The contest

The Access City Award answers exactly to this purpose. It pursues three main goals:

• provide to organisations and municipalities the chance to have their project funded;
• share and exchange good practices among municiplaities;
• and, of course, cities with better facilities.

The purpose of the award is 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.

Who can participate?

The contest is open to:

• all EU cities of over 50 000 inhabitants;
• urban areas composed of two or more towns with a combined population of over 50 000 inhabitants, if they are in EU countries with fewer than 2 cities with over 50 000 inhabitants.

As one can see, entries must be submitted by the local municipality or mayoral office. This means that, if you’re an organisation or association whishing to participate to the contest, you should contact the respecitve offices and propose to apply.

Here there is the application form. The award is implemented within the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, that implies, among others, the worki towards a barrier-free Europe.

How much is the prize?

2019 marks the 10th annyversary of ACA. The European Commission is then going to award the winning cities with a total of EUR 350.000, to be split among the first three cities that scored the best result.

Deadline

The deadline to submit the projects is set on 11 September 2019, 24:00 CET.

L'articolo Open contest: Access City Award proviene da Youth Networks.

The projects will have to deal with communication, campaigns, direct actions and more – as for example:  

• educational programmes or campaigns about the EU;
• information and communication campaigns about the EU;
• activities that enhance young people’s motivation to participate in the democratic processes that shape the future of the EU;
• activities that enhance young people’s attachment to the core values of the EU;
• action-based activities that enable young people to witness the benefits of the EU.

For the 2019 edition the prizes available are 16 (11 more than the previous edition!), each 25 000 EUR worthy. The deadline for applications is Tuesday 29 October 2019 at 17:00 CET. Further informations about the deadline, the eligibility and the award criteria are available on the official Rules of Contest document, while here there’s the official news of the contest – and the link for applying.

L'articolo Contest: Altiero Spinelli prize for outreach – new edition 2019 proviene da Youth Networks.

The European Parliament launched Instagram competition “I am Europe”: share your photo and win a trip in Brussels, to the open day of the European Parliament, on May 4^th.

The idea behind the contest is that Europe is, and will always be, about all of us. A point that, according to the Parliament, is important to remind expecially now, with the European elections (planned for May 23^rd – 26^th) closer and closer.

Every day, in fact, we publish our photos on social media, sharing pieces of our lives, that, from this point of view, are also pieces of the life of Europe.

Who can participate?

To participate “I am Europe” contest you need to be at least 18-year-old, live in one of the EU countries (UK included), own the copyrights of the photo, have a public account on  Instagram.

Rules

The rules are quite simple and consist of 3 steps:

• Share a photo of yourself or someone special to you and tell the story behind it;
• When posting the photo, use the hashtag #iameurope and tag @europeanparliament;
• Subscribe to the European elections platform: thistimeimvoting.eu

Winners

Among all the published photos, there will be only 6 winners.

5 will be chosen by the platform;

1 will be chosen by users: every day, in fact, the Instagram account of the European Parliament will share the best photos. The one that will get more “likes” will be the winner.

The winning photos, and the other best (but not winning) photos, will be part of an exhibition during the Open day of May 4^th.

Deadline

You have time until April 1^st 2019, at 12.00 (time of Brussels)

To know more, download “Citizen’ App”, developed by the European Parliament, on your Smarphone: learn about this and much more opportunities and news.

L'articolo “I am Europe”: share a photo and fly to Brussels proviene da Youth Networks.

The changes that the EU market has to face, due to digitalisation, are actually being studied for almost one year. Three external advisers – Professors Heike Schweitzer, Jacques Crémer and Assistant Professor Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye – have been working on a report since 1 April 2018, which has to be released on 31 March 2019.

The full program of the conference (topics, speakers and how to send your questions) is available here.

The topic

The issue of digitalisation and how it affects the competitiveness of the markets is part of a wider reflection over how competition policy can best serve European consumers. The importance of competition in the markets was underlined by Vestager in a speech dating back to 18 September 2017, when she said: “Just as the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society, competition in our markets is fundamental to a fair one (…). Competition is the motor that drives businesses to do better for consumers. To cut prices. To offer more choice. To produce innovative products”.

The Commission will also use the contributions of several stakeholders that have to deal with digitalisation, who will also take part in the conference.

The contest

Also university students will have the possibility to get involved in the field. The Commission has in fact launched a Student Challenge: whoever wishes to take part in the contest should follow the conference (it will be web streamed here) on 17 January, come up with contributions to the discussion – just as they were part of the speakers – and, starting from the following day and until 31 January, send them to the Commission. Here the full Student Challenge rules.

The best entries, selected by a jury of DG Competition officials, will be published on the Commission website no later than 7 February, where it will be possible to vote for the best ones until 21 February 2019. The winners will be offered a trip to Brussels on March 13, where they will present their submissions and have an hour-long meeting with Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner for Competition.

L'articolo “Shaping competition policy in the era of digitisation” student contest proviene da Youth Networks.

As written on the Commission’s website, the projects eligible to compete will have to deal with:

• Innovative and practice-oriented educational programmes or campaigns and/or Massive Online Open Courses;
• Games (offline and/or online) with pedagogic purposes allowing young participants to experience Europe and its functioning in practice;
• Collaborative projects and action-based activities promoting the concrete participation of young people in the democratic processes that shape the future of the EU, and their active engagement with European common values;
• or combinations of such works.

For the 2018 edition the prizes available are five, each 25 000 EUR worthy. The deadline for applications is Monday 07 January 2019 at 17:00 CET. Further informations about the deadline, the eligibility and the award criteria are available on the official Rules of Contest document.

This year, the prize shares very close links with the European Youth Week 2019 – that will take place ahead of the European election. In fact, according to the last surveys, it appears that the youngsters living in EU barely know how the whole European construction works. Hence, the Altiero Spinelli Contest’s purpose is to award either the works, activities or products that best represent the impact that the young people can actually put in place; the bottom-up contributions in the democratic process and, from the other side, the top-down spillovers from the EU; and, eventually, the core European values, threatened especially in the last period by the populistic wave.

It’s the second year that the contest takes place. The winners of the 2017 edition participated with projects and works regarding schools, courses and programmes for a deeper understanding of the European construction; practical games (online and offline) together with activities regarding the EU; books, photo projects and other visual art performances. Any original mean is suitable to compete for the prize: it’s more a matter of commitment and belief.

L'articolo Contest, Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outreach 2018 proviene da Youth Networks.