Innovation Award
Encouraging and promoting innovative initiatives by the five Research Centers at the University of Montpellier (UM) is the objective of the "Innovation Award." Each year, this call for projects, open to staff at UM and partner institutions of the ISITE Program of Excellence (PEI), rewards the best initiatives in the field of innovation. The 2026 Innovation Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on July1 at the Jardin des Plantes in Montpellier during an Innovation Afterwork event.
If you are a researcher working on a collaborative research project, intellectual property transfer, business creation, or high-impact innovation, don't wait any longer— apply for the "innovation award."
Target audience
Researchers or research groups applying for the "Innovation Award" must be permanent or non-permanent staff members of an institution that is a member of the ISITE Program of Excellence (PEI).
Applications must be accompanied by a curriculum vitae in PDF format and sent by email.
allocated resources
Each winner will receive a personal prize of €3,000 (three thousand euros), which will be awarded at a ceremony.
In the case of a collective application, the €3,000 prize will be divided among the members of the collective.
The winners will also receive a professional 3-minute video that will serve as a valuable communication tool for the teams (institutional broadcasting, social media, presentations to companies and investors, etc.).
Awards
During the awards ceremony, a total of seven (7) winning projects will be selected by the jury:
- 5 (five) prizes related to the research areas;
- 1 (one) Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Award or Metropolitan Deep Tech Business Creation Award;
- 1 (one) Favorite Award (transdisciplinary award).
The jury
The Companies and Campus program manager, along with the valuation advisors and scientific advisors, are responsible for evaluating the applications. The program manager will submit the applications to COMIN for a decision.
COM'IN is a body composed of:
- representatives of the founding institutions of the PUI;
- representatives of the recovery subsidiaries;
- directors of research centers or their representatives;
- guests, designated scientific or technical experts.