The trio have been nominated along with Capital One, Channel 4, Digital UK and Guardian News & Media for the inaugural Best In-House Team award, which recognises excellence in clientside research.

Best Innovation also makes its awards debut this year, replacing the prize for Best Research Breakthrough which had been awarded in previous years.

Marc Brenner, editor of Research and chairman of the judging panel, said: “We were impressed by both the quality and quantity of entries this year. It has been a tough year for the research business and yet a good number of companies were able to prove standout financial performance and innovative thinking. The judging panel had its chewiest task ever in coming up with winners in what has proved a vintage year for entries.”

The nominees will gather for the awards ceremony at the Lancaster London on 13 December.

Best Place to Work
BrainJuicer
Discovery
Firefish
Flamingo
Hall & Partners

Best Innovation
BrainJuicer for SatisTraction
Conquest for InfeXious
Face for RT02 (Real-Time 02 )
Firefish for FishEye
Hall & Partners for Engager
Ipsos and Techneos for work in mobile ethnography

Best New Agency
River Research
Verve

Best In-house Team
BSkyB
Capital One
Channel 4
Digital UK
Guardian News & Media
O2
Pfizer

Best Agency
BrainJuicer
ComRes
FireFish
Leapfrog Research and Planning
MMR Research
Nunwood
Truth

The judges for this year’s awards are:

• Marc Brenner, editor, Research (chair)
• Ruth Buchanan, consumer insight manager, McDonald’s UK
• Anna Cremin, head of research and consumer insight, Pearl & Dean
• Tim Macer, managing director, Meaning, and Research technology correspondent
• Nick Southgate, IPA behavioural economics consultant
• Brian Tarran, news editor, Research
• Ian Theo, deputy director research, COI
• Mike Weber, director of analytics, Interbrand London

Click here to see the nominees for the MRS Awards.

Bookings are now open for the Research Awards Dinner on 13 December at the Lancaster London. Click here to book tickets.