Awards at 2026 ESOMAR Congress

The 2026 ESOMAR Congress, held in early September at the Palacio de Congresos in Valencia, saw the announcement of a range of awards. The winners included people who have “shaped this profession over a career rather than a year”: the 2026 Legends, recipients of the Insight250’s highest honour decided by nomination and a vote of the industry itself.

This year’s Legends included Network members Corinne Moy, Bob Qureshi and David Smith, as well as other prominent British figures in the industry such as Prof. John Curtice. More details and a full list of winners can be found here.

The Tony Cowling Foundation (TCF) presented its Innovation Awards at the Congress, too. Human8 and The Coca-Cola Company won the Gold Award for work exploring future digital twins; Silver went to Brand Genetics and Unilever for their work centred on a custom agentic AI innovation platform, and Bronze to Wortya for “tackling one of the most important questions surrounding synthetic respondents: when can they actually be trusted?”

For more details, see the TCF website.