Deadline: 8-Sep-21
Nominations are now open for the Access City Award to recognises and celebrates a city’s willingness, ability and efforts to become more accessible in order to:
- guarantee equal access to fundamental rights;
- improve the quality of life of its population and ensure that everybody – regardless of age, mobility or ability – has equal access to all the resources and pleasures cities have to offer.
Around 87 million people have some forms of disability in the EU and its population is also becoming older. Additionally, Europe is now essentially an urban society, with four out of five EU citizens living in towns and cities.
The European Union promotes equality of opportunity and accessibility for people with disabilities. A fundamental part of its strategy involves working towards a barrier-free Europe.
Objectives
- The objective of the Access City Award is to raise awareness and voice concerns about disability issues as well as promoting accessibility for everyone across European cities.
- The Access City Award is an award recognising cities that have worked to become more accessible for their citizens. It is an EU initiative that:
- recognises efforts by cities to become more accessible
- promotes equal access to urban life for people with disabilities
- allows local authorities to promote and share their best practices
Areas of Accessibility
Description of initiatives in the four areas of accessibility:
- Accessibility to the built environment and public spaces
- Accessibility to transportation and related infrastructures
- Accessibility to information and communication, including information and communication technologies
- Accessibility to public facilities and services.
Eligibility Criteria
The title of winner of the Access City Award 2022 will be given to three cities (first, second and third place). This call for entries to the competition for the Access City Award 2022 is open to the following applicants:
- The submitting body must be a governmental authority of a city of over 50,000 inhabitants in one of the EU Member States. A ‘city’ is understood to be an urban area, excluding metropolitan areas, larger urban zones and conurbations, and is understood as an administrative unit governed by a city council or another form of democratically elected governmental body.
- In Member States with less than two such cities/Administrative entities, urban areas composed of two or more towns/Administrative entities may also participate if their combined population exceeds 50,000 inhabitants.
- Past winners of the first place may not apply for a period of five years after they held the Access City title for a given year.
- The signatory should be the Mayor or highest-ranking city representative authorised, by national law, to legally represent the city.
Selection Process
The selection process is split into two stages:
- national juries will evaluate the applications at a national level
- an EU jury will then assess the shortlisted applications
For more information, visit https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1141#navItem-1