Who is running these awards?

The awards are run by Nesta and Mind the Bridge as part of the Startup Europe Partnership - a pan-European initiative to help startups scale, which has received funding from the European Commission under grant number 780601. They are expected to be announced at the Award Ceremony, due to be held in Brussels, Belgium in late 2019. Awards will be made at the sole discretion of the organisers and the Judging Committee.

Who are the judges?

The Judging Committee will be composed of experts from across Europe who are familiar with startups and/or corporate innovation. These will be made public before the judging process begins.

What is the process?

Step 1. Open call for nominations (March-April 2019)

Step 2. Nesta and Mind the Bridge will ask for evidence from nominated corporates (May-June 2019)

Step 3. Nesta and Mind the bridge will collate corporates responses and assemble a preliminary ranking (July-August 2019)

Step 4. The Judging Committee will review the ranking and select Europe’s Corporate Startup Stars. Nesta will notify shortlisted firms (September 2019)

Step 5. The launch of Europe’s Corporate Startup Stars Award Ceremony (November-December 2019)

When can I submit a nomination?

Entries open on the 6th March 2019 and must be submitted by 11.59pm (GMT) on the 30th April 2019. Nominations received outside this time period may be considered at the discretion of the organisers.

What are the eligibility criteria?

Nominees must be large organisations active in Europe, but which need not be headquartered in Europe. A nominator may only nominate each nominee once but can submit multiple nominations for different organisations.

How do you define ’large companies’?

We will use the European Commission definition, which defines large companies as firms which:

• Have more than 250 employees
• Have an annual turnover greater than €50 million or a balance sheet totalling more than €43 million

Can I nominate several large companies active in Europe?

Yes, you can nominate more than one large company active in Europe.