Innovator 2025

Objective

To recognise innovative Estonian companies that have implemented or launched an outstanding innovation that offers significant value to clients or society and that invest their sales revenue in research, development or innovation activities.

Who can apply?

Estonian companies that have successfully implemented a technology development project or launched a new product or service solution in the last three years that improves the company’s competitiveness are invited to apply. The participating company should belong to sectoral and/or international networks.

Evaluation criteria and process

The following economic indicators are evaluated (comprising 30% of the final result):

1. Added value¹  percentage growth per employee from 2022 to 2024 (10%)
2. Proportion of research and development² costs in sales revenue in 2024 (10%)
3. Sales revenue percentage growth from 2022 to 2024 (10%)

The enterprise must show a significant achievement in the following areas over the last three years (comprising 70% of the final result):

1. A significant technology, (production) process or business model development compared to the general level of the market, accompanied by a significant change in the company or an impact on the financial results (20%)
2. A unique or innovative product/service that gives the company a competitive advantage in foreign markets. The company protects its competitive advantage with a well-thought-out intellectual property³ strategy (20%)
3. The company has created and implemented an innovation management⁴ model/system, formulated strategic goals, set objectives and created metrics (20%)
4. SDG⁵, ESG⁶ or other similar principles are being created or implemented and disclosed by the company (10%)

Definitions

1. Added value per employee = (labour costs including taxes + depreciation of fixed assets + business profit) / number of employees.

2. Research and development (including experimental development) includes systematic creative activities designed to increase the scope of knowledge and the ability to use such knowledge to uncover new fields of application. Activities can be classified as research and development if they fulfil five core criteria:
· novel
· creative,
· producing uncertain outcome,
· systematic,
· transferable and/or reproducible.
For research and development, all five criteria should be simultaneously fulfilled, whether it is a constant or intermittent activity.

3. Intellectual property – Intellectual property is a type of property that includes intangible objects created by the human intellect and mainly comprises copyrights, inventions and trademarks. Intellectual property refers to types of intangible assets controlled by the enterprise or other parties, both covered and uncovered by intellectual property rights, both physically presented and stored in people’s competences and experiences. For example, data, algorithms, trained and untrained language models, trade secrets, knowledge, skills and know-how, inventions, literary and artistic works, software, design, etc. that have commercial value to the enterprise. The most well-known types of intellectual property protection are trademarks (protects the enterprise’s brand), copyright (protects literary and artistic works), industrial designs (protects the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of articles) and patents (protects new and innovative solutions and inventions). All of these types of protection, with the exception of copyright, require the registration of intellectual property with the relevant authority in the respective country or territory where protection is sought.

4. Innovation management – Management related to innovation. Innovation management can comprise the implementation of innovation vision, innovation strategy, innovation-related guiding principles and innovation objectives, including organisational structures and innovation processes necessary to achieve these objectives, through planning, supporting, operating, performance, evaluation and improvement.
EVS-EN ISO 56000:2021 Innovation management. Fundamentals and vocabulary.
EVS-EN ISO 56002:2021 Innovation management. Innovation management system.

Innovation includes the development and innovation of products and services (product innovation), the capture and expansion of markets (market innovation), the creation and implementation of new production, supply and sales methods (process innovation), innovations in management and work organisation (organisational innovation) and the improvement of working conditions and personnel skills (employee innovation).

5. SDG or the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations as a call to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that by 2030, all people have peace and well-being. See more: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
For example: The company has selected and disclosed the SDGs and actively contributes to them in order to achieve sustainable development.

6. ESG or Environmental Social and Corporate Governance – an environmental, social and corporate governance framework that is integrated into an organisation’s strategy to consider the needs of all organisational stakeholders (such as employees, customers and suppliers and financiers) and find ways to create more value for them. It can be considered a set of management measures and standards through which it is possible to manage the impact of a company and its products and/or services on the environment, people and the economy.
For example: The company has an ESG strategy, the company has published ESG guiding principles and the company reports on ESG.