Lars Frelle-Petersen Receives INVI's First Honorary Award

On Thursday, September 3, INVI presented its Honorary Award for the first time. The winner was Lars Frelle-Petersen, Director General at the Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, who was honored for his work as the architect behind MitID.

The award was presented during INVI’s festival, “Policy for Tomorrow: Mission-driven Government,” which brought together a large number of guests at INVI’s offices in Copenhagen K. Among them were the other nominees for the Honorary Award, whose work in turning visions into reality set the tone for the discussions throughout the evening.

From Idea to National Infrastructure

As director of the Agency for Digitization, Lars Frelle-Petersen led the partnership between the government and the financial sector that created and implemented MitID. This collaboration set entirely new standards for how the public and private sectors can work together to tackle a shared challenge.

Creating a new digital identity for an entire population is a classic example of a massive challenge. Security, regulation, and public trust must come together as a cohesive whole, and the solution must work for millions of people from day one. Here, Lars Frelle-Petersen challenged the traditional view of what public administration can deliver, and today he is known precisely for that: a keen eye for ensuring that things actually work in the real world.

Presented by Dan Honig

The award was presented by Dan Honig, a professor at Georgetown University and author of the book *Mission Driven Bureaucrats*. In his speech, he emphasized that MitID was never merely a technology project, but a major political undertaking that required security, regulation, political judgment, and collaboration across institutions. Above all, it required trust.

According to Honig, it was precisely the ability to unite widely diverse organizations around a common ambition and navigate the enormous complexity that made it possible to turn that vision into reality for millions of Danes. As he put it, this is precisely what INVI’s Honorary Award is meant to recognize: someone who has developed policy in a new way and who has had the courage and ability to make it work in practice.

The start of a new tradition

With the first presentation of the Honorary Award, INVI is launching a new tradition in which people who are able to turn wicked problems into concrete solutions receive the recognition they deserve. Congratulations to Lars Frelle-Petersen from everyone at INVI.