Applications for the awards are now open, with the new category joining the existing six: Business Process, Communications (including Marketing), Customer Experience, Product Design, Product Performance, and Service Development.

Entries are invited from commercial companies, start-ups, charities, trade associations, educational institutions and public bodies in sectors including publishing, paper, print machinery and techniques, print supplies and packaging.

Awards chair Jill Jones said: “We’ve introduced the new category to help start-ups raise their profiles. Across all categories, our expert team of judges will be looking for examples of novel ideas or solutions to existing challenges, which have or will deliver worthwhile benefits.

“We had a terrific bunch of entries last year and look forward to seeing this year’s entries.”

Submissions can be made until 7pm on Thursday 9 April and all category winners will be entered into the overall Innovator of the Year award, with all victors announced at the awards luncheon at Stationers’ Hall, London, in June.

Ahead of the awards, the Stationers’ Company will be running its annual lecture at Stationers’ Hall in March with Vint Cerf speaking on the theme of ‘The Future of Text’.

Cerf is known as one of the founding fathers of the internet and is an honorary freeman and liveryman of the Company. He currently works with Google on global policy development, having designed the TCP/IP protocols and contributed to the architecture of the internet.

His talk will take place at 6pm on 11 March, and the awards luncheon will follow on 30 June for the winners’ announcement.