EU Prize for Women Innovators Opens for 2022

The prize recognises and rewards the work of women who have brought outstanding innovations to market.

Each year, the European Commission runs the EU Prize for Women Innovators to reward women who have brought outstanding innovations to market.

This contest was established to address the fact that women are too often overlooked as a source of innovation and creative talent, and offers three prizes to women who have made significant impact on the innovation ecosystem by transforming ideas into new and advanced products and/or services for the benefit and wealth of European citizens. A single fourth prize will also be made to an exceptional entrepreneur aged 35 or younger in a ‘rising innovator’ category.

The Prize honours and gives recognition to female entrepreneurs running innovative companies, and aims to provide inspiration to the next generation of women innovators and to raise awareness of entrepreneurship as an option for women researchers.

Candidates must be women who have founded or co-founded their company, which must have been registered at least two years before the application deadline. The contestant can be of any nationality but must reside in an EU Member State or a country associated to Horizon Europe.

Two or more female co-founders of a single company may submit a joint application. In this case, the participants must appoint a ‘lead participant’ to represent them towards the Commission. The participants will be jointly responsible and must all fulfil all eligibility criteria.

Winners of the Rising Innovator award must be aged 35 or under. Applicants eligible to apply for both categories may only apply to one.

Three awards of €100,000 each will be made for the winners. The Rising Innovator Prize is worth €50,000.

Applications for the 2022 round should be submitted by the 18 August 2022 deadline.

(This report was the subject of a ResearchConnect Newsflash.)