Entering Professional Categories

This page sets out the guidelines for entering the Professional awards categories.

Read this page carefully for details about eligibility requirements and what to include in your submission. You should also read the information on the relevant awards category page, as well as the Judging Criteria.

For general guidance on how to enter and the terms of entry, read the How to Enter page.

General guidelines

Membership requirement

Except where stated in the specific category details, submissions entered for the Professional Category awards must be the work of an individual chartered, fellow or academic member of the Landscape Institute or an office, department or section headed by a chartered member of the Institute.

Consent and sole work

The consent of the chartered LI member responsible and the client or owner of the work must be obtained prior to entry.

The entry must be the sole work of the practice as entered. If not, then other contributors must be acknowledged.

Applicable timings of work

For our Professional and Open categories, we ask that part of the awarded activity has taken place between July 2021 – July 2023.

By this, we aim to ensure that our Awards are broadly contemporary. However, landscape projects are by their nature multi-year, and our awards cover all phases of landscape work. There are many good reasons why activity falling outside of these dates could be relevant, particularly if you have been involved in a single scheme across multiple stages.

You should assume a common-sense approach when deciding your entry.For example: if you are entering our Excellence in Small Landscape and Garden Design, it would be reasonable (but not essential) to enter a project following an annual period of post-completion maintenance. However the plant specification or sourcing may have taken place many years prior, and you should not exclude this from your entry, if this is a reason why the project is excellent. The judges will decide between eligible entries solely on the basis of the outlined criteria, not on how recent a project is.

Satisfactory for assessment

Particular care should be taken to avoid entering work prematurely before it can be satisfactorily assessed.

Your online entry

You will need to provide the following information as part of your LI Awards online entry: 

Judging information 

This information will be used to administer and judge the Awards 

  • Contact details of entrant and the details of the LI professional member responsible for production of work 
  • Information about the work being entered and client/owner authorisation to enter it into the LI Awards. 
  • Site visit details, if relevant to the work being entered 
  • A brief (up to 500 words) overview of the work – the background, objectives, results and what makes it special
  • Four judging criteria questions (optional) setting out how this work meets each of the judging criteria for the category and why it deserves to win an LI Award (up to 250 words).
  • PDF File upload (100MB max): Provide a single submission document to showcase your work and support your entry. This may include images, reports, plans or other materials. 
  • Online media: if you have referenced a video or website in your submission, please provide the URL of these materials. 

Publicity and marketing information  

This information will not be provided to judges and will only be used if you are a Winner or Finalist in your category. These materials would be used for marketing and publicity around the Awards and in ongoing promotion by the LI.  

  • Images upload: Upload 3 to 10 images (JPEG, at least 300dpi; at least 3 images in landscape orientation) which showcase your entry. These may be featured in promotional material and publicised by the LI. For each image, you will need to provide a brief description and image credit; make sure you use only letters, numbers and spaces in your description credit (ie no apostrophes or special characters) or the image upload may fail. Only provide images that the LI has the right to use. 
  • Online media: if you have referenced a video or website in your submission which could be used in publicity, please provide the URL. Only provide links to materials that the LI has the right to use. 
  • List of contractors and partners to be credited in publicity materials if the entry wins an Award 
  • A brief description so the work can be featured in the LI Case Study Directory, press releases and/or Landscape Journal
  • Key quotes or third party endorsements for use in publicity.
Special Accolades

Submission document guidelines

You will be asked to submit a single PDF Submission document which the judges will take into account when assessing your entry.

  • This can be up to 100MB file size. You may submit an A3 or A4 document, maximum 20 pages.
  • Please note, that PDFs more than 20 pages may be disregarded by the judges.
  • If you refer to online resources, such as videos or websites, please include links to these in your Submission document.
  • Your document should include any materials that you would like the judges to take into account. This could include images, photographs, plans, reports, designs.

You do not need to send a separate hard copy of your submission document.

Image submission guidelines

The images you submit in your online entry form are for promotional purposes (such as on social media, blog posts, articles in the LI Journal ‘Landscape’) and (if you are shortlisted) for use at the LI Awards ceremony.

They are not shared with the judges and are not considered when assessing your submission.

You can submit between 3 and 10 images with your entry. Please ensure that at least 3 of these are in landscape format, suitable for use on Awards collateral, such as the website and on the big screen at the Awards.

If you do not submit suitable images then the Landscape Institute will be unable to include pictures of your project for these purposes.

Try to select images to illustrate the work you are entering, but that are also easy for those outside the profession to understand.

Video and multimedia guidelines

The LI encourages the use of videos, websites and other multimedia as part of your entry. You can provide links to these during your online application.