The Paris City Council Innovation Grand Prizes were presented Monday 13th December, at the Paris Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (Science and Industry City) in five different categories: Design, Innovative Services, Health/Biotech, Digital Technology, Eco-innovation. The growing success of these Grand Prizes, organised by the Paris Region Innovation and Paris Development Laboratory, is the most obvious sign of the success of Paris’s policy in favour of innovation.

Claudie Haigneré, the President of the Science and Industry City, Olivier Lecomte, the President of the Paris Region Innovation Laboratory and Jean-Louis Missika, member of the Paris Council and deputy mayor in charge of innovation, research and universities, introduced these Grand Prizes during a round table conference on the links between education in the broad sense and innovation in France and in Paris.
Jean-Louis Missika did not hesitate to recall that innovation was part of Paris’s genetic code: “innovation is characterised by a series of elements: you need well-trained talented people – and we have in Paris universities and schools with an international reputation – research laboratories and a climate of creativity.”
Claudie Haigneré went back on the notion of learning innovation: “There are two parts in education: education as a preparation and education as an inspiration. Education goes together with innovation and does not only take place in school,” she insisted. Olivier Lecomte backed her by saying that, in order to “innovate, you must manage to develop and dare, and not have the feeling that you might get sanctioned if you make mistakes,” thus recalling the missions of the Paris Region Innovation Laboratory, which was created to help innovative firms experiment in the Paris Region.

See the winners

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