Google has decided they want to encourage and reward innovation in the field of journalism and, as they should, they want those efforts to come from technology and sharing. They recently partnered with Danish publication, Dagbladet and Southern Denmark’s Center for Journalism to sponsor the Nordic News Hacker 2012 competition.

The contest requires participants to submit a work of data journalism in whatever form the creator feels is appropriate. This years winner was Anders Pedersen’s Doctors for Sale project, which used raw dat to discover and showcase which doctors received money from the pharmaceutical industry. His efforts won him a one month scholarship to work with Guardian Data Blog and $20,000 cash.

Denmark also has a Google-sponsored contest underway at the International Journalism Festival. Of over 300 projects submitted, about 60 have been put on a shortlist, and 6 will be chosen for rewards. The winners will be announced on the 31st of May at the News World Summit in Paris.

Vienna had 14 winners from their International Press Institute News Innovation contest. The winners of the contest will receive cash and gifts from Google that total about $1.7 million.

The idea is to give back to the innovators and experts who continue to deliver messages to the public with available raw data and do so in smarter and friendlier ways. Since Google is providing many of the tools for these works, it makes sense that they want to reward the creators and highlight many of the great accomplishments their platforms have helped make possible.