Valve actuation specialist Rotork has won the prestigious 2006 Innovation and Design Excellence Award, a competition for UK companies who recognise that “creativity and design innovation are the critical elements of continually improving and reinvigorating themselves to stay ahead of the competition”. Rotork achieved joint first place in the Business to Business Product Innovation category, sharing the podium with CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio), a company in the forefront of Bluetooth communication technology. The aim of the awards is to recognise and celebrate the critical role played by both engineering and product design teams. Rotork’s entry was centred on the development of the company’s IQT quarter-turn intelligent actuator range and was subject to detailed questionnaires and factory visits by an expert panel of judges. The Innovation and Design Excellence Awards are an annual event organised by Cranfield University School of Management and Findlay Publications Ltd, in association with Scientific Generics.