Finalists announced for 2025 European Prize for Women Innovators

The winners of this year’s European Prize for Women Innovators will be announced at the EIC Summit on 3 April. And ahead of Saturday’s International Women’s Day, the finalists of the 2025 edition have been announced.

Led jointly by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and the European Innovation Council (EIC), the Prize is funded under the Horizon Europe framework programme and has three categories: Women Innovators Prize, open to women who have ‘founded a successful company’; the Rising Innovators Prize, for women under 35; and the EIT Women leadership prize, for ‘exceptional women of the EIT Community’.

There are prizes available across three categories: Women Innovators, with three prizes up for grabs of: €100k, €70k and €50k; EIC Rising Innovators, offering: €50k, €30k and €20k; and EIT Women Leadership, again breaking down: €50k, €30k and €20k.

Here are the finalists across the three categories:

Rising Innovators

• Camille Bouget (France), co-founder of Scienta Lab, an AI-powered platform developed to address the therapeutic needs of immuno-inflammatory diseases.

• Claudine Adeyemi-Adams (United Kingdom), founder of Earlybird, an AI-powered platform that enhances employment support by engaging participants in voice-powered conversations, providing advisors with insights and recommendations to deliver more personalized assistance.

• Héloïse Mailhac (France), co-founder of STH BIOTECH, a company that has developed SATIVITRO®, an in vitro bio-production platform that enhances the yield and accessibility of rare cannabinoids for pharmaceutical research through controlled bioreactor cultivation.

Women Innovators

• Agnès Arbat (Spain), co-founder of Oxolife, a company developing innovative drugs to enhance fertility, with a focus on improving embryo implantation and simplifying infertility treatments.

• Fanny Bardé (France), founder of SOLiTHOR, that develops next-generation solid-state batteries using a non-flammable, environmentally-friendly solid electrolyte.

• Rhona Togher (Ireland), co-founder with Eimear O’Carroll of Lios, a company that has developed SoundBounce, a smart acoustic material that offers up to 4x more effective noise reduction in less space, being 40% lighter and 4 times thinner, with versatile applications across industries like construction, automotive, aerospace, and home appliances.

EIT Women Leadership

• Débora Andreia Campelo Campos (Portugal), Founder and CEO of AgroGrin Tech, which developed an innovative and eco-friendly process to transform the industrial fruit waste into functional food ingredients.

• Elizabeth McGloughlin (Ireland), Co-Founder and CEO of Tympany Medical, whose variable angle endoscopy technology improves patient and healthcare system outcomes.

• Olesja Bondarenko (Estonia), Co-Founder and CEO of Nanordica Medical, which develops nanotechnology-based wound care products that help prevent infections and promote wound healing.

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