Women driving innovation: the nine finalists for the 2025 European Prize for Women Innovators

Brussels, March 6th 2025

Summary

›The European Prize for Women Innovators 2025 has named nine finalists across three categories and will announce winners at the EIC Summit on 3 April 2025.
›Categories are Women Innovators, Rising Innovators, and EIT Women Leadership with prize awards ranging from €20 000 to €100 000.
›Finalists represent a range of deep tech and life science ventures including fertility drugs, solid state batteries, acoustic materials, AI services and wound care technologies.
›The prize is a joint initiative from the European Innovation Council and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology to raise the profile of women-led innovation in Europe.
›Recognition gives visibility and potential access to networks and follow-on finance but it does not remove familiar scale up hurdles such as regulatory approval, manufacturing and market adoption.

Nine finalists announced for the 2025 European Prize for Women Innovators

On 6 March 2025 the European Innovation Council and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology announced the nine finalists for the 2025 European Prize for Women Innovators. The prize aims to showcase women-led entrepreneurship in Europe and to produce role models for women and girls working in science and technology. Winners will be revealed during the EIC Summit on 3 April 2025.

How the prize works and what is at stake

The European Prize for Women Innovators is awarded jointly by the EIC and the EIT. In 2025 the competition had three categories and cash awards for winners and runners-up. Applications were judged on three criteria. These are breakthrough innovation where a company leads disruptive advances in deep tech or STEM fields, impact for people and the planet, and inspiration where the candidate serves as a role model for women in leadership.

Category	Prizes	Eligibility
Women Innovators	Winner €100 000. Runner-up €70 000 and €50 000.	Open to women founders and co-founders across EU and Associated Countries.
Rising Innovators	Winner €50 000. Runners-up €30 000 and €20 000.	Promising women innovators under 35.
EIT Women Leadership	Winner €50 000. Runners-up €30 000 and €20 000.	Exceptional women from the EIT community.

The finalists and what they work on

Below are the nine finalists grouped by category. Each entry summarises the company, the technology or product, and context drawn from public company material and EU project filings. Where companies make claims about performance these are noted and where relevant flagged as claims that typically require independent validation or further regulatory steps before broad clinical or market deployment.

Rising Innovators

Name	Country	Company	Short description
Camille Bouget	France	Scienta Lab	An AI-powered platform developed to address therapeutic needs in immuno-inflammatory diseases.
Claudine Adeyemi-Adams	United Kingdom	Earlybird	An AI voice-powered platform designed to boost engagement in employment support and to generate adviser insights and recommendations.
Héloïse Mailhac	France	STH BIOTECH	Developer of SATIVITRO®, an in vitro bioproduction platform that uses engineered plant root biomass to produce rare cannabinoids and other plant actives at scale.

SATIVITRO® explained:STH BIOTECH’s SATIVITRO® platform uses so called hairy root cultures as a contained, bioreactor-friendly biomass to produce target plant compounds. The approach replaces variable field cultivation with controlled bioreactor production. Advantages the company cites are standardized yields, traceability and reduced environmental pressure on wild plant stocks. The technology combines induction of fast growing root systems and metabolic engineering to raise biosynthesis of target molecules.

Women Innovators

Name	Country	Company	Short description
Agnès Arbat	Spain	Oxolife	Biotech company developing OXO-001, an oral, first-in-class drug that aims to enhance embryo implantation and increase live birth rates for IVF and other infertility contexts.
Fanny Bardé	France	SOLiTHOR	Developer of next generation solid-state batteries using a non-flammable, environmentally-friendly solid electrolyte.
Rhona Togher	Ireland	Lios (co-founder with Eimear O’Carroll)	Creator of SoundBounce, a smart acoustic material that the company says provides dramatic noise reduction in thinner and lighter formats for use in construction, automotive and aerospace.

OXO-001 and the implantation problem:Oxolife positions OXO-001 as a drug that acts directly on the endometrium with the goal of improving embryo implantation. Implantation failure is a major factor in in vitro fertilization outcomes. Oxolife has described OXO-001 as first-in-class and is studying it for indications including polycystic ovary syndrome. Company updates from later in 2025 report completion of a Phase I safety study in women of childbearing age. Moving from Phase I to efficacy trials and regulatory approval is a long and expensive process but human safety data is an essential step.

Solid-state battery claims to watch:SOLiTHOR is developing solid-state batteries that replace flammable liquid electrolytes with a solid electrolyte. Industry wide benefits expected from solid-state architectures include higher energy density, improved safety and longer cycle life. However manufacturing scale up for solid electrolytes and stable interfaces between electrode materials and the solid electrolyte remain technical and cost challenges across the sector.

