EU to recognise three women innovators

The European Commission is looking for three women entrepreneurs who can act as role models, with €175,000 on offer for the founders of successful companies in any sector.

In pointing to three role models, the Commission hopes to drum up publicity around the problem of ensuring gender balance in businesses and universities across Europe. "There may have been some improvement in recent years but, in Europe, female researchers and entrepreneurs remain a minority,” said Carlos Moedas, the EU’s Research Commissioner.

The rules of the competition are quite specific. The jury is interested in past achievements, not future potential.  Applicants must have founded or co-founded their company, and have received EU research money at some point in the past. The company must have been registered before 1 January 2013 and have had an annual turnover of at least €100,000 in 2013 or 2014.

Applications will be accepted until 20 October with the winner to be announced next spring. The first prize is worth €100,000, second €50,000 and third €25,000.

Previous winners

The Commission held similar competitions in 2011 and 2014.There were 70 applicants last year. The first-prize winner was Saskia Biskup of Germany, who co-founded CeGaT GmbH in 2009, to specialise in the development of biomarkers for diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases. She discovered variants of LRRK2, a gene involved in Parkinson’s disease.

Second prize winner Laura van 't Veer co-founded Agendia NV, which is commercialising Mammaprint, a diagnostic for predicting the risk of the recurrence of breast cancer.

Third prize winner Ana Maiques, from Spain, founded Starlab, a company that specialises in translating academic research into start-ups and products.

Under-represented

Women are under-represented in the top tiers of European universities. Just one in every ten universities in the EU has a female rector. Women account for half of all PhDs, but only a third of those working in science are female - although this figure is rising.

Women make up less than a third of the entrepreneurs in the EU, with recent Commission figures showing that Malta and Ireland have the lowest percentage of female entrepreneurs.

More on the prizes here