Quality Innovation Award measures the quality of your invention – Participate in the competition!
The Finnish Quality Association arranges the Quality Innovation Award, where organisations receive an assessment of the level of their innovations. The competition is open to all kinds of organisations, from private traders to public organisations.
Innovations can and should be measured. The Quality Innovation Award assessment is an effective and concrete way of doing this. The feedback is based on clear criteria on the level of the innovation, what should be improved and when. At its best, receiving feedback encourages organisations to step up their innovation activities.
Innovations have a remarkable effect on national economic growth and development. In addition, innovations promote technological development and employment, which are important for sustainable development in society.
“Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about Finland’s weak productivity growth. Real productivity improvements require innovations – new ways to do new things. Productivity growth through innovations means the capability to produce more value for the customer. Finnish companies’ successes in the international Quality Innovation Award, among other things, shows Finland’s clear innovative abilities,” says Juha Ylä-Autio, Managing Director of the Finnish Quality Innovation Association.
Innovations must also be protected appropriately in order to ensure control over them and the economic benefit obtained from them. The Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) has been a partner of the competition for several years. Antti Riivari, Director General of the PRH, is also the chairperson of the competition jury.
“The PRH participates in the competition to encourage all organisations to innovate. The PRH also urges organisations to protect their innovations. It is important to remember that innovations not only mean technology-based patentable innovations. Business and service innovations are very important and can be protected by trademarks in particular,” Antti Riivari says.
Take part in the Quality Innovation Award (in Finnish).Open link in a new tab
The competition is open for applications until 2 June 2023. The winning organisations will receive their rewards on 15 November 2023 at the Laatupäivä event arranged by the Finnish Quality Association.
National Quality Innovation Award (QIA)
The award categories are potential innovations, business innovations, public sector innovations, and environmental innovations. In addition, municipal innovations will have a dedicated category intended for discovering the best innovations from Finnish municipalities, towns and cities. The competition has been held since 2007 and is open for applications until the beginning of June. Each innovation is assessed in terms of its novelty and economic value, among other things. Apart from the value of the innovations submitted by organisations, the innovation process itself is also examined.
The winners of the national QIA get a chance to compete in an international competition against the top countries of the world and compare their innovation at the international level. In addition, organisations are granted various honourable mentions for their remarkable work on innovations. In 2023, the first prize of the international QIA went to the Finnish company Ecomation (in Finnish).Open link in a new tab