Deadline: November 18, 2015
Application is on for the European Capital of Innovation Award 2016. The award considers the city as a holistic system, including built environment, municipal authorities and citizens, organizations and public structures as a platform facilitating growth and developing creativity and innovation in its different meanings. After the success of the first edition of the European Capital of Innovation Award in 2014, the European Commission has launched a second, even more ambitious, edition to celebrate the European city which is building the best “innovation ecosystem”- connecting citizens, public organizations, academia, and business – with a view to helping the city scale up its efforts in this field.
It will aim to provide European level recognition to those cities that make the most to promote innovation within their communities and thereby improve the quality of their citizens’ lives. It will address the challenge of fostering innovation through actions at city level, by acknowledging innovative solutions to build up an innovation ecosystem and ideas to further expand and scale up these initiatives, thereby leveraging and inducing further systemic innovation in cities.
Award criteria
The winner of the “European Capital of Innovation Award 2016” will be selected by an independent High Level Jury which will assess the cities’ actual achievements and the potential intended scaling up activities against the following award criteria:
- Innovative – in terms of concepts, processes and tools;
- Inspiring – attracting talent, resources, funding, investment;
- Integrated – covering the entire innovation ecosystem and its links with Europe 2020;
- Interactive – facilitating the interactions within the innovation ecosystem, particularly ensuring citizens’ involvement and engagement;
- Impactful – outlining the city’s potential to realize the expected impacts of the prize and its current commitment towards future, sustainable plans based on the above mentioned achievements.
Prize
- First prize – EUR 950,000;
- Second prize – EUR 100,000;
- Third prize – EUR 50,000.
Eligibility
- The candidate cities must be established in an EU Member or in Associated Country and have a population above 100,000 inhabitants;
- The submission consists of a complete application.
- The achievements must relate to completed or on-going initiatives started after 1st January 2012.
- The achievements have not been previously awarded with a monetary prize by an EU institution.
Application Process
- Read the application guide.
- Applications are submitted through the participant’s portal.
For more information, see Rules of Contest or visit European Capital of Innovation Award.
