The Crusader or Naive

From Paul Rosser's linkedlin, Surely naivatiy that in the end are not all awards paid for ? you either pay to be a member of the association who runs them, the magazine etc

It's no secret that some companies will try and boost their credibility by claiming that that won an award, even when they know no proper judging took place, and in fact they simply paid to win. 

R&D advisors are sadly no different, as RDI were awarded Best Tax Incentive & Innovation Management Advisors in 2022 and Green Jellyfish were awarded R&D Tax Credit Specialist of the Year in 2023.

As these awards are often used by disreputable R&D advisors to attract new clients, should the award providers also share some of the blame? 

I believe they should, as an award "win" is typically used in marketing material and so would no doubt have helped the advisor win new clients, many of which suffered a financial loss, or worse became the victim of fraud. 

If you are looking at using an "Award Winning" R&D advisor, it might be worth looking into who presented them with the award, to help you gauge if it was won on merit, or not. As, if it's the latter then this might be an indication that the advisor is happy to mislead people in an attempt to appear more reputable. 

In case you are wondering both the RDI and Green Jellyfish awards were provided by the same organisation, Acquisition International Global Media (AI Global Media), who have several brands including SME News, Innovation in Business, and Build Magazine, so hopefully their judging criteria has improved since 2022/2023.