Panagiotis Karkatsoulis was awarded the "International Public Administration Award" by the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) in 2012. Mr. Karkatsoulis was informed about his award with a letter from the President of ASPA, which was also communicated to the Greek Ambassador to the United States.
The letter stated that :
"With this prestigious award, ASPA recognizes every year one practitioner or academician with an outstanding record of international and national accomplishments. These include successful efforts to build bridges between practitioners and academicians, transplanting best practices to improve the performance of government and non-profit organizations, boosting accountability, ethics and productivity and, increasing public confidence in government".
ASPA is the largest association of administrative professionals in the world. Founded in 1939, it has about 8000 members, including academics, administrators, etc. To be a candidate for the International Public Administration Award, one must be nominated by at least three prominent2 members of ASPA in a transparent way (online nomination).
The nominee is then notified by ASPA that he/she has been nominated for the award. There is a period of approximately one month during which those who believe the nominee deserves the award must send a letter of recommendation to ASPA. The letter must be written by each person recommending the nominee for the award and sent to ASPA directly, not to the nominee.
In each letter of recommendation, the author should state the reasons why he or she considers the candidate worthy of the award, describe his or her achievements and the specific circumstances under which he or she has worked and is aware of them.
The award is decided by a nine-member committee of senior managers and professors (including, for example, academics of international repute, senior White House officials, etc.), which evaluates both the candidate's performance (publications and general administrative activity) and the letters of recommendation sent for the candidate. Criteria for evaluating letters, in addition to their content, are:
- The number of letters of recommendation
- The number of different countries from which letters of recommendation have been sent
- How many different international organisations have sent letters of recommendation
- How many different professions - related to administration - do those who sent letters of recommendation come from?
The usual number of letters of recommendation from those who had received the award before Mr Karkatsoulis was around 30. For Mr Karkatsoulis, 91 letters of recommendation were sent to ASPA, coming from 22 different countries3 and 5 different international organisations4. The letters came from academics, administrators, public administration experts, international organisations, politicians, media and judges, with the distribution shown in the following diagram.
Prior to 2012, the following had received the International Public administration Award:
2011 Valeria Termini
2010 Seῆor Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza
2009 Pan Suk Kim
2008 Matsuyo Makino
2007 Turkia Ould Daddah
2006 Shuzhang Xia
2005 Peter Boorsma
2004 Oscar Oszlak
After the announcement of his award, Mr Karkatsoulis made the following statement:
"Dear friends,
Allow me to share with you the good news that I have been selected to receive the 2012 International Public Administration Award by the American Society of Public Administration.
I feel that in my face they are honored all those working in the practice and study of public administration, who make tireless efforts, often under adverse conditions, in order to sustain a public sector worthy to the people’s aspirations. I would like to offer to them, too, the thanks they richly deserve but seldom receive.
The award is the best proof that the Greeks can serve their country and path the way out of the crisis if the good qualities that exist in Greece are trusted. All talented persons are needed to address the incredible challenges my country is facing.
I would like to thank you for your support both on the occasion of the award as well as for your support and sense of partnership during the journey we’ve shared all these years in the quest for state reform.
2Prominent, that is, must be some of the older members of ASPA who have at times been in high academic or administrative positions.
3Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, South Korea, Kosovo, Lithuania, FYROM, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, UK, USA, Uzbekistan, Switzerland
4European Institute of Public Administration, International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank, OECD, European Union
