First-ever Global Outstanding Security Performance Awards to take place in 2025

World Excellence Awards – the organisation that runs the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs) – has announced that the first-ever Global OSPAs will take place in 2025

The 17 July announcement by OSPAs founder Professor Martin Gill is a key milestone in an awards programme that in the space of a decade has expanded from three countries to dozens. The new development means that category winners from each country will qualify for entry to the global awards.

The awards scheme began in 2015 with events in Norway, Australia, and Germany and since then, Benelux, Canada, France, India and South Asia, Kenya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Romania, South Africa, Southeast Asia, and USA have been added to the programme. 2023 saw the annual OSPAs being held in Aotearoa for the second time.

According to organisers, the OSPAs have been designed to be ethical, and based on values of being independent, credible, transparent, and respectable. They do not appoint the judges, they are nominated by supporting associations and interest groups; the judges mark to an ethics policy, they mark independently against published criteria.

The OSPAs are seen by many as one of the most prestigious accolades to be awarded in the security sector around the world. In New Zealand, the OSPAs awards night has since its inception in 2022 been hosted in conjunction with the

ASIS International New Zealand Chapter’s annual Certification Dinner.

“When we started the OSPAs we always envisaged and were working towards the Global OSPAs, that is why the categories are the same, the judging criteria is the same, and the judges are selected in the same way in all countries,” said founder of the OSPAs Professor Martin Gill.

“Ten years on we are ready to recognise the outstanding performers in security globally. We are excited by the prospect that everyone who enters the OSPAs in 2024 has the chance of not only winning in their country but in the world.”

Categories that are included in the Global OSPAs are:

• Outstanding In-House Security Manager/Director

• Outstanding Contract Security Manager/Director

• Outstanding Security Team

• Outstanding Security Company (Guarding)

• Outstanding Security Consultant

• Outstanding Security Training Initiative

• Outstanding Security Installer/ Integrator

• Outstanding New Security Product

• Outstanding Security Partnership

• Outstanding Security Officer

• Outstanding Female Security Professional

• Outstanding Young Security Professional

• Outstanding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative

• Outstanding Security Sustainability Award

The first OSPA global event will take place virtually at the beginning of 2025 with further details to be published on the Global OSPAs website in due course.