The awards are judged by an expert, independent panel, carefully selected and vetted to ensure no conflict of interests. Judges are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for the purpose of judging the awards.

The National Cyber Awards judging process is central to ensuring we attract and reward the very best. The process has been developed to ensure it is robust, fair and independent. Led by Chair of Judges, a team of independent industry experts make up the panel of Judges assigned to various categories bringing a range of expertise, experience and balance to the judging in the written and interview rounds.

Our panel of judges will carefully review each submission against the provided judging criteria and are bound by our Code of Conduct for Judges. They come from a variety of specialities and backgrounds, and they are not compensated financially for their work. The judges are committed to ensuring fairness and impartiality in the awards process and have a deep knowledge and understanding of the criteria used to evaluate the submissions.

•  Judges typically review between one and four awards, only after a careful review of conflicts of interests. 
• Scores are collated then combined using a balanced scorecard. They are challenged and discussed with groups of judges moderated by our Head of Judges. This is a critical part of the process as it enables full transparency. A winner and if deserving a highly commended is then selected. 
• Not all categories will attract a highly commended entrant, though some may be given multiple commendations based on merit. 
• We reserve the right to reallocate your entry if we feel an alternative category is more suitable. We will inform you if this is the case. 
• Judges will read and score all entry forms, considering any supporting materials submitted. 
• Judges will be asked to give a score for each question within the entry form, as listed in the bullet points below. These will be combined to give an overall score for each entry.
• All judges' pre-scores will then be combined and the highest-scoring entries will determine the finalists and winners. There will be a maximum of 5 finalists and 1 winner.

Commercial Confidence

To alleviate concerns, we require all judges to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and they will not be able to judge a category that their company has entered. Any conflicts of interest are also challenged and disclosed before assigning them entries.

Judges do not have access to categories they are not allocated to judge.

Please mark and highlight anything that should not be disclosed by either our journalists or on screens during the ceremony with 'judges eyes only'.

Where stated that content cannot be marked as Judges Eyes Only (JEO) in the entries, please note that this information may become public should you win.

This information is used by our content and marketing team to help with elements such as winner bios and post-event communications.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to recognizing and celebrating excellence in cybersecurity at The National Cyber Awards.

For further information please visit https://thenationalcyberawards.org/awards-rules/

The National Cyber Awards Team