The winners of this year’s ITA Tunnelling Awards have been announced.
The recipients were revealed yesterday at a ceremony held alongside the CPT 20th Anniversary Conference in Lisbon.
The winners of the 2026 Tunnelling Awards, celebrating excellence and innovation in the tunnelling and underground space industry, are:
Major Project of the Year – over €500m
Gold: GTX-A Metropolitan Express Railway Deep Tunnel Project between Unjeong–Samsung Station – South Korea
Silver: Beijing East Sixth Ring Road Tunnel – China
Bronze: HS2 MWCC C1 Chiltern Tunnels and Shafts – United Kingdom
Project of the Year – €100–500m
Gold: Relocation of Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works to Caverns – Main Caverns Construction – Hong Kong, China
Silver: Inter-Terminal Bored Tunnels (ITBT) – Changi Airport – Singapore
Bronze: Monsanto-Santa Apolónia Tunnel – Lisbon Drainage Master Plan – Portugal
Project of the Year – up to €100m
Gold: Ollachea Tunnel – Peru
Silver: Novaliches–Balara Aqueduct 4 (NBAQ4) – Philippines
Bronze: Lisbon Metro Circular Line Extension – Lot 2 (Santos–Cais do Sodré) – Portugal
Rehabilitation, Upgrading and Re-purposing Projects
Gold: Howard Street Tunnel – United States
Silver: The Beverentunnel Renovation – Belgium
Bronze: Total Renovation of the Kennedy Railway Tunnel in Antwerp – Belgium
Technical Innovation of the Year
Gold: Automated Primary Supports for Tunnelling Under Tectonic Stresses and Severe Squeezing – Italy
Silver: A World-First TBM-excavated Spiral Ramp in Hard Granite for Radioactive Waste Disposal – China
Bronze: Complete Equipment and Construction Technology for Vertical Excavation of Ultra-Large-Diameter Prefabricated Shafts – China
Product / Equipment Innovation of the Year
Gold: TBM Integrated Sensing Equipment – China
Silver: Use of Precast Lining and Automated Lining Erector Machine in Mined Tunnels – Australia
Bronze: The Cube System – an Ultra Low Headroom Diaphragm Wall Machine – Belgium
Elevated Thinking: Underground – Shaping the Future
Gold: Elevating Energy Viability: Sustainable LPG Storage in Engineered Rock Caverns – India
Silver: HIPOGEO Santiago Bernabéu Stadium – Spain
Bronze: Planning and Construction of the “#” Shaped Underground Road System in Shanghai CBD Core Area – China
Lifetime Achievement Martin Knights[ https://youtu.be/XOjOGQS6kYA?si=avbIxtiP3RmFbMUb] – United Kingdom
Young Tunneller of the Year
Gold: Gabriel Lehmann – Germany
Silver: Wojciech Mleczko – Poland
Bronze: Xu Chen – China
