Cannes Lions 2026 has released the PR Lions shortlist, and 113 campaigns have made the cut. The figure sets the scale of this year's competition in one of the festival's most closely watched tracks for strategic communication.

The shortlist, unveiled ahead of the June festival on the Croisette, represents the work that survived the festival's multi-stage jury process — a progression from entry, to shortlist, to the final metal decisions. For the 113 listed campaigns, the next gate is the jury's final vote, which will determine which entries convert shortlist status into Bronze, Silver and Gold Lions, plus the category's Grand Prix.

What does the shortlist signal?

According to the announcement, the 113 finalists demonstrate how reputation, influence, storytelling and culture are redefining global strategic communication. Those four themes map directly onto the criteria PR Lions juries traditionally score: the idea's strength, the craft of the storytelling, the earned-media and influence mechanics behind it, and measurable impact on a brand's or organization's reputation.

For awards desks and agencies tracking the race, the shortlist is the first hard datapoint of the PR Lions cycle. It identifies which markets, networks and client categories the jury rewarded at the first scoring round — and, by omission, which heavily tipped entries have already exited the race before the Cannes week begins.

Why the number matters

A 113-strong shortlist positions PR as one of the substantial competitions within the wider Cannes Lions program, and it gives contenders a clear benchmark: roughly one in every field of submitted campaigns advanced this far, with the final Lions allocation still to come from the jury's deliberations.

Shortlisted agencies now enter the final phase, where juries re-review the surviving work, debate craft and impact scores, and cast the votes that decide the metal hierarchy.

What comes next

The outcome lands during the Cannes Lions 2026 festival, when the PR Lions winners are announced. Between now and then, the 113 finalists are effectively the declared field — and every Grand Prix prediction in the PR category starts from this list.

For the campaigns included, shortlist status is itself a marketable credential. For the industry, it is the clearest early read on what the 2026 jury considers the state of the art in strategic communication: work built on reputation, powered by influence, told through story, and anchored in culture.