Athens among the 12 finalist European cities for the iCapital award
*Imaged sourced from lonelyplanet.com
*Imaged sourced from lonelyplanet.com
Athens, the world’s ancient capital is among the 12 European finalist cities for the iCapital Award (European Innovation Capital 2018). This was announced on Wednesday night through Twitter by Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation.
According to Mr Moedas, the finalist's cities of this year’s European Capital of Innovation Award are Aarhus, Antwerp, Athens, Bristol, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Leuven, Lisbon, Madrid, Toulouse, Umeå, Vienna.
*Image sourced from Twitter
The iCapital Award (European Innovation Capital 2018) is given to the city that meets the EU’s Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 Program. The annual cash prize is to be awarded to the European city that is best able to “demonstrate its ability to harness innovation and improve the lives of its citizens."
The Finalists will present their innovation strategies at the ‘iCapital Stories’ session at this year’s European week of regions and cities in Brussels on October 10.
The winning city - the European Capital of Innovation 2018 - will be announced by Mr Moedas at the Web summit in Lisbon on November 6.
A cash prize of one million euro is given to the city named European Innovation Capital of the Year and 100,000 euro to each of the five runner-up cities.
The cash prize enables European cities to “showcase their contribution to developing local innovation ecosystems for the benefit of businesses and the well-being of their citizens.”