Innovation Award
Innovative minds
in the spotlight
Every year, the Innovation Award honours people who make progress possible in North Rhine-Westphalia with their knowledge of social contexts and hands-on solutions.
Innovation is the key to a strong, adaptable economy and the driving force behind actively tackling the various transition challenges. Numerous people contribute to our country's innovative strength with their wealth of ideas, their inventive spirit and their entrepreneurial willingness to take risks.
Every year, the NRW Innovation Award honours individuals who are helping drive forward the transition of North Rhine-Westphalia in the various phases of the innovation chain - from testing an outstanding idea to commercial application and scaling up.
Only the interaction of all these phases in our innovation ecosystem makes it possible to transform new ideas into economic vigour. This is the only way to ensure the competitiveness of North Rhine-Westphalia as a business location, going forward.
The Innovation Prize is awarded in four categories:
01
innovation
This award category honours Individuals with outstanding ideas whose feasibility has already been proven and which have very good prospects of market success.
02
innovation
2business
This award category honours individuals who have developed a successful business model from outstanding ideas for product or process innovations.
03
innovation
2people
Honours individuals whose innovation has achieved particularly strong growth only a few years after being introduced to the market.
04
innovation
4transformation
The Audience Award honours personalities whose innovative products, solutions or business models make an outstanding contribution to solving transition challenges.
Year of Action
This year, the start of the application phase marks the 50th anniversary of the United Nations International Year of Women and, for the first and only time, is open exclusively to women innovators. Only women applicants will be admitted in this Year of Action.
Submit application*
*Note: If you wish to submit an application in English, please contact:
innovationspreis@mwike.nrw.de
Award winners 2025
innovation4transformation
innovation2market
innovation2business
innovation2business
innovation
The courage to embrace change, creative imagination and passion for a cause deserve recognition. That is why I am extremely pleased to award the North Rhine-Westphalia Innovation Prize to those who are making progress possible by focussing on clear goals and working on clever solutions.
Mona Neubaur
Deputy Premier of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy
