ESRI UK has recognised innovative use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at their inaugural GIS Innovation Awards. The winners were announced at ESRI UK's Annual Conference entitled 'Shaping your vision' which attracted over 500 GIS professionals. The winning organisations demonstrated commitment to innovation and ongoing improvement through the successful deployment of GIS.

Richard Waite, Managing Director, ESRI UK, commented:
"We are very pleased to recognise the winners of the ESRI UK GIS Innovation Awards, particularly given the high number and standard of the entries we received. It is inspiring to see so many organisations from all key industry sectors using GIS to make a real difference. The winning organisations have shown how thinking geographically can help make better decisions, keep communities safe and create a more sustainable world."

Across eight categories the winners were:

1. Innovation in Central Government

• Winner: The Forestry Commission. For creating a truly enterprise GIS which has become the single most important IT system to forest and estate management in the UK and greatly improved efficiency, resulting in significant annual savings".

• Highly Commended: The British Geological Survey (BGS). For the BGS Open Geoscience project; a free web service that includes geological maps for the whole of Great Britain and nearly 50,000 images.

2. Innovation in Local Government

• Winner: Digimap Ltd. For their use of GIS to radically change the way property in Guernsey and Alderney is measured and grouped for tax purposes, saving time and resources.

• Highly Commended: Bristol City Council. For their web mapping project which developed a set of cached map tiles for use on Bristol's GIS web application 'Pinpoint' using Ordnance Survey map data.

3. Innovation in Defence, National Security and Public Safety

• Winner: South Yorkshire Police. For their Intranet Mapping System (IMS), which is giving the force a richer picture of what is happening in the community, helping them to increase public confidence and reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.

4. Innovation in the Private Sector:

• Winner : Sellafield Ltd. For its use of GIS in their 110 year restoration programme of the Sellafield nuclear site in West Cumbria, enabling more efficient site planning and asset management which is expected to produce multi-million pound savings.

• Highly Commended: Infield Systems. For its Offshore Energy Gateway project - the first truly online GIS mapping and data system that projects all existing and future offshore oil and gas field developments worldwide.

5. Innovation in Utilities Sector:

• Winner: Wales and West Utilities. For their development of a centralised, cutting edge GIS that has created a common IT platform for accessing information, resulting in streamlined processes and greater operational efficiencies. Total operational costs in the IT department alone have reduced by over 40% in 3 years.

• Highly Commended: Welsh Water. For their corporate GIS replacement and consolidation programme, which helped to bring major benefits to the planning and scheduling of jobs, customer interaction and improved strategic decision making.

6. Innovation and Best Practice - Communities:

• Winner: Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. For the use of GIS to help monitor and predict the erosion of Monmouth Beach on the Jurassic Coast, a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). Thomas Hearing was a member of the project team and was awarded UK Young Scientist of the Year 2010.

• Highly Commended: Kingston University. For their ability to take GIS out of the classroom and develop effective learning environments with mobile GIS, helping students better understand how to represent the real world.

7. Successful Return on Investment from a GIS Implementation:

• Winner: The Crown Estate. For the development of their Marine Resource System, a database with hundreds of layers of information which helps them to better understand the marine environment, identify areas of opportunity in UK waters and resolve planning conflicts in a transparent, evidence-based manner. The system is expected to deliver in excess of £145 million savings over the next 10 years.

• Highly Commended: SHAPE - Strategic Health Asset Planning and Evaluation. For their use of GIS to bring together existing national data sets of clinical activity, human geography and healthcare estate assets. This has resulted in improved business performance, increased accuracy in business decision making and has helped health planners to better understand where the need for health care is greatest.

8. Visionary Thinking Award

• Winner: Digimap Ltd. For their highly innovative 'Tax on Real Property' system. GIS technology has played a major part in the development of the new system for measuring and rating properties for the purpose of property taxation on the Islands of Guernsey and Alderney.

• Highly commended: The Forestry Commission. For creating a truly enterprise GIS which has become the single most important IT system to forest and estate management in the UK and has greatly improved efficiency, resulting in significant annual savings"