The European Prize for Women Innovators celebrates the women entrepreneurs behind Europe’s game-changing innovations, so that they may inspire other women and girls realise their full potential as the EU’s future scientists, innovators, and tech leaders. This prize supports a culture within research and innovation organisations and companies allowing women to become the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. The prize is awarded every year to women from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon Europe, who have transformed their ideas into disruptive innovations to benefit people and the planet. As for the previous edition, the 2025 European Prize for Women Innovators is organised jointly by the Agency and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT). The prize has three categories, two funded by the EIC (the Women Innovators and the Rising Innovators categories) and one by the EIT (the EIT Women Leadership category). These Rules of Contest apply to both the EIC and EIT prize categories.
The prize will boost public awareness of the potential, importance and contribution of women to the EU innovation ecosystem and create strong role models, inspiring more women to become innovators themselves.
There are two EIC prize categories funded under this contest: Women Innovators and Rising Innovators. In addition, there is also one EIT prize category: EIT Women Leadership. - In the Women Innovators category, three prizes of EUR 100 000, EUR 70 000 and EUR 50 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications; - In the Rising Innovators category, three prizes of EUR 50 000, EUR 30 000 and EUR 20 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications from promising ‘Rising Innovators’ under the age of 35. In the EIT Women Leadership category, three prizes of EUR 50 000, EUR 30 000 and EUR 20 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications.
Conditions
1. Admissibility conditions:
Applications must be submitted before the call deadline (25 September 2024 at 17:00:00 CET).
Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are not possible.
Applications (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System (not the documents available on the topic page — they are only for information).
Applications must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:
- Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (to be filled in directly online)
- Application Form Part B —contains the technical description of the application (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as PDF in the system)
- Mandatory annex (to be uploaded): Applicants must support their application with an inspiring video message lasting no more than 90 seconds, describing themselves and their achievements. The video cannot exceed 100MB and should be uploaded to the Submission portal as a .zip file in annex.
Your application must be readable, accessible,printable.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
Applications are limited to maximum 15 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex Bof the Work Programme General Annexes
3. Other eligibility conditions.
All applicants must comply with the following eligibility criteria to participate:
1. The applicant must be a woman[1] (natural person[2]);
2. The applicant must be legally established[3] in an EU Member State, including overseas countries and territories (OCTs) or a country associated to Horizon Europe;
3. The applicant must be the founder or co-founder[4] of the company or organisation[5];
4. The company or organisation must be established in an EU Member State including overseas countries and territories, (OCTs) or a country associated to Horizon Europe, and registered or incorporated[6] at least two years before the call year, (before 1 January 2022);
5. Applicants who have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.
In addition to the above, those applying for the Rising Innovators category must be aged under 35 at the start of the call year.[7] There is no age limit to apply for the Women Innovators category (or for the EIT Women Leadership category), though applicants eligible for several prize categories can only apply to one.
Applicants are expected to provide proof of eligibility upon request.
[1] This prize celebrates women in all their diversity. The word 'woman' equates to a cis woman, or a transgender woman who is legally defined as a woman.
[2]The applicant must apply as a natural person and not as a legal entity.
[3] A person is legally established in a given country, if she is recognised as a resident under national law in that country, and proof of such recognition can be provided upon request.
[4] A co-founder is somebody who has started the company (i.e. "founded" the company) with at least one other person, and proof of this can be provided upon request.
[6] The company or organisation is formed and registered with the appropriate statutory authority of the country as a 'company or corporation', and proof can be provided upon request.
[7]Those applying for the Rising Innovator category must be born after 1 January 1989.
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4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes
5. Evaluation and award:
Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in the rules of contest.
If admissible and eligible, the applications will be evaluated and ranked against the following award criteria:
2. Impact - This innovation addresses a real need or challenge, with significant benefits for peopole and/or the plante. The applicant will demonstrate how the company’s or organisation’s current performance and growth is driving a positive socio-economic and/or environmental impact, among others, in terms of wellbeing, education, profit, job creation.
3. Inspiration – the applicant is an inspiring leader, who has played a pivotal role in the success of the company or organisation and is a role model empowering other women and girls in realising their full potential. The applicant should, for example, highlight her efforts to promote gender balance within the company, organisation or beyond, and/or to advocate for innovative initiatives that have positively contributed to gender equality in, e.g., access to finance, networks, product design, education and contributes to a gender-responsive innovation.
[1]. Only activities that took place within the EU or countries associated to Horizon Europe will be considered for evaluation under this award criterion.
Submission and evaluation processes are described in the rules of contest.
Applications will be subject to a formal evaluation by a jury in each category.
If there are more than 60 applications in one category, there will be a pre-selection phase in that category to select the best 60 applications to pass to the jury review. Otherwise, all eligible applications will pass directly to jury review.
The pre-selection panel and jury usually have a different composition, but jury members may participate in the pre-selection panel.
The pre-selection panel/jury will evaluate each application against the award criteria.
For applications with the same score, the pre-selection panel/jury will determine a priority order according to the following approach: the score for the criterion No 2 will be given a weight of 2 and the score for criterion No 3 will be given a weight of 1.5. If two or more applications still tie for any rank or category, the prize will be equally divided and awarded to all applications with the same score.
Up to 6 best ranked applications in each category will be invited for an interview with the jury in Brussels. This hearing may take place remotely.
On the basis of the evaluation by the jury (and after the mandatory checks: ethics review, security scrutiny, legal entity validation, non-exclusion, double funding and plagiarism, etc), the awarding authority will decide on the award of the prize.
Indicative timeline for evaluation and award decision:
Deadline for submission: 25 September 2024 - 17:00:00 CET (Brussels time)
Evaluation: October 2024 - February 2025
Information on the results and awards: February - May 2025
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes
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