This award recognises and celebrates societal advancements through research and innovation.Here for our members are instructions on how to apply, news about the contest and full details of the award.
What is the Horizon Impact Award?
This award is the European Commission’s initiative to recognise and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society.
These projects must have been funded by FP7 and Horizon 2020 funding programmes and they must be closed by the time of application
Why is there an award?
The award aims to show the wider socio-economic benefits of EU investment in research and innovation.
The award enables individuals or teams to showcase their best practices and achievements. This will encourage other beneficiaries to use and manage their results in the best way possible.
It aims to create role models and inspire beneficiaries of research and innovation funding to maximise the impact of their research.
They can do this by directly exploiting results or by playing an active role ensuring stakeholders effectively use the results.
Award value
5 awards of €10,000 each
The winners will be invited to an award ceremony, which will include a selected audience of high-level representatives and promoters of innovation in industry and the public sector.
The Horizon Impact Award will provide the winners with high visibility in the form of public interest and increased media coverage.
The Commission will further promote the winners by inviting them to provide testimony at other major events.
Who can apply?
The contest is open to all legal entities, individuals or teams, that have completed a FP7 or Horizon 2020 project.
Award criteria
• The applications must address the following cumulative criteria:
• From results to societal benefits – proven link between funded project results to their uptake and creation of societal benefits.
• Applicants must demonstrate that they have directly exploited their research and innovation results or have played an active role in the uptake of the results by third parties.
• The direct and indirect exploitation of results can take many forms among which are influencing policy change, commercialising a service or product, creating a start-up/spin-off, creating a new standard and more.
• The results should also benefit or address a well-defined target audience.
• Impact – potential longer-term impact for society, the economy and/or policymaking
• Applicants must demonstrate how the uptake of their research results has helped solve a societal challenge and generate economic, societal, environmental or policy impact.
• The applicants will be required to submit a letter of support from at least one user or user community, stating the importance of the research and how using it created concrete benefits for the specific user-community. This user should not be an academic organisation.
Evaluation
Two different panels of experts will evaluate applications
Internal European Commission experts for the eligibility check and pre-selection external high-level experts for final selection.
The names of the external high-level expert jury members will be announced at a later stage.
How to apply
Participants can apply for the contest online. The full details are explained in the following documents.
• Horizon 2020 work programme 2018-2020
• Rules of contest
• FAQs
Timeline for applications is as follows
28 May 2019 Deadline for submission
May-July 2019 Evaluation
September 2019 Award ceremony
All participants will be informed of the outcome of their application in the 3rd quarter of 2019.
Applicants can apply directly here
There is also an infographic from the European Commission about this fund which can be downloaded as a pdf here
