A new award is set to recognise and highlight consultancy and engineering companies’ response during the Covid pandemic. 

A Best Pandemic Response Award has been added to the list of categories in this year’s Consultancy and Engineering Awards, organised by the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) and will be awarded to consultancy firms working in the built environment for their response to the pandemic. 

Shortlisted organisations will have successfully transitioned to remote working, provided an ongoing programme of support for their people and also demonstrated their credentials as a socially responsible business. Given the outstanding responses, internally and externally, to the Covid crisis demonstrated by many firms of all sizes, ACE hopes to see a significant number of entries in this special category of its annual awards.

Entries for the Best Pandemic Response Award will need to outline how a company has met the challenges raised by a sudden transition to remote working and adapted to working with clients online. Firms will also be asked to share how their organisation has successfully supported its people through difficult circumstances since the start of lockdown and also to highlight how they have supported their local community or wider society through the pandemic and played their part as a socially responsible business.

Commenting on the special pandemic award category, ACE chief executive Hannah Vickers said: “Many of our members went above and beyond throughout the pandemic - whether that was supporting their staff, transitioning business or partnering with the NHS to deliver Nightingale hospitals - and we’re delighted to be able to recognise that with a unique one-off award this year.”

The Consultancy and Engineering Awards are supported by headline sponsors Bentley Systems and Griffiths & Armour, while Arcadis and WSP in the UK are category sponsors. Once again, Infrastructure Intelligence is a media partner and its editor Andy Walker is a member of the judging panel.

This year there are ten awards and a simplified entry process which will be open until Sunday 4 July 2021 at 6pm. Entrants to last year’s awards have already been contacted to arrange for their entries to be transferred into this year’s competition.

Click here for details of all the awards and information on how to enter.