The Call for Participation for the 2024 programme is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted their proposal! The next Call for Participation will open in autumn 2024.
Call for Participation
Every year, we are looking for Creative Bureaucrats and their allies: public sector changemakers across all levels of government who are helping to shift how public administrations think, plan and act. We are looking for ideas, methods, and tools that can inspire, encourage and motivate. From small adjustments to full systems transformation, we want to surface both effective, practical examples of existing bureaucracy hacking in action as well as bold, imaginative approaches to growing our collective capability to envision brighter futures.
The Creative Bureaucracy Festival gives such public changemakers a platform and puts their ideas in the spotlight. Selected submissions will be part of the Digital Kick-Off Day programme in March (online), the first core milestone in the Creative Bureaucracy Festival calendar year – to unite the global community online and enable you to spread the creative bureaucracy spirit from your own homes. A community voting during the day will choose six projects to be presented again at the Live Festival in June (in person in Berlin, Germany).
HOW CAN I SUBMIT A PROPOSAL?
Submit Your Project Showcase
The Call for Participation for the 2024 programme is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted their proposal! The next Call for Participation will open in autumn 2024.
About the submission of a Project Showcase:
Tell us about an existing or recently finished project/initiative that demonstrates effective bureaucracy hacking in action – whether you’re a public intrapreneur pushing change from the inside out, or an ally helping to rewire public institutions from the outside in. If selected by our Jury, you’ll be invited to create a 6-8 minute video in an “issue, idea, impact” format which will be presented during the Digital Kick-Off Day in March.
All selected submissions will also be part of our Community Voting. This score combined with the jury scores will identify six winning sessions – three DACH-region (German language), and three International (English language) – which will be invited to share their ideas on stage during the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin in June! The announcement will be made during the Digital Kick-Off Day after all sessions have been broadcast.
Eligibility criteria:
- Currently running or recently finished project
- Public servants must somehow be involved
- Some sort of results/learnings should already have been collected
- These learnings should be transferable to other contexts
- The project should be relevant to at least one of our four Digital Kick-Off Day programme clusters
- Ability to present in German (DACH region) or English (all other regions)
- Find a full overview of the “Project Showcase” proposal selection criteria here
If selected by the Jury, you commit to:
- Create a 6-8 minute video telling your project story (video deadline: early March)
- Take part in the Community Voting around the Digital Kick-Off Day
- If selected as one of the six winning sessions, send at least one representative to Berlin in June
Submit Your Digital Workshop
The Call for Participation for the 2024 programme is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted their proposal! The next Call for Participation will open in autumn 2024.
About the submission of a Digital Workshop:
Apply to run a live (< 90-minute) workshop as part of the Digital Kick-Off Day. Here we are looking for bold, imaginative approaches to upskilling and inspiring others to collectively reimagine brighter futures and/or to take practical action towards getting there.
Workshop blocks will be offered to suit different timezones across the Digital Kick-Off Day in March. You must apply in English or German, but selected entries will be able to run their workshop in any language suitable to their region. Once the submissions window has closed in December, our team will filter entries based on relevance and split them into thematic and timezone clusters. A lucky draw will then determine which workshops are offered a spot in programme.
Eligibility criteria:
- A bold, imaginative, experimental, or otherwise novel workshop framing and approach
- A well thought-through methodology with a clear and relevant objective and intended takeaways for participants
- Application in English or German, but workshop can take place in any language suitable to your region
- Ability to host a digital workshop of up to 90 minutes via your own digital platform in March (you can select suitable timeblocks in the submission form)
Submit Your Podcast Episode
The Call for Participation for the 2024 programme is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted their proposal! The next Call for Participation will open in autumn 2024.
About the submission of a Podcast Episode:
Are you a podcast host who would like to publish a creative bureaucracy themed episode to coincide with the Digital Kick-Off Day? Whether your podcast is directly focused on public innovation, or it covers another systemic change topic which feels relevant for our creative bureaucracy audience, we’re open to your ideas!
These podcast episodes should be published on the Digital Kick-Off Day in March.
Eligibility:
- Existing podcast format
- Clear and relevant idea for the creative bureaucracy framed episode
- Ability to post an episode in March
- Application in English or German, but podcast can be recorded in any language suitable to your region
YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY
Mutual trust, innovative solutions and collective action towards strengthening our democracies is more important than ever before. Together we want to rethink the principles, processes, and practices of our public institutions. In a time of multiple crises and rapid change, we need administrations with humility, open-mindedness and courage to try new things and take bold decisions for the common good!
The Creative Bureaucracy Festival is a place where trust within and in governments is created and strengthened through:
- …an open discussion about the topics administrations need to catch up on,
- …highlighting heroes and heroines of creative bureaucracy and their ideas,
- …knowledge sharing and calls to take action.
For our programme we want to share knowledge in an even stronger and more conscious way – through inspiring presentations and project examples, through workshops for collective sensemaking, and through a shared commitment to be bolder in our day-to-day work, to question the established, and to try out new methods and ways of thinking.
At the Creative Bureaucracy Festival, we are asking questions such as:
- How do we want to shape interdisciplinary transformation processes in order to actively confront the climate crisis, among other pressing issues?
- What people and resources does the public sector need in order to change – and how do we get them?
- How do we build trust in areas like open data and how do we create inclusion, diversity, equity and belonging at all levels?
Do you know of a great project or an urgent topic that should definitely be included? Forward our Call for Participation to the relevant creative bureaucrat.
For questions about your submission, write to us at programme@creativebureaucracy.org. If you would like to get involved in the live Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin on 13 June 2024 as a partner organisation, please get in touch with us via partnerships@creativebureaucracy.org.