Every year, ERCI honours pioneering innovation projects of European rail industry companies with the yearly ERCI Innovation Awards.

Innovation Awards are organized and attributed by the clusters, members of ERCI, to European companies that provide products, systems, technologies, processes or services, with proven innovative features. The contest is first organized at a national or regional level (according to ERCI clusters’ geographical scope of action) to select companies. Then, the contest is organized at a European level. Winners are selected by a European jury of independent experts representing industry, research and public authorities.

Applications are open for 2022 ERCI Innovation Awards and deadlines are sharp. You'll find here all the useful information to apply:

• Application Form
• Regulations

Please note the following points:

• Each of the 15 ERCI clusters should nominate up to three applications to the European contest (normally the winners of a national/regional pre-selection/contest).
• Research centres and universities cannot apply alone to the ERCI Innovation Awards 2022. If a consortium of industry and academia applies, it must be ensured that the main applicant is from industry (SME or Large Enterprise).
• Applications must present innovation developed and close to be commercialized or already commercialized (TRL > 6).
• Each application must consist of
  • the application form (maximum 2 pages in word format, including a description of the innovation in a press-ready format) - MANDATORY
  • 5 slides (in ppt format) which describe the innovation – MANDATORY
  • as well as additional documents to illustrate the innovative product/service/project presented to the jury (meaningful photos with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, certification reports…) with reminder of the entrant's identity and the name given to the equipment presented. - OPTIONAL
• All applications nominated must be directed by the ERCI cluster organisations to lutz.huebner@berlin-partner.de 
• All applications which are not fulfilling the points mentioned above will be rejected.
• Each ERCI cluster should nominate a jury member which is not involved in the innovations participating to the ERCI Innovation Awards 2022 l