Her Majesty The Queen today announced the 2005 winners of The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, the UK’s leading accolade for business success that is now in its 40^th year.  There are 137 Awards, the highest total for 10 years.

The anniversary year is also marked by the announcement of the first recipients of The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion. These new Awards for individuals who have played an outstanding and significant role in promoting the growth of enterprise and/or entrepreneurial skills and attitudes in others include a Lifetime Achievement Award and 10 Standard Awards.

The Queen’s Awards for businesses honour outstanding companies from across the UK, from a small firm with only two employees to an international giant employing nearly 4,500.  Their products range from cheese and whisky to high-quality loudspeakers, an innovative hot food display cabinet and a digital scanner for the motion picture industry.  Business Award winners include a company involved in the Indian Ocean tsumani disaster relief operation and a UK-based Japanese car company that is exporting cars – to Japan.

Products and services from winners in the International Trade category include fine perfumes, specialist cheeses, higher education courses and water purifiers, foodstuffs for conflict zones, and converters of drapery and upholstery textiles for the contract and domestic soft furnishings industry.

Awards in the Innovation category recognise a broad spectrum of outstanding achievement including equipment that aids traffic management and road safety by detecting pedestrians waiting to cross the road, new ways of tagging products to stop in-store theft, the world’s first isotonic energy gel for sportspeople, and a secure radio for frontline soldiers on active service.

Winners in this year’s Sustainable Development category include a brewer who has significantly improved the environmental impacts associated with brewing operations, a champion of eco-friendly cycling holidays, and a beverage and nut importer who promotes both ecological excellence and schemes to improve the livelihood of employees in developing countries.

In the first year of The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion a Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Professor Kenneth O'Neill, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, who is said to be one of the top 10 experts on enterprise in the world.  Recipients of the Standard Award are Mr Sikander Badat (Bolton), Professor Alan Barrell FRSA (Cambridge), Ms Dinah Bennett (Durham), Mr Stephen Dumbell (Kirkby, Merseyside), Ms Diane Gowland (London), Mr Gary McEwan (Ralston, Renfrewshire), Mr Brian Murray (Cookstown, Northern Ireland), Ms Joy Nichols (Barnes, London), Mr Edward Prosser (Cardiff) and Mr Charles Skene OBE (Aberdeen).

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