Carlos Moedas, EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, launched on 9 July the second edition of the European Capital of Innovation Award.

The competition rewards the European city which is setting up the best “innovation ecosystem”, by connecting citizens, public organizations, academia and business.
The initiative was created to encourage European urban centers to stimulate their innovation environment and establish a network for sharing and developing their best ideas for the future.

Applicant cities will be judged on the basis of activities already taken since 1st January 2012, and others foreseen to be implemented until 31st December 2017.

They will have to demonstrate to follow a global strategy that is:

– Innovative: in terms of concepts, processes and tools;
– Inspiring: attracting talent, resources, funding, investments;
– Integrated: covering the entire innovation ecosystem and its links with Europe 2020;
– Interactive: facilitating the interactions within the innovation ecosystem, particularly ensuring citizens’ involvement and engagement;
– Impactful: outlining the expected impact of the current initiatives and how the city plans to increase it.

The contest is open to cities:

• with over 100 000 inhabitants
• from EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon 2020

The 2016 European Capital of Innovation will use the € 950.000 prize to scale up its innovation capacity. The second and third ranked cities will receive cash prizes of €100.000 and €50.000 respectively.
The award, assigned last year to the city of Barcelona “for introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to citizens”, should support the iCapital to develop new innovation activities by attracting investors, industry, top class researchers as well as talented and entrepreneurial individuals.

An independent panel of experts from business and academia will select the three winners in early 2016.

Contestants must submit their entries until 18 November 2015, through the online application available in the Participant Portal: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/22050-capital-01-2015.html

Information on the contest rules can be found on the Award website: www.ec.europa.eu/icapital