ESPO Award 2019: deadline is approaching
04 June 2019
Is your port successful in reaching out in a direct and transparent way to the port citizens? Submit your project for the ESPO award 2019!
The ESPO Award on Social Integration of Ports is entering its 11th edition. The theme of this year is “Transparency and the role of social media in reaching out to local community”.
The ESPO Award 2019 will go to the port authority that has developed a successful strategy to reach out to the local community and is succeeding in directly communicating with the port citizens. Using social media as a new way of communicating and demonstrating a high level of transparency about operational achievements, future strategies and environmental challenges and performance is becoming increasingly important for European ports who can only function and further develop if they receive the licence to operate from the local citizens.
Direct and transparent communication must make it possible for every citizen to follow the port in its successes and challenges. Moreover, it allows dialogue with the citizens and, ideally, makes every citizen an ambassador of its port.
“The 2019 citizen is better informed and more engaged. This also counts for the port citizen. More than ever, ports have to reach out directly to the people living and working around the port. Port authorities are considered by the local population as the representative of the maritime community in the city. Ports must understand that the port citizen wants to know when things are going well in the port, but even more when things are going wrong. Several European ports are actively responding to this new reality. For this Award edition, we hope to gather different good practices and reward the best and most innovative project. It is certainly a topic of importance for every port in Europe, whatever its size,” says ESPO’s Secretary General Isabelle Ryckbost.
Project submissions have to reach the ESPO Secretariat by Friday 28 June 2019 at the latest. The application form and the terms of reference are available on the ESPO Website.
Port of Rotterdam, winner ESPO Award 2018
The ESPO Award was established in 2009 to promote innovative projects of port authorities that improve social integration of ports, especially with the city or wider community in which they are located. In this way, the Award aims to stimulate the sustainable development of European ports and their cities.
The 11th ESPO Award will be officially handed out during an Award Ceremony and Dinner, which will take place on 13 November in Brussels.
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