The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) is encouraging people to enter the 2020 Technical Innovation Awards.
Although the Royal Highland Show itself has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the innovation awards will still take place.
Organisers have dropped the entrance fee of £100 and extended the deadline to encourage more entries to the awards.
Designed to recognise design and innovation across agri-sector machinery and equipment, the prestigious awards showcase inventions and innovations that demonstrate a positive impact on agriculture, horticulture, equestrian, forestry, renewable energy and estate activities.
A number of groundbreaking innovations have been awarded during these long-running awards
The awards are now open until May 8 2020 via the RHASS website and judging will be completed online.
A formal presentation of awards will be undertaken at Ingliston House post Covid-19 restrictions.
Commenting on the value of the awards, Beth Fenney from last year’s Gold winner Kverneland Group Klepp, said: “The Technical Innovation Awards are without doubt a prestigious accolade to receive.
“Winning allowed us to showcase our product to a wide audience and helped us communicate the clear benefits it brings to customers.”
“The awards are easy to enter – it’s only one form to fill in and then it’s a case of sending any additional information about the product such as videos, brochures and images for the judges to review. I would highly recommend entering.”
The Technical Innovation Awards recognise both new products with the Silver award and then the benefits to customers after three years of commercial use with the Gold award.
This allows the initial idea to be awarded first, before enabling customers to provide feedback.
jimillar@thecourier.co.uk