Home of remanufacturing company Armor and cartridge collector LVL, the city of Nantes in north-west France is the European Capital of Innovation 2019, the Commission announced at the European Research and Innovation Days.
The title was awarded to Nantes in recognition for its outstanding ability to harness innovation to improve the lives of its citizens and its open and collaborative governance model. It comes with a €1 million ($1.09 million) cash prize funded by Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme. The other five runner-up cities – Antwerp (Belgium), Bristol (UK), Espoo (Finland), Glasgow (UK) and Rotterdam (Netherlands) – received €100,000 ($109,628) each to promote and scale up their innovation practice.
Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: “European cities are showing the world how to combine innovation to improve urban resilience and sustainability with inclusive democratic processes and open governance. Nantes stands out as a great example of how a city can engage its citizens in addressing challenges such as energy efficiency, ageing population, digital transformation, and social inclusion. This is how innovation works for the benefit of citizens.”
Johanna Rolland, the Mayor of Nantes and President of Nantes Métropole, said: “Innovation ‘by and for all’ is at the heart of our policies. This is why I am honoured to receive the European Capital of Innovation Award 2019. For me, this is recognition of the quality of our citizen dialogue and the dynamism of our metropolitan innovation ecosystem.”
This year’s European Capital of Innovation Awards contest was launched in February 2019. Cities with over 100,000 inhabitants from EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon 2020 could participate. 28 cities from 16 countries applied. A high-level independent jury of experts from various universities, businesses, as well as the non-profit and civil sector selected the winner and the five runner-up cities.
The award criteria – experimenting, engaging, expanding, empowering – analyse how cities use innovation and new technologies to respond to societal challenges, engage broad local communities in their decision-making processes and improve lives of their citizens.
The competition first took place in 2014. Past winners include Barcelona (2014), Amsterdam (2016), Paris (2017) and Athens (2018). The awards are granted under Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation framework programme. The next edition of the European Capital of Innovation Awards will be launched in the first quarter of 2020
