VIEDAS ADMINISTRACIJAS UN REGIONALAS ATTISTIBAS MINISTRIJA

Their core work

Latvia's Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development is the national government body responsible for digital transformation of public services, e-government policy, and regional development. In H2020, they contribute real-world public administration expertise and serve as a pilot environment for testing citizen-facing digital services, cross-border government platforms, and participatory governance models. Their role brings actual policy implementation experience to research consortia — they are not studying government digitalization in theory, they are the government doing it.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their early H2020 involvement (2015-2016) focused on broad digital policy themes — Digital Single Market strategy, e-skills, connectivity, and cyber security — reflecting a ministry setting its digital agenda. By 2021, their focus sharpened dramatically toward concrete implementation: citizen co-creation, cross-border service delivery, data governance, and interoperability frameworks. The shift is from discussing digital transformation to actively building and testing the infrastructure for it.

Moving toward operational deployment of cross-border digital government services with strong emphasis on citizen co-design and data sovereignty — a natural partner for GovTech and public service innovation projects.

How they like to work

Primarily a consortium participant (3 of 4 projects), which fits their role as an end-user ministry providing real policy and implementation context rather than driving research agendas. They coordinated one event (DA RIGA 2015), showing capacity to organize but preference for contributing domain expertise. With 30 partners across 8 countries, they maintain a moderately broad European network typical of a public authority that joins diverse consortia rather than building a fixed partner circle.

Connected to 30 unique partners across 8 countries, indicating solid European reach for a national ministry. Their network likely spans other EU government bodies, GovTech researchers, and digital service developers.

What sets them apart

As a national ministry, they offer something most research partners cannot: direct authority over public service implementation and policy in an EU member state. Latvia is often an early adopter in e-government (e.g., eID, digital services), making this ministry a credible pilot site for testing digital government innovations at national scale. For consortium builders, they provide both a real-world testbed and a pathway to policy adoption — not just a study, but actual deployment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ACROSS
  Largest funding (EUR 283,750), addresses the high-priority EU topic of cross-border digital service delivery with data sovereignty — directly tied to the Single Digital Gateway Regulation.
• INTERLINK
  Focuses on the emerging governance model of citizen co-delivery of public services, combining digital transformation with participatory democracy.
• DA RIGA 2015
  Their only coordinated project — Latvia hosted the 2015 Digital Assembly, a flagship EU digital policy event, signaling the ministry's visibility at European level.