Good practice

synAthina — civic-activity platform of the City of Athens

Greece · Athens · See the Greece profile

City of Athens platform (since 2013) that maps and supports citizen-led initiatives, connecting community groups with city services, NGOs and businesses. Won the 2014 Bloomberg Mayors Challenge (€1M); helped Athens become European Capital of Innovation 2018.

1,918

Civil-society activities recorded

222

Registered community groups

Activities leading to regulatory/policy updates

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: City of Athens — Vice Mayoral Office for Civil Society and Innovation
Period: 2013-present
Keywords: civic participation, social innovation, urban governance, open government

Context

synAthina is a City of Athens platform launched in July 2013, during Greece's economic crisis, to map and support citizen-led civic initiatives by connecting community groups with city services, NGOs and businesses; it now sits under the Vice Mayoral Office for Civil Society and Innovation.

Activities

Citizens and community groups upload volunteer activities to the platform; the synAthina team runs recurring 'Open Monday' sessions at City Hall to surface obstacles and works inside the administration to update outdated regulations blocking good ideas.

Results

OECD-OPSI documents 1,918 civil-society activities by 222 registered community groups, with 15 highlighted as best practices and 5 leading to regulatory or procedural updates; synAthina won the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge (€1 million, 2014) and the Eurocities Innovation Award (2016), and its 'Curing the Limbo' initiative won €5 million in EU Urban Innovative Actions funding in 2018, the year Athens became European Capital of Innovation.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-18
City of Athens — Vice Mayoral Office for Civil Society and Innovation — accessed 2026-06-18
OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation — synAthina case study — accessed 2026-06-18
Bloomberg Cities — Athens wins innovation prize — accessed 2026-06-18

Attachments

Source image

Quality score: 86/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 29% in this catalogue (55 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / demonstrated replication2/3

A published lessons-learned methodology and 80+ expressions of interest from other cities show transfer potential, though documented adoption elsewhere remains limited.

Scalability2/3

The platform grew to nearly 2,000 activities and expanded into the €5M Curing the Limbo programme, but scale stays at the level of a single city.

Evidence of impact / measured results3/3

OECD-OPSI documents 1,918 activities by 222 groups and 5 regulatory changes, alongside a €1M Bloomberg prize and €5M EU grant — quantified, multi-source outcomes.

Innovation3/3

An early, internationally recognised social-innovation platform that crowdsources civic activity and feeds it into regulatory reform, awarded by Bloomberg and Eurocities.

Inclusiveness / equity3/3

Explicitly hosts both formal and informal groups and targeted refugees, migrants and unemployed residents through Curing the Limbo.

Multi-stakeholder collaboration3/3

Built on a 'Social Innovation Constellation' linking municipality, private sector, civil society, public administration and universities.

Sustainability / continuity2/3

Operating since 2013 with an institutional home in a Vice Mayoral Office, yet major activities have relied on time-limited grant funding (Bloomberg, EU UIA).

Cite this

Evidoria. synAthina — civic-activity platform of the City of Athens. Persistent ID: ee6e61a4-e704-452b-944d-68441f34d806.

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