InnovAid 2023 winners and what the prize aims to achieve

On 19 March 2024 the European Commission announced the winners of the inaugural European Prize for Humanitarian Innovation, known as InnovAid. The award recognises humanitarian organisations, social enterprises and companies that develop technology to help vulnerable people affected by natural hazards and man made crises such as conflicts. The top prize went to IRC Deutschland from Germany. The first runner up is GOAL 3 B.V from the Netherlands and the second runner up is Humanitarian Logistics Cooperative from France.

Winners and prize money

Ceremony and institutional backing

The prizes were presented at the European Humanitarian Forum in Brussels. InnovAid is supported by the European Innovation Council under the Horizon Europe programme. The prize is managed by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, commonly known as EISMEA. Winners were selected after assessment by a panel of high level independent experts.

Official reactions

Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, congratulated the winners and framed the prize as recognition of humanitarian creativity and action that aims to improve lives in crisis. Janez Lenarčič, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, highlighted the role of partnerships between humanitarian actors, the private sector and research communities in delivering more cost effective aid and urged that the prize support winners to scale their technologies to reach more people in need.

Why InnovAid was created

The Commission describes InnovAid as a response to rising humanitarian needs that public funding alone cannot meet. Humanitarian emergencies are occurring with increasing frequency, complexity and severity. InnovAid aims to reward solutions that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of aid while being affordable, simple to use and easy to redeploy at scale. The prize also seeks to give winners visibility that can help with wider adoption of their innovations.

Selection criteria and expected characteristics

According to the Commission, InnovAid rewards solutions that have been successfully tested in humanitarian settings and that are cost effective, easy to use and reuse, and scalable. The prize is meant to identify projects that improve quality and resilience of responses, account for resource scarcity and environmental impacts, and engage end users among affected populations in design and deployment.

Context and precedent

InnovAid builds on an earlier EIC prize. In 2020 the EIC awarded the Horizon Prize on Affordable High Tech for Humanitarian Aid. That 2020 competition selected five winners across categories such as shelter, water hygiene and sanitation, energy, health and an open category. Each of the 2020 winners received €1 million. The 2020 prize highlighted how sensors solar power and additive manufacturing can combine with digital tools to improve humanitarian outcomes.

Analysis: what the prize achieves and what it does not

Recognition and prize money can accelerate visibility and provide seed funding for further development. They can help organisations attract partners donors and buyers. However, a single lump sum prize rarely covers the costs required to scale production regulatory compliance procurement processes and ongoing operations in humanitarian settings. Scaling humanitarian technologies typically requires sustained financing market adoption by NGOs and agencies and integration into procurement and logistics chains. There are also non technical barriers such as data protection standards procurement requirements in donor agencies and the need to maintain humanitarian principles and neutrality when working with private sector partners.

Concrete constraints to expect

Common obstacles include fragmented funding across donors, procurement rules that prioritise lowest upfront cost over total cost of ownership, lack of interoperability standards, limited capacity in local implementing partners, and legal or regulatory hurdles for new technologies. Technologies that appear promising in pilots can fail to scale if routine maintenance supply chains or training are not secured.

How InnovAid can increase impact

For InnovAid winners to translate recognition into broad humanitarian impact the following actions make practical sense: transparent impact metrics tied to humanitarian outcomes, cofunding or follow-on grants to finance scale up, coordinated engagement with major humanitarian procurement actors including UN agencies and large NGOs, attention to long term maintenance and local capacity building, and adherence to data protection and safeguarding standards when digital systems are used. The Commission and EISMEA can amplify impact by supporting matchmaking with implementing organisations and investors and by using prize visibility to encourage procurement pilots.

What to watch next

Key signals to follow are whether the winners secure follow on funding or procurement agreements, whether the Commission or EISMEA commits complementary support for scaling, and whether recipient organisations demonstrate measurable improvements in cost effectiveness or reach in humanitarian responses. Observers should also watch for transparency around evaluation criteria and for how winners address user engagement and inclusion in practice.

Where to find more information

Details about InnovAid and other EIC prizes are available through the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency and the European Innovation Council web pages under the Horizon Europe programme. The prizes were announced at the European Humanitarian Forum where broader discussions on humanitarian priorities and funding also took place.