toward a more governance-oriented and ethics-grounded perspective on digital transformation.

Katerini appears to be positioning itself as a responsible digital governance authority, moving from piloting specific technologies toward shaping the ethical and policy frameworks that govern their use in public administration.

How they like to work

Katerini participates exclusively as a partner, never as a coordinator, which is consistent with its role as a practitioner body that contributes real-world context rather than research leadership. With 30 unique consortium partners across 13 countries from just 2 projects, it has worked in relatively large, internationally diverse consortia — typical of RIA projects aiming for broad geographic validation of findings. This suggests they are comfortable operating within complex multi-partner environments and value the legitimacy that international research networks provide.

Despite only two projects, Katerini has built a surprisingly wide network of 30 unique partners spanning 13 countries, reflecting the broad international consortia typical of Horizon 2020 RIA projects in digital governance. No evidence of repeated partnerships is available given the small project count, so geographic loyalty cannot be assessed.

What sets them apart

Katerini is one of relatively few Greek municipal authorities active in H2020 research, and its dual participation in projects covering both blockchain applications and AI ethics signals a deliberate institutional strategy rather than opportunistic involvement. For consortium builders, a practicing Greek municipality brings regulatory context, citizen-facing service infrastructure, and the political legitimacy needed to validate digital governance research in Southern European public administration settings. Its combination of technology-specific experience (blockchain) and ethics-governance framing makes it a credible partner for projects that need both a testbed and a responsible-use perspective.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TOKEN
  The largest-funded project for this organization (EUR 126,000) and one of the earlier EU-level efforts to examine blockchain's concrete transformative potential specifically within public service delivery.
• ETAPAS
  Addresses the broadest technology ethics agenda — AI, robotics, digital democracy, and governance risk — making it notable for its policy relevance at a time when EU AI regulation is being shaped.