Voting closes today for Horizon Prize for Social Innovation
Time is running out to cast your vote for the challenge you want to be the first ever recipient of the Horizon Prize for Social Innovation.
The European Commission defines innovations as ‘new or significantly improved goods, services, processes and methods; they are social if they are designed to benefit society rather than the individual’. Very often social challenges cannot be met with traditional recipes and approaches.
The European Commission, in co-operation with the European Investment Bank Institute, is to launch a €2m ‘Horizon prize’ on a social challenge chosen by the public as part of Horizon 2020, the EU’s biggest ever research and innovation framework programme.
There are five challenges to choose from, namely: childhood obesity, the ageing population, the integration of immigrants in the labour market, women entrepreneurship and women-led enterprises, and citizens for clean energy.
Horizon prizes are inducement prizes that offer a reward to whoever can most effectively meet a defined challenge. The aim is to engage communities to work towards a common goal, generate interest in a particular issue, attract new, dynamic innovators to a particular area, mobilise additional private investment for research and innovation, and stimulate novel, replicable solutions to the grand challenges – all for the benefit of European citizens.
Voting closes at 12:00pm Brussels local time today (21 October) and the winning challenge will be announced tomorrow.
Cast your vote here.
