ERCI Innovation Awards 2018 – Regulations

Article 1: Purpose

The ERCI Innovation Awards 2018 are intended to promote innovations implemented by enterprises to meet the needs of the railway sector in Europe (freight and passengers).

The Awards are organized by ERCI (European Railway Clusters Initiative), the European network of Innovative Railway Cluster.

Two categories of enterprises will be awarded: one SME and one Large Enterprise.

After the determination of the winners in the SME and Large Enterprise categories, the jury may award one special prize “Coup de Coeur” among the remaining applicants.

Article 2: Rules to apply and criteria

(1) Rules to apply and eligibility criteria

Applications must present innovation developed and close to be commercialized or already commercialized (TRL >6).

Candidates for the Awards must send by email their applications filed in English to the cluster of the country or region in which their entity is located according to the regulations in that specific region or country.

Candidates must send the application form (maximum 2 pages in word format and 5 slides in ppt format) as well as additional documents to illustrate the innovation presented to the jury (photos, certification reports…) with reminder of the entrant's identity and the name given to the equipment presented.

The individual member clusters of ERCI will determine a maximum of three (3) nominees for the ERCI award out of the applications according to their local rules.

The individual member clusters of ERCI must send the applications of their nominees to the organising cluster for the award, for 2018 this being Cluster Transport, Mobility and Logistics Berlin-Brandenburg, represented by Berlin Partner for Business and Technology. All applications must be sent by e-mail and are to be received by Berlin Partner no later than 11 June 2018, 24:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time). All applications must be directed to lutz.huebner@berlin-partner.de.