Cork named as one six cities nominated for European Rising Innovative City for 2023

Cork is among six cities to be nominated as the potential European Rising Innovative City for 2023, an award that aims to recognise the roles cities play in shaping their local innovation ecosystems.

12 cities from 10 countries have been nominated for two prizes in this year’s European Capital of Innovation Awards, also known as iCapital.

Cork will be competing against Bruges, Leiden, Linköping, Linz and Padova in the European Rising Innovative City category, which will see the winner awarded €500,000, while two runners-up will receive €50,000 each.

Six cities have also been listed in the European Capital of Innovation category: Başakşehir, Istanbul, Kyiv, Lisbon, Lviv and Warsaw, with a top prize of €1 million up for grabs.

Each city will be invited to a private hearing with the jury members held remotely in September and October, which will allow each city to present their submitted application and answer jury questions.

The jury members will then select three finalist cities for each category. 

On 27 November 2023, one winner and two runners-up per category will be announced at the awards ceremony, which will be held in last year’s winning city, Marseille, France.

The iCapital award is now in its ninth year and is one of the five EIC Prizes granted under Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation framework programme, which has a budget of more than €95bn to fund scientific endeavours across Europe.