Dubbed the co-creation accelerator, the program's stated aim is to foster inter-ministerial cooperation.

A document introducing the accelerator explains that the implementation of activities planned in the ministries' annual engagement plans can obtain support from the fund.

Mari-Liis Sööt, head of strategy at the Government Office, told ERR that in order to find effective solutions to challenges which involve various stakeholders, it is essential that all these stakeholders remained informed and get a say in things.

She said: "The co-creation accelerator's goal is to support cross-sectoral engagement and development activities which promote cooperation, as well as to enhance the engagement capacity of ministries."

Sööt said this means options to design services, legislation and policies together with those for whom they are intended, be it in public transport, issues education, or combating drug use.

"The existing methods of engagement, such as a working group completing a task and then expecting people to provide their opinion, or laws created in the ivory tower of the government cabinet, or policies rigidly set by a single working party, are no longer effective," Sööts said.

Sööt noted that public expectations when it comes to the quality of government and public sector engagement have risen sharply in recent years, while Estonia's open governance goals and principles also safeguard more collaborative policy-making where citizens can participate in making the important decisions.

"For instance, strong co-creative management is certainly needed in the context of mitigating environmental damage, while implementing the climate law. This funding would thus give the Ministry of Climate the resources to carry out planned engagement activities to the required level of quality," Sööt went on.

Each of Estonia's ministries will be entitled to apply for support for one engagement and co-creation development activity, with the maximum grant amount being €50,000 as noted.

The total amount of grants comes €500,000, with 72 percent of the funding coming from the EU, and the remainder to be provided domestically.

An accelerator of this kind has not been developed in Estonia before, so there are no examples yet of successful co-creation in this sense, Sööt went on.

However, the list of issues requiring co-creative solutions is a long one, she added.

Sööt noted that a short report by the Development Monitoring Center think tank highlights that Estonia placed 22nd out of 63 countries on the 2022 International Institute for Management Development (IMD) ranking, indicating significant room for improvement in societal engagement capability in this country.

"The more successful nations are those which have managed to minimize social divisions and confrontations between different societal groups. Cooperation between central government, local government units, and communities helps bring governance and the quality of public services into convergence with the expectations of the public," she added.

"Plus achieving major strategic goals requires consensus among different social groups."

Ministries have until May 24 to apply for support from the accelerator's funds.

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