Gary Knight will be leading an international jury of 18 photography professionals for the 56th edition of the World Press Photo competition, the world's most important photojournalism prize.

Knight, a co-founder of the VII Photo agency, was a World Press Photo jury member in 2004 and 2006, and also chaired the jury in 2008.

"The World Press Photo Award is constantly evolving as it seeks to adapt to the rapid changes in the media landscape," said Knight in a statement. "It takes its role as the world's most prestigious and multi-genre global press-photography award very diligently and seriously. As I look forward to chairing the jury again, there are new categories, juries made up of specialists in each genre, and multimedia has been added."

The categories this year are General News, Spot News, Contemporary Issues, Daily Life and Nature. The People and Sports categories have been redefined into four categories: Observed Portraits and Staged Portraits for the People section, and Sports Action and Sports Feature in the Sports category.

"In 2010, we introduced the system of specialised juries for Sports, Nature and Portraits to bring more focus into the judging," said World Press Photo managing director Michiel Munneke. "We have spoken with former judges and people throughout the industry and believe it is time for the next step in the contest. For the 2013 contest, we have refined the category definitions to improve the quality of the entries." 

Photographers will be able to enter their work from the beginning of December and the closing date is 17 January 2013. The results will be announced on 15 February 2013.

For more details, visit www.worldpressphoto.org.