Accelerating AI in Europe's public sector
A four-year project co-funded by the European Union's Digital Europe Programme, transforming the public sector by developing digital skills and fostering innovation across Europe.
Building on a proven success
AI4Gov Accelerate (AI4Gov-X) builds on the success of the AI4Gov Master's programme, which trained over 120 students and won the European Digital Skills Award 2023.
Coordinated by POLI.design, the project now involves 38 beneficiaries and 4 associated partners from 21 European countries — a 40+ organisation consortium — significantly enhancing its capacity to extend its impact across the continent.
The European Knowledge Hub
To establish the European Knowledge Hub and Global Network of Excellence on AI for the Public Sector, Data Spaces Management and Digital Governance Transformation.
Not Only AI
AI4Gov-X works at the intersection of three interconnected fields.
Artificial Intelligence
Responsible, evaluated and accountable AI applied in the public interest.
Data Spaces
Interoperable, well-governed data as the foundation for AI-ready public systems.
Digital Government Transformation
Organisational and service change that keeps public value at the centre.
Platform of Platforms
A connected ecosystem for education, experimentation and collaboration serving the EU GovTech community.
Knowledge-sharing platform & experimental sandbox
A knowledge-sharing platform that facilitates the exchange of resources and expertise among Higher Education Institutions and stakeholders, and serves as a hub for testing innovative solutions in a sandbox environment. It supports the strategic goal of establishing fifteen Triple Helix Partnerships between HEIs, the public sector and private industry.
AI-powered innovation-mapping engine
An AI-powered hub that connects researchers, innovators, startups, and public-sector practitioners while providing access to thematic information, predicting trends, and identifying opportunities — ensuring that the educational programmes remain practice-oriented and aligned with the latest technological advancements and sectoral needs.
A global open platform for collaboration
The platform of platforms underpinning the EU GovTech ecosystem — supporting content development, educational delivery, the knowledge hub and experimental sandbox, innovation mapping for incubation and acceleration, ad-hoc capacity building, and cascade-funding calls for new proposals and partners.
How the Framework Was Built
A structured, evidence-based methodology — from benchmarking to expert validation.
Systematic analysis of 70+ European and international programmes.
Outcome: Defined the initial competence baseline and identified structural, thematic and pedagogical gaps to be addressed in the AI4Gov-X framework.
Structured review of academic research and institutional policy frameworks.
Outcome: Validated benchmarking findings and reinforced the need for a structured, progression-based and governance-oriented competence framework.
Large-scale extraction from ESCO (13,940 entries), semantic filtering and AI-assisted similarity analysis, clustering and network visualisation, and alignment with European Qualifications Framework (EQF) autonomy levels.
Outcome: Established the structural backbone of the AI4Gov-X Competence Framework.
Two co-creation workshops (Krems & Brussels) and 11 semi-structured interviews with AI4Gov alumni and public-sector professionals, with structured feedback collection, clustering and validation exercises.
Outcome: Strengthened the relevance, usability and internal coherence of the framework.
Review by 6 domain experts (2 per competence domain) in structured validation sessions focused on coherence, completeness and balance.
Outcome: Finalised a coherent, operational and standards-aligned competence framework ready for programme design.
The expansion phase drew on a large-scale extraction of 13,940 ESCO entries, refined through semantic filtering and AI-assisted similarity analysis, and aligned with EQF autonomy levels.
From Framework to Programme
The validated competence framework is operationalised through the MAGIX Specialising Master and a wider catalogue of training.