About the award
People with a passion for discovery drive innovation. Without their inquisitive minds and desire for new ideas, there would be no inventive spirit and no progress. The European Inventor Award pays tribute to inventors who transform their ideas into solutions that address some of the greatest challenges of our time. It is a celebration of the inventive spirit, the individual contributions of talented inventors, and the European patent system that protects inventions and encourages innovation.
The EPO launched the Award in 2006 to give inventors the recognition they deserve. In 2022, the EPO established the Young Inventors Prize as part of the Award and soon transformed the Prize into a stand-alone event. We now alternate each year between the two events: the European Inventor Award and the Young Inventors Prize.
In 2026, the EPO will host the European Inventor Award in Berlin. The Young Inventors Prize returns in 2027.
The Trophy

European Inventor Award winners receive striking trophies in the shape of a sail. As a lasting symbol of exploration and ingenuity, the sail shows how inventive ideas can propel humankind to uncharted shores. German industrial designer Miriam Irle conceived the original design and each year the trophy is crafted with new materials.
The Jury
The 2026 jury comprises former European Inventor Award and Young Inventors Prize finalists. The independent panel drew on their technical know-how and experience to judge proposals. The jury is chaired by Wolfgang M. Heckl.

Wolfgang M. Heckl (Chair) is the former Director General of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, a position he held for 21 years. He is Emeritus of Excellence at the Technical University Munich Senior Excellence Faculty, and holds the Oskar von Miller chair for science communication at the Technical University in Munich, where he researches molecular self-organisation in nanotechnology. Professor Heckl received the Communicator Prize from the German Science Foundation and was awarded the European Descartes Prize for Science Communication. He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications and published a bestselling book, Die Kultur der Reparatur, in 2013.
Mark Kennedy Bantugon is an aeronautical engineer, materials scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur specialising in sustainable innovation. He established Pili AdheSeal Inc to bring to market an aircraft sealant and adhesive made from Pili Tree resin agricultural waste. His resulting technology—a safer, more eco-friendly alternative to conventional sealants—has garnered significant recognition, including the James Dyson Award and the WIPO National Award. He is also passionate about promoting his home Philippines, often promoting the potential of indigenous resources and local innovation on the global stage.

Catia Bastioli CEO and President of the Novamont Group (acquired by Versalis, part of Eni, in 2023). She has served on several high-level European Commission working groups and, since 2014, has been President of the Italian Circular Bioeconomy Cluster SPRING. Over the course of a 30-year career, she has been the inventor of numerous patent families in the fields of biopolymers and the transformation of renewable raw materials. Her work is grounded in a model of circular bioeconomy that she developed—one that focuses on territorial regeneration and places soil and water quality at its core. In 2017, she was awarded the title “Cavaliere del Lavoro” by Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic. Since early 2025, she has been an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Esben Beck is an inventor, entrepreneur and founder of Stingray Marine Solutions. Born and raised on Norway’s Arctic coast, the self-taught inventor spent part of his career developing production lines at Norway’s largest brewery, later moving into the field of medical diagnostic instruments before focusing on marine technology. He led the technical development of a system that enables fish farmers to produce food more sustainably, and now serves as a senior advisor to the company he founded. He continues to refine his inventive skills, either by designing new gadgets or working in his prototype workshop. His pioneering Stingray system combines image recognition software with high-precision lasers to detect and eliminate minute parasites on farmed salmon and trout, while simultaneously monitoring fish welfare around the clock.
Nuria Espallargas is a professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering NTNU, Norway. She has twenty years of research experience in surface engineering, chemistry and tribology. Since 2011, she has led the NTNU’s Norwegian Tribology Center. Her scientific expertise is surface chemistry and engineering, lubricants, tribocorrosion and nano-tribology. Her recent research focuses on environmentally acceptable lubricants and green lubricant additives. In 2014, she co-founded a spin-off company (Seram Coatings) to commercialise ThermaSiC, a ground-breaking thermal spray ceramic coating.
Joachim Fiedler studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin and worked as a professional cellist in several orchestras and ensembles. His earliest inventions, such as a magnetic bow clamp, aimed to solve problems unique to musicians. In 2007, he established Fidlock GmbH to further develop magnetic-mechanical fasteners and expand the product line up. Today, his fasteners are used in a wide range of products, including bike helmets, bags, shoe closures, chest strap clips for child car seats, magnetic bike bottle mounts and magnetic phone mounts.
Marta Karczewicz is Vice-President Technology at Qualcomm, where she has driven advances in data coding algorithms since 2006. She has lead teams that have made it possible to compress video files by a factor of 1 000 without losing perceivable image quality, enabling the rise online streaming and videotelephony services. She obtained a master's degree and PhD in information technology from Tampere University in Finland before moving to the United States in the mid-1990s. She is named inventor in over 1 000 patents in Europe and the US.
Marta Karczewicz, European Inventor Award 2019, Lifetime Achievement
Gaute Munch joined the LEGO Group as an electronic engineer in 1997 and currently leads the company’s electrical and digital product safety. Over the course of nearly three decades, he has held various roles and played a key role in shaping the company’s technology product development. With a strong engineering background, he contributed as a developer of LEGO Mindstorms and served as lead architect for the first-generation LEGO Power Functions system. He has also led teams responsible for developing several of the LEGO Group’s technology product platforms.
Marie Perrin is a chemist and entrepreneur. She is currently an ETH Pioneer Fellow, leading the startup project REEcover, which applies an innovative process to recover rare earth elements from electronic waste. Driven by a lifelong passion for science, she earned her master’s degree from École Polytechnique and Paris-Saclay University, followed by a PhD from ETH Zürich. In addition to her work as an inventor and entrepreneur, she is a former president of the Young Swiss Chemical Society and a former delegate to the European Young Chemist Network, where she was active in science communication and science policy. She now continues her outreach efforts on Instagram under the handle @theraredoctor, focusing on topics related to science and sustainability.
Laura van't Veer is Chief Research Officer and the co-founder of Agendia, a molecular diagnostics company focused solely on breast cancer. She is full professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University California San Francisco. Over the past 20 years, she has conducted pioneering molecular oncology research and published over 300 scientific publications. Her work has helped medical professionals make more accurate diagnoses and therefore offer better treatment options to patients. She has received several accolades, including the 2024 William L. McGuire SABCS Lecture Award, the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award, an EU 2014 Women Innovator Award, the 2017 ECCO Clinical Research Award, a 2020 Giants of Cancer Care Award.
Roujia Wen is the co-founder of Seabound, a company that builds modular, retrofittable carbon capture systems for cargo ships. Wen’s technical expertise includes a master’s degree in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge and building machine learning products at Amazon’s Alexa AI. Her commercial experience is complemented by R&D expertise across materials science, fluid dynamics and particle physics, including work with a group collaborating on Large Hadron Collider research at CERN.