Innovation Award Berlin-Brandenburg
Goals
Promoting, presenting and honouring the future-proof and marketable developments undertaken by start-ups or spin offs, founders, established businesses or interconnected research institutes; these are the goals of the Innovation Award of the capital region.
A key concept of the Innovation Award in a nutshell: today’s innovations are tomorrow’s workplaces. As an instrument for the promotion of businesses, this competition considers the dynamic development of the growth sectors to be of decisive importance for the future of the capital region. This is why the Innovation Award is step-by-step being turned into a momentum and performance platform of the innoBB. At the same time, the Innovation Award Berlin-Brandenburg pursues another goal: as a vibrant annual process for motivated innovators, but also for innovation supporters and public decision-makers, it is supposed to provide a broad results-oriented networking platform. Interactions and mutual inspirations have always been the basic elements of the Innovation Award.
Through the involvement of companies as “private partners”, the award was and is also an award by the business community for the business community. A vital emphasis is being put on the development of marketable innovations for the future of the capital region and their promotion in the framework of a joint public-private project.
The jury
The 2017 jury for the Innovation Award Berlin-Brandenburg was appointed by both states. The members of the jury, which will be presided over by Prof. Eckart Uhlmann, reflect the entire spectrum of the innovation scene in both states and the five clusters of the capital region. They represent research and development institutions, industrial and handicrafts unions, but also innovative and successful businesses of the region. The jury will decide independently.
The competition
In order to compete for the Innovation Award, the implementation, production and marketing of the innovation has to take place in the region of Berlin and Brandenburg. Should the innovation have been created outside of these federal states, the implementation and utilisation must have already started – or the preparations must be demonstrably on their way – in the region of Berlin-Brandenburg. The implementation and utilisation must, in principle, not have started more than 36 months ago. Third parties’ existing rights, especially industrial property rights, may not be infringed. The competitor must present a self-declaration in this regard.
The history
The Innovation Award Berlin-Brandenburg has been awarded since 1992 jointly by Berlin’s Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Brandenburg. Altogether it counted more than 3,800 entries and 145 awardees were honoured (since 1984). The award is being handed out on a yearly basis to up to five awardees. The finalists and awardees are chosen – as is tradition – by an independent expert jury consisting of 18 members. The awardees receive €10,000 each.
The Innovation Award Berlin-Brandenburg is the oldest of its kind in the region. It was established in 1984 by Berlin’s Senate Department for Economics and Enterprises. While the initial goal consisted of providing a sustainable impetus for the economic development of the region of Berlin and to increase its innovation level, the reunification of Germany turned the Innovation Award into an instrument of an interconnected development of the capital region.
Since 1992 (the now) Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research of Berlin and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Brandenburg have been awarding the Innovation Award jointly.
While at the beginning of the 90s the joint Innovation Award of the capital region reflected the economic development and interconnectedness of Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg, today it is turning – mainly due to the Joint Innovation Strategy of the States of Berlin and Brandenburg (innoBB) – into a corresponding and impetus-providing element of the joint location and business policies.