- The winners of the European Patent Office’s annual innovation awards will be unveiled at a ceremony on 21 June 2022 at 12:00 CEST in a completely new format
- Discover the stories of 14 exceptional teams of inventors and 4 young innovators from 14 countries
- The public is now invited to vote for their favorite inventor to win the popular prize at popular-prize.epo.org
- The ceremony will be broadcast live on www.inventoraward.org and on social media.
Munich, June 14, 2022 – The finalists of the European Inventor Award 2022 will gather in Munich on 21 June to announce this year’s winners and to share stories of their extraordinary progress in fields as diverse as cancer research, renewable energy, innovation climate change, green industry, medical technology and manufacturing.
A new hybrid format for the European Patent Office’s prestigious annual innovation awards will see the winners be revealed live, with a global audience joining the ceremony online at www.inventoraward.org. The ceremony will celebrate the inventors behind the inventions that are helping to solve some of today’s biggest global problems. Inventions developed by this year’s finalists include the world’s first exoskeleton for babies, space technology to increase the reliability of climate change predictions, and a new type of mammography machine that gives people a better chance of surviving breast cancer. breast.
The winners selected by the jury will be announced in the following categories: industry, research, SMEs and non-EPO countries. Also during the ceremony, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to an inventor with an extraordinary career and life story, who has made an outstanding contribution to their field that has saved countless lives. Furthermore, the Popular Prize will be awarded to the inventor who receives the highest number of votes from the public.
Open the public vote for the Popular Award
The public is now invited to vote for their favorite inventor from this year’s 13 finalists to win the European Inventor Award 2022 People’s Prize. Votes can be cast online – one per day – from today until the ceremony on 21 June at popular-prize.epo.org. The winner with the most public votes will be announced at the awards ceremony.
Young Inventors Award
This year’s ceremony also expanded to include the unveiling Young Inventors Award, which was launched by the European Patent Office to recognize groundbreaking innovations by people aged 30 and under. Three young innovators compete for first, second and third place, with prize money of €20,000, €10,000 and €5,000 respectively.
The 13 finalists in four categories of the European Inventor Award 2022 are:
Industry
German engineers Frank Herre, Hans-Georg Fritz, Timo Beyl, Marcus Kleiner and Benjamin Wöhr have created a revolutionary body painting system that doesn’t waste a drop of paint.
Estonian scientists Jaan Leis, Mati Arulepp and Antti Perkson have developed superior carbon-based materials for ultracapacitors that enable fast charging and energy release.
French aeronautical engineer Frederick Pasternak is unlocking next-generation weather forecasting and climate modeling with a new satellite weather tool.
Research
Spanish researcher Elena Garcia Armada invented the world’s first adaptive robotic exoskeleton for children using wheelchairs.
French chemist Claudius Grisons uses plants to extract metallic elements from polluted soil around mining sites and then reuses these metals as catalysts in chemical reactions.
Belgian research group Johan Martens, Tom Bosserez and Jan Ronge they invented a solar panel that produces green hydrogen from sunlight and air.
Non-EPO countries
Canadian-American chemist Donald Sadoway has developed liquid metal batteries for large-scale renewable energy storage.
Israeli scientists Ido Sella and the late Shimrit Perkol-Finkel invented concrete technology to encourage marine biodiversity around infrastructure such as seawalls.
Swiss-Chinese researchers Marco Stampanoni, Zhentian Wang and team have developed phase-contrast X-ray imaging for advanced breast cancer detection at safe radiation levels.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Portuguese engineers Nuno Correia, Carla Gomes and the team created a floating mooring system for a solar farm that tracks the sun.
Franco-Swiss scientists Madiha Derouazi, Elodie Belnoue and the team have created a new type of therapeutic vaccine platform to treat cancer by helping the immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells.
Hispanic-Indonesian researchers Nuria Espallargas and Fahmi Mubarok have developed innovative ceramic spray coatings to better protect industrial components from wear.
German businessman Joachim Fiedler invented a suite of fun and sturdy quick-release fasteners, now found in dozens of everyday products, from bike helmets to car seats.
Lifetime Goal – To be revealed during the event
Young Inventors Award
Brazilian innovator Rafaella de Bona Goncalves has developed biodegradable sanitary pads and tampons for underprivileged groups in her country using readily available crop waste.
Belgian and British entrepreneurs Victor Dewulf and Peter Hedley have developed an AI-based waste recognition and sorting system that waste treatment plants can use to sort waste quickly and accurately, ensuring that more is recycled.
american scientist Erin Smith has developed an AI-powered app that uses video to enable early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, which could help slow the development of the condition.
More information
About the EPO
With 6 400 staff, the European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the largest public service institutions in Europe. Headquartered in Munich with offices in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague and Vienna, the EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening patent cooperation in Europe. Through the EPO’s centralized patent-granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain high-quality patent protection in up to 44 countries, covering a market of around 700 million people. The EPO is also the world’s leading authority on patent information and patent searches.
Media Contacts European Patent Office
Luis Berenguer Gimenez
Chief Communications Director, Spokesperson
EPO Press Office
tel. +49 89 2399 1833
press@epo.org
