The Consortium aimed to establish a new professional profile within EU public administrations: the DEO. This was achieved by raising awareness, building capacities, and equipping civil servants to navigate the ethical, social, and legal implications of digital transformation. A key objective was to design a competence-based, EU-aligned curriculum with a clear certification scheme for recognition across Member States. The project piloted this standard and demonstrated that ethical oversight can be integrated into digital tools. A streamlined Skills Network connected administrations, academia, and training institutions. This approach is expected to drive organisational change by embedding the DEO role into administrative processes and decision-making. Ultimately, the project sought to make ethical digital governance a stable, recognised, and sustainable component of public-sector innovation.
The consortium applied to the DEO4PA project to address a pressing need in European public administrations: the lack of structured capacity for the ethical and responsible use of digital technologies. Administrators face complex ethical, social, and legal challenges from AI and digitalisation, yet no standardized guidance exists. Stakeholder consultations conducted as part of the gap analysis to inform the project’s training programme, through surveys, interviews, and workshops, confirmed fragmented practices, uneven knowledge, and limited expertise. The project developed a pilot training curriculum for the Digital Ethics Officer (DEO) to raise awareness, strengthen accountability, align digital transformation with democratic principles, and harmonize competencies across administrations. The gap analysis directly shaped the structure of the training programme, ensuring it effectively addresses the identified gaps.