EIT Women Leadership

Name	Country	Company	Short description
Débora Andreia Campelo Campos	Portugal	AgroGrIN Tech	Developed an eco-friendly process and patent to convert industrial fruit waste into functional food ingredients following a zero-waste approach.
Elizabeth McGloughlin	Ireland	Tympany Medical	Co-founder of Tympany Medical which develops variable angle endoscopy technology aimed to improve surgical outcomes and reduce procedure times and waste.
Olesja Bondarenko	Estonia	Nanordica Medical	Develops nanotechnology-based wound care dressings intended to prevent infection and promote healing, including a product in larger scale clinical testing for diabetic foot ulcers.

Variable angle endoscopy and single-use devices:Tympany Medical markets a variable angle endoscopy platform intended to improve manoeuvrability and procedure efficiency. The company highlights single-use designs to reduce cross-contamination and to lower some aspects of environmental footprint. Single-use devices may trade infection control gains against higher material use and waste. Metrics for sustainability therefore depend on materials choices, lifecycle analysis and hospital reprocessing realities.

Nanordica and Premotiv® wound dressing:Nanordica’s Premotiv® wound dressing integrates antibacterial nanoparticles into silk nanofibres with the aim of preventing bacterial growth and promoting healing. The company has undertaken small clinical work and launched a larger, multi-centre randomised blinded trial across hospitals in Spain and Estonia to compare Premotiv® with established silver-based dressings for infected chronic wounds. Nanordica won a €2.4 million EIC Accelerator award in 2022 to support a large clinical study. Clinical data and regulatory approvals are pivotal to market adoption for wound care devices.

Why this prize matters for Europe and what it does not guarantee

The prize is primarily recognition and visibility. It connects finalists to Europe wide networks and to the EIC and EIT communities. That can lower informational barriers to investors, partners, customers and procurement channels. The EIC is one of the largest dedicated deep tech funders in Europe and its branding carries influence inside EU innovation ecosystems.

Awards and publicity are helpful but they do not remove the familiar obstacles faced by deep tech and health ventures. These include clinical trials and regulatory clearance for medical products, the capital intensity of chemical and battery scale up, and the manufacturing and certification requirements for materials used in construction and transport. Company performance claims such as a material being 4 times more effective or a product being first-in-class require independent third party validation before they can be accepted as established facts by customers and regulators.

Selection criteria and process

Eligible applications were evaluated on three pillars. Breakthrough innovation considered whether the applicant’s company is leading disruptive advances in deep tech or STEM fields inside the EU or Horizon Europe associated countries. Impact considered whether the innovation addresses significant problems with measurable benefits for people and the planet. Inspiration assessed leadership and whether the applicant can act as a role model, encouraging more women and girls to pursue careers in innovation.

The prize continues a programme that began in 2011. Over the years more than 30 women have won the award and more than 100 have been shortlisted. The aim is to shift narratives around women in senior scientific and entrepreneurial roles and to reduce visibility gaps in the innovation pipeline.

Context on EIC and EIT support and a short reality check

The EIC and EIT operate large programmes in Horizon Europe and related instruments. They provide grant funding, coaching, access to investors and acceleration services. For early stage and deep tech companies these programmes can be meaningful enablers. At the same time European prize recognition is only one of many signals investors and procurement buyers look for. Validation through pilots, reproducible performance data, regulatory milestones and credible routes to scale remain decisive.

For health technologies, a Phase I safety study is an important but preliminary milestone. For materials or battery technologies, independent laboratory characterisation and industrial scale pilot lines are often required before mainstream adoption. For AI platforms, robust privacy, bias and explainability governance are increasingly expected by public buyers.

What to watch next

The jury will announce winners at the EIC Summit on 3 April 2025. Observers and potential partners will be watching for three things. First, whether the prizes follow sectoral diversity or cluster around health and materials. Second, which finalists already have concrete validation such as clinical data, independent performance tests or procurement contracts. Third, whether winners translate recognition into follow-on finance, strategic partnerships and credible routes to market within the next 12 to 24 months.

Sources and notes

This article is based on the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency announcement of 6 March 2025 listing the nine finalists. Company summaries and technology details draw on publicly available company material and press pages for Oxolife, STH BIOTECH, Lios, Tympany Medical, Nanordica Medical, AgroGrIN Tech, Earlybird and others. Statements of performance or clinical progress are reported as company claims or as described in primary releases. Readers should treat performance claims as provisional until validated by independent testing or regulatory review.