Award for the project “Simple language in the Poznań City Hall

2024-05-28

Award for the project “Simple language in the Poznań City Hall

The project entitled: “Simple language in Poznań City Hall” (Polish: “Prosty język w Urzędzie Miasta Poznania”) was awarded a prize in the fifth edition of the “Innovative Local Government” competition organised by the PAP Local Government Service (Polish: Serwis Samorządowy PAP). The project is the result of cooperation between Poznań City Hall, Adam Mickiewicz University and the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center.

“The Innovative Local Government Competition” is an initiative to select and reward the most innovative local authorities. Its main objective is to promote creative local governments and to inspire other local governments to take innovative actions. The subject of the competition is the description of the implemented projects submitted by the local governments and the main evaluation criteria – innovativeness at the national level and the results of the solutions applied. Innovations can be technological, procedural, social, public (municipal), in terms of support tools and services, etc.

The best ones were selected by a jury composed of representatives of the PAP Editorial Board, the Warsaw School of Economics, the Union of Polish Rural Communes, the Union of Polish Cities, the Union of Polish Towns, the Union of Polish Metropolises, the Union of Polish Counties and the Union of Polish Voivodeships.

The award-winning project “Prosty język w Urzędzie Miasta Poznania” (Simple Language in Poznań City Hall) is a realisation of the idea that communication between the authority and citizens should be fully comprehensible and uncomplicated. The Poznań model for simplifying official language is comprehensive and practical, combining the tradition of Polish philology with modern technologies.

The introduction of plain language in the modern office is also closely related to the idea of the smart city. One of the goals of a modern city should be to enable residents to deal with all matters quickly and easily. Another is to ensure equal and secure access to public services. These postulates will be implemented by the winning project. The model is based on the assumption that in order to do things simply, it is necessary not only to use simple mechanisms, but also to write and speak simply. The basis for a sense of security and comfort is good relations between residents and the city, the office and its units.

One of the most important results of the cooperation is the opening of a new postgraduate course at the Adam Mickiewicz University – “Simple Language in Public Institutions”.
On Saturday, 8 June 2024, the Mickiewicz Salon at 10 Fredry Street will host the second formal conference concluding this year’s edition of the course. It will feature presentations by students who will explain how plain language works in their institutions.