The Kings’s Awards for Enterprise
The King’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious awards for UK businesses. They recognise outstanding achievement by UK businesses in the categories of:
- Innovation
- International Trade
- Sustainable Development
- Promoting Opportunity Through Social Mobility
Eligibility
To apply for the King’s Awards for Enterprise an organisation must:
- Be based in the UK (incl. the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man)
- Have a good compliance record with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) – for example, showing you pay the right amount of tax on time
- Be a self-contained enterprise that markets its own products or services and is under its own management
- Have at least 2 full-time UK employees or part-time equivalents
- Demonstrate strong corporate social responsibility
- Organisations can be a business or non-profit
The UK’s most prestigious business awards are designed to recognise and promote business excellence and drive growth
International Trade
To apply for the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise an organisation must:
- Have made a minimum of £100,000 in overseas sales in the first year of entry and show year-on-year growth
- Prove that the organisation has achieved outstanding growth in overseas earnings relative to business size and sector
- Prove steep year-on-year growth (without dips) in overseas sales over 3 years – or substantial year-on-year growth (without dips) over 6 years
Innovation
To apply for the Innovation award, organisations must also:
- Have an innovation that has not been sold before
- Have had the innovation available on the market for at least 2 years
- Have recovered all the investments made in the innovation or show that the innovation will recover its full costs in future
- Show outstanding commercial success as a result of innovation over 2 years – or continuous commercial success over 5 years
The innovation should be in one of the following categories:
- Invention, design or production of goods
- Performance of services
- Marketing and distribution
- After-sale support of goods or services
Sustainable Development
To apply for the Sustainable Development award, an organisation must also:
- Show how they have achieved outstanding sustainable development for more than 2 years.
- Provide evidence of the benefits or positive outcomes of their actions or interventions
Promoting Opportunity Through Social Mobility
To apply for this award, your organisation must have a programme that supports people from disadvantaged backgrounds in improving their job skills and their chances of finding work.
This includes doing one or more of the following, for at least 2 years:
- Provide work experience or careers advice
- Mentoring
- Offer interview and job-related training
- Make sure your recruitment process is open to everyone
- You’ll need to prove the benefits for:
- The people you’ve supported
- Your organisation
- Your employees
- The wider community
Applications
Application forms for 2024 will be available on 6th May online, with the final date for submitting them being midday 12th September 2023.
The International Trade Forum will be able to support you through the application process.
There is nothing to lose, but a lot to gain in winning an Award, so please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss it further.
William Beckett: 07968 726973, [email protected] Peter Edwards: 07778 460497, [email protected]
