ENTRIES INVITED FOR TECH AWARDS

The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) is calling for entries for its Technical Innovation Awards.

Designed to recognise design and innovation across machinery and equipment for use in the agri and rural sectors, the Society says the awards showcase inventions and innovations that demonstrate a positive impact on agriculture, horticulture, equestrian, forestry, renewable energy and estate activities. 

Entries must relate to machines, appliances, technical components or important ancillary equipment and should be commercially available or prototypes in development. All entries are judged and benchmarked on individual merit.

The judging format will be a hybrid of in-person demonstrations, user evaluation and electronic submissions. The awards are open to entries from Thursday 24th March until Friday 15th April via the Royal Highland Show website.

Winners will be presented with their awards during the Royal Highland Show in June and promoted through a PR and digital marketing campaign, with spaces reserved at the Show for the winners from 2020, 2021 and 2022 to exhibit their winning designs. The organisers say the show is a unique shop window for winners to take advantage of, with nearly 200,000 visitors expected over the four days.

The oldest RHASS award, having been in place since the formation of the Society in 1784, the Technical Innovation awards were formerly known as the ‘New Implements Award’. This year is a significant milestone in the history of the awards, as it marks the 200th anniversary of the Royal Highland Show. 

Last year, one Gold, six Silver and five Certificates of Commendations were awarded. The Gold award was presented to previous Silver award winners Calibrate Inc. Ltd, for their Heatpump Heat/Chill 6MW System.  

RHASS chief steward of technical innovation, Christopher Shepherd said, “Despite the challenges of the last couple of years, we have continued to see businesses exhibit fantastic levels of innovation, with a huge number of high-quality entries to the Technical Innovation Awards. 

“The Awards are a highly influential industry accolade, offering a unique and valuable marketing advantage to winners. This year even more so, as the Royal Highland Show celebrates its 200th anniversary. I look forward to seeing the designs and products that are leading the way in developing our rural industries.”