AHA!-awards 2025

The goal of the AHA!-awards is twofold:

• Honor our most innovative researchers and put the spotlight on what we do as an innovative university association towards industry and society. We have a lot of excellent and high impact research and valorisation projects that deserve media coverage and could benefit from constructive input to generate an even bigger innovative impact. 
• Reaching out to industry and societal partners to contact our valorisation managers to work together in forming transdisciplinary teams.

There will be two categories of AHA!-awards: 

• The 'Promising' award for an up-and-coming researcher
• The 'Achieved' award for a well-established researcher

Criteria for the nominees

• The laureates are (or 'were', if the knowledge transfer has already been realised) researchers and/or lecturers associated with one of the institutions of the AUHA. They should be nominated for their proven or expected valorisation potential by one of their colleagues active within the AUHA.
• Without doubt, 2019, 2021 and 2023 Nominees’ have been reinforcing their innovation actions and therefore could be renominated. Therefore, your earlier nomination could be renewed by a nomination for the 2025 edition.
• Only individuals or teams that have a proven impact in terms of valorisation, be it economic and/or societal, are eligible for nomination. One or more of the projects that contribute (or contributed) to this valorisation can be described in the motivation pitch.
• In addition to nominating an individual, it is also possible to nominate a team of researchers who have carried out a project together.
• Students, except for PhD students, are not eligible.
• Winners of the 2019 edition (Steven Latré and Pierre Van Damme), the 2021 edition (Sarah Lebeer and Jan Sijbers) and the 2023 edition (Annemie Bogaerts, Tom Breugelmans and Sammy Verbruggen) are not eligible for nomination in 2025 in the same category.

Evaluation criteria applied by the jury

Evaluation of the submitted proposals is based on the following criteria. It is important to keep these criteria in mind when considering a candidate for nomination.

Achieved

Economic criteria:

We take into account the following elements:

• The forms of valorisation of AUHA knowledge that the candidate has achieved over the past 5 years (e.g. spin-off, trade sale, IP, licensing agreements, ...);
• Their economic value (expressed in terms of turnover / gross margin, employment, scalability, value and size of the licensing income, sustainability, …)

Societal criteria:

We take into account the following elements:

• The image of the candidate as an innovative pioneer
• The extent in which the research projects of the candidate has put the AUHA on the map due to their novelty
• The increase in quality of life of a vulnerable group within society and/or the impact on giving a voice to such groups due to the research project
• Sustainability is part of one or more research projects of the candidate

Promising

Economic criteria:

We take into account the following elements:

• The funding obtained by the candidate for the valorisation of AUHA knowledge through projects over the past 5 years. It concerns financing with a valorisation purpose, coming from the third and fourth funding flow. The third funding flow means funding for applied scientific research; so in Flanders this is IOF and VLAIO  funding, but some European fundings may fall under this, and also a part of the FWO. The fourth funding flow is funding that comes directly from collaboration with the private sector (companies), this includes f.e. contractual research, scientific services and research in collaboration with the private sector and/or government.
• The types of funding (European, regional, national)
• Collaborative projects with industry and non-profit organisations
• The IP protection of the last 5 years awarded to the candidate

Societal criteria:

We take into account the following elements:

• The research results of the candidate (will) put the AUHA on the map due to their novelty
• The research results of the candidate increase the quality of life of a vulnerable group within society and/or give a voice to this group
• The research results make a difference for a large group of people
• Sustainability is part of the candidate's research

Assessment

After the submission, the Valorisation Office will contact nominees for the approval of their nomination, will collect their CV's and make the necessary preparations with regard to the files.

Submitted nominations are then assessed by a jury consisting of external stakeholders, that are active in the field of innovation and valorisation, and chaired by the vice-rector/chair of the Industrial Research Council. The jury, organised in October 2025, will appoint the top three nominees in each category.

The top three nominees in each category are expected to collaborate with the Valorisation Office to make a short movie that will be shown during the Antwerp Innovation Night in December 2025, where the winner in each category will be announced. The attendance of the top three nominees is required at the Antwerp Innovation Night.

Additional opportunities to showcase the research of all nominees will be provided during the Innovation Fair.

Awards and their financial benefits

A budget of 10.000 euro is provided for the two prizes. So, 5.000 euro each.

Within the Achieved category, the financial benefit of the award goes to the research group(s) involved in the research project which generated the valorisation file. The amount can be used for valorisation oriented research. For the category promising the financial benefit of the award goes to the research group with a research project or valorisation file with a lot of potential and should be spent to support the project (preferentially to finance a training course of the valorisation team).