The EURADA Awards recognise and honour innovative best practices in regional development. These awards have been presented annually since 2015 and many projects, proposals, and tools have since been presented and awarded. The stated aim of the EURADA Awards is to identify new developments introduced by both member and non-member agencies and to showcase them for the benefit of all European regional development practitioners.

The EURADA Awards recognise the best practices of European Development Agencies each year. The winners receive recognition from expert peers, as the jury is composed of representatives from each of the following organisations:

• The European Committee of the Regions (CoR)
• The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC)
• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
• Two representatives of the EURADA Secretariat.

Three winners will receive an award and will be invited to present the best practice and their agency during AGORADA+ 2023 (Krakow) and AGORADA 2024 (Brussels).

The three highest-rated best practices will furthermore receive recognition and promotion through EURADA’s communication channels, including its website, newsletter (close to 300 subscribers) and social media accounts with a total of more than 8,000 followers (3 posts on LinkedIn and Twitter/X in 2023 and 2 in 2024). The winners will also be featured in an episode of the upcoming EURADA podcast in 2024.

The EURADA Awards 2023 are open to best practices from four fields of action:

• Harnessing talent, upskilling & retraining
• Smart cities & urban regeneration
• Territorial innovation & strategic foresight
• Climate change adaptation and mitigation (including application of aerospace technologies for regional development)

The criteria for evaluating the best practices are:

• The context in which the action was carried out;
• The novelty and recency of the practices;
• The demonstrable impact of the instrument, project, or proposal;
• The interregional dimension;
• Its transferability potential to other regions.

Only one application per agency is possible.

Regardless of whether you have already participated in the EURADA Awards or have never participated before, we strongly encourage you to do so! The application process is not time-consuming and is a great opportunity to promote your practices.

Who can apply - Development and Innovation Agencies. A Development Agency in this context is considered to be any entity:  

1. Which pursues an economic development mission characterised by seeking to promote the collective or overall interest of an area (and not corporate or sectorial interests); 
2. Which is significantly linked to a local, metropolitan, or regional authority with respect to management, financing, and missions.  

Both EURADA members and non-members can apply. 

Applicants must submit the completed application form. Please apply with a completed action (finalised project or developed tool) or with an ongoing action at the second half of its lifespan for their impacts to be reliably proved or calculated.

The application must demonstrate: 

• Novelty and innovation: Your action must show that it is different from traditional approaches, that the work is innovative and different from that of other RDAs.
• Impact: Actions must have a positive outcome and a tangible impact.
  For completed actions, figures or tangible results must be provided.
  Ongoing actions need to be in the second half of their duration in order to provide tangible results from the first half and solid calculations for their completion (early stage ideas cannot be measured in the same way).
• Transferability: The actions must be to some extent adaptable to the context of other regions or territories, which means that the practice will benefit not only your beneficiaries but also other European stakeholders and citizens.

Applications must be submitted to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   

The application form can be downloaded here.  Please note that the application must be submitted in English. Any application or annex submitted in your national language will be translated with a translation assistance tool. 

Application deadline : 6 October 2023.

Source: EURADA