Award criteria
* Experimenting – innovative concepts, processes, tools, and governance models proving the city’s commitment to act as a test-bed for innovative practices, and ensuring mainstreaming of these practices into the urban development process;
* Engaging – increasing opportunities for a broader range of citizens and ensuring uptake of their ideas;
* Expanding – outlining the city’s potential to attract new talent, resources, funding, investments, and to become a role model for other cities;
* Empowering – concrete and measurable impact directly connected to the implementation of innovative practices

Additional information

* Eligibility: 
– Cities must be located in one of the EU Member States or in a country associated to Horizon 2020;
– Cities must have a population above 100 000 inhabitants. In countries where there are no such cities, the biggest city is eligible;
– Winners of former European Capital of Innovation Awards contests are not eligible. This does not apply to runner-up and finalist cities

* Amount of the prize:
– First prize of 1 million euro 
– 5 runner-up prizes of 100,000 euro each