In addition to the regional banknote and ID document awards, a Special Achievement Award was made to Fabriano, the Italian mill that is celebrating 750 years as a paper producer.

Its fine arts papers were used and highly praised by Michelangelo and Fabrianese paper masters pioneered many of the processes now common in paper manufacture today, including the world’s first watermark.

The company has an international reputation for the production of banknote and security document paper, with one of six continuous machines dedicated entirely to producing these papers.

The award was presented to Eligio Ballabio of Fabriano.

The award judges comprised the Board of Directors of Reconnaissance International Ltd, the conference organiser, publisher of ID and Secure Document News and joint publisher of Currency News. Nominations were sought from the high security printing community and, for future awards, this community will be invited to take part in the process of shortlisting winners as well.