The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) will be hosting a brand new celebratory event as part of its world-famous Health and Safety Awards in 2021.
The gala dinner ceremony, taking place in the city in May, will mark the first time in its 65-year history that the RoSPA Awards scheme has held an event outside of the UK.
The RoSPA Health and Safety Awards – sponsored by NEBOSH – attracted more than 2,000 entries from 42 countries in 2020, including from organisations from across the GCC. The 2021 Awards have opened for registration today (Thursday, October 1)
Julia Small, RoSPA’s executive head of awards and events, said: “We are so excited to be bringing the RoSPA Awards to Dubai in 2021, which is a reflection of our increasingly-international profile – our entrants represent more than 7million employees from across the world – and an acknowledgement of the amazing work being done by companies in the Middle East to keep their employees safe and healthy.
“RoSPA enjoys a strong bond with many organisations in the GCC, which share the same vision as us – life, free from serious accidental injury – and so we are delighted to be able to bring the RoSPA Awards celebrations to them for the first time.”
RoSPA, which has Her Majesty The Queen as its Patron, will be holding the event alongside its usual gala dinner ceremonies in the UK in London, Birmingham and Glasgow.
Also new for the 2021 RoSPA Awards are seven additional sector categories that organisations can compete to win. The categories have been added to reflect the broadening diversity of organisations entering each year.
The seven new categories are Cultural Industry (to include organisations such as libraries, museums and historical sites), Entertainment and Media (for organisations such as production companies and those in the performing arts), Information and Communication (for example computer programming, IT consultancy, telecommunications), Professional and Technical Activities (legal, accounting, management consultancies etc), Renewable Energy (wind, solar, hydroelectric etc), Security Activities (security firms) and Wholesale and Retail.
In addition to these new categories, the Forestry sector has now also been widened to include Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing.
Julia added: “We’re really pleased to widen the scope of our competitive industry sector categories, which will provide our entrants with enhanced opportunities to vie and benchmark themselves against other organisations.”
In addition to competing across the 31 sector categories, entrants are handed a non-competitive grading at Merit, Bronze, Silver or Gold level.
Awards are also presented to those who demonstrate their commitment to safety outside of the workplace through the [email protected]@Home Award, sponsored by L’Oréal, and the contribution of individuals and teams is recognised through the RoSPA Inspiration Awards.
Entrants gain access to a growing, worldwide community of likeminded professionals through the Awards Excellence Forum, sponsored by HSE Recruitment – a place to share and learn from best practice, enabling the improvement of health and safety systems globally, through regular events and seminars. And those looking to gain the highest possible accolade can partner up with high-performing entrants as part of the mentorship programme.
The RoSPA Awards 2021 are open for registration from today (Thursday, October 1) – register before November 1 to take advantage of early-bird discounts, and there are further discounts for RoSPA members.
For more information on how to register and what the entry process involves, see www.rospa.com/awards.