What is BIC’s Open Innovation
Competition?
Open innovation is a way of involving external actors in a company’s innovation processes in close cooperation with its own internal resources (as opposed to in-house research and outsourcing). With the OIC, BIC aims at stimulating the cooperation between large companies, who propose challenges and co-finance the innovation projects, and the community of solution providers.
All BIC members from the following categories can join:
- Industry (full) members Cat. 1 Large enterprises and Cat. 2 SMEs as challenge owners
- Industry (full) Members Category 2 (SMEs) and Category 3 (micro-enterprises), SMEs represented by Industry Members Category 4, (SME clusters) and Associate members Category A (universities and research institutes) as solution providers
If you are eligible and want to submit a challenge, you can log in to the online BIC Members Area, download the reference documents and template and follow the instructions for submission.
The are multiple cutoff dates per year, which are communicated via the BIC newsletter and posted on the Members Area.
If you are eligible and want to submit a solution, you can log in to the online BIC Members Area, download the reference documents and template and follow the instructions for submission. All solutions will be evaluated by the challenge owner and the best 5 will be invited to pitch. The selected solution provider will win prize money and start a joint innovation project with the challenge owner to deliver a proof-of-concept of the solution.
Competition prizes
The selected solution provider will win 10k Euro, of which half provided by the challenge owner and half by BIC. In case no solution is selected, no prize is awarded and the prize money quota from BIC is allocated to the next round of challenges.
