FAQs Awards

The nominations for the Lifetime Contribution and Best Practitioner(s) of the Year Awards are voted on by a panel of experts.

For all other awards, there are two separate stages to the judging process.

Each category has a separate, independent panel of four judges who will put together a shortlist of finalists in their category after reviewing and scoring the information provided on the entry forms. A maximum of four shortlisted finalists for each award will be selected.

There are six criteria for each category, and the answers are first scored by the four individual judges, ahead of an online meeting where the panel will discuss and review the reasons for their individual scoring, and then unanimously agree the final shortlist, based on which entries scored the highest overall.

Please think carefully about your answers, as entries will be scored against each and every criterion. Please make sure your application addresses every point.

The panel of judges will then invite the finalists to an online interview where they will have the opportunity to present the project in greater detail and answer questions from the panel. The panel will then meet to agree which of the finalists will be selected as the winner for that category.

If there is a conflict of interest between entrants and any of the judges, the judge will not score that entry/category.

This year the entry process is in two stages. When you submit Part One of the form, you will receive an email from [email protected] to the email address that you entered in the form.

This email is important and you should save a copy in a safe place. It will contain a unique URL with your unique entry form titled "Awards Entry Form (Extended)".

When you fill in the extended entry form and click 'submit' you will receive a further email notification thanking you for your entry.

Please note that you can only use each unique URL entry form once.

es, you can. However, we ask you to think very carefully about choosing the best category for your project, and do not use the same text for different entry forms.

This year we will be prompting all applications to answer a short question on why they have chosen to enter that particular category.

The questions for each category are different and specific for that category, and the Project Summary should also reflect the category chosen.

You must start a fresh application for each category you wish to enter. Return to the Part One Entry Form and submit your contact details again - this will generate a second unique URL entry form for your second application. You need a separate entry form, and unique URL, for every entry.

You can enter every year. The judging panels also change every year, so your work will always be viewed with a fresh set of eyes. We also know that no-one in this industry stands still, and every year changes and improvements are made, and new lessons are learned.

You may also choose to take into consideration any feedback that was provided in one year, to improve your next application.

There is a discretionary entry fee of £100 per entry.

We appreciate some organisations may be unable to fund this for a variety of reasons and will waive this fee without question if this is the case.

Payment or non-payment of this fee is strictly confidential and has no impact on the likelihood of success for any entry.

It is free to nominate an individual or team for the Best Practitioner(s) of the Year Award, and similarly free to nominate individuals for the Lifetime Contribution Award.

All proceeds from the awards sponsorship, awards dinner (when it can take place) and entry fees are reinvested in our activity to support the assessment community with events and information.

Many of the commercial organisations entering these awards gain significant marketing exposure and we are therefore asking for a discretionary entry payment of £100+VAT per category entered.

We appreciate that some organisations may struggle to be able to fund this for a variety of reasons. If you will find it difficult to manage payment please do contact us to discuss waiving this fee.

We do try to provide some feedback. Please do bear with us, as the judges are all acting on a voluntary basis, and the administrative team behind the Awards are working part-time.

We will do our best, and we have designed the Awards to make it easy to re-apply each year. It is often the case that an application fails to get through because perhaps the wrong category was selected, or the application failed to make it clear how the project matched the criteria.

Entering the wrong category is one of the more common issues. If you have any doubts, it is best to contact the Awards Team before you apply.

Simply use the Contact Us form on the website and make sure you make it clear that your enquiry is relating to the Awards programme.

We are more than happy to help with any enquiries you might have.