Welcome to the Data Centre Review Excellence Awards 2026
The DCR Excellence Awards exist to spotlight the projects, products and people that are genuinely moving the needle for data centres across Europe.
Entries are judged by an independent panel of experts drawn from across the industry. There is no “pay to win” – every shortlisted entry and winner is selected on merit against clear criteria.
To get started, you’ll need an account. Once logged in you can create, save and submit entries, and return to review them at any time.
Awards structure
For 2026, the awards are organised into three clear tracks, making it easier to see where your work fits:
- Projects – celebrating live data centre builds, expansions and retrofits.
- Products & solutions – recognising the technologies enabling efficiency, resilience and sustainability.
- People & organisations – highlighting the teams and individuals driving the sector forward.
Each category has its own eligibility guidance and judging criteria, focusing on demonstrable impact, innovation and value to the data centre community.
How the entry process works
- Create an account – register as an entrant using your work email address.
- Start an entry – pick the category that best fits your project, product or team.
- Draft and save – your entry can be saved as a draft while you refine it.
- Add supporting material – upload supporting documents and an optional short video link.
- Submit – once you’re happy, submit your entry for judging.
You can log back in at any point to see whether your entry is still in draft, submitted (awaiting judging), or marked as judging complete.
Judging process
Entries are evaluated by a panel of judges with deep experience across data centre design, build, operations and technology.
- Each category has a specific set of criteria, with weightings that reflect what matters most.
- Judges score entries independently using a standardised scoring system.
- Scores are aggregated to produce a ranked list per category.
Entrants will not see individual scores, but will see when judging has been completed for their category.