Access City Award 2023: Celebrating cities committed to accessibility

The Access City Award of the European Commission rewards cities that have prioritised accessibility for persons with disabilities. Ecorys has proudly delivered eight past editions of the award. We built upon this experience and lessons learned from the previous editions to further generate interest and participation from cities, raise the profile of the Award and winners, and ensure their inclusion in the Access City Award Network (ACAN).

There are 87 million persons with disabilities in Europe. Despite significant progress in recent years, barriers that hinder mobility in and across cities still remain, preventing persons with disabilities from enjoying their basic rights to information, products, services and housing. The Access City Award (ACA) was created in 2010 to progress accessibility at a local level, and reward cities which have undertaken outstanding work to become more accessible for persons with disabilities.

Ecorys was tasked with the entire delivery of the Award:

• overall project management and organisation, including the call for applications and delivery of an accessible application form, guidance notes and rules of competition; update of the database of eligible cities across all Member States and outreaching them via calls; search of national and European jurors, providing a suitable platform to evaluate cities and organising the EU jury meeting, in which finalists are nominated. Ecorys also organised the Award Ceremony, climax of the project, attended by all finalist cities and high-level Commission representatives. In close cooperation with DG EMPL, we took care of the design, preparation, execution and management of the Ceremony, organised as part of the conference on the European Day of Persons with Disabilities (EDPD). Ecorys prepared a detailed event concept, scenario and scripts, provided a moderator and filmed the ceremony.

• communication and promotion of the award to encourage applications, promote the finalists, the winners and raise awareness on the importance accessibility. Activity entailed a social media campaign, a video reportage about the previous winner, an emotional  introductory video of the ceremony; videos of the winning cities in 24 EU languages with subtitles, accessible transcripts, audio description as well the voiceover and ISL; and the production of the Access City Award brochure, amongst others.

At Ecorys, we are immensely proud of the role we played in the Access City Award initiative. Our dedication to transforming cities into accessible, inclusive hubs reflects our core values of inclusivity, equality, and empowerment.