Veronica Martinez, Torben B. Pedersen and Matthias Mayer, prize winners in 2004

For the first time in the history of the ECIU, the ECIU awarded a Young Researchers' Prize in summer 2002. The Prize is to honour both outstanding achievements in research and the young researcher's ability to impart the scientific achievements and their social implications to a wider audience without subject specific knowledge. The second prize was awarded at the ECIU General Meeting at the University of Dortmund on 27 May 2004. The topic for the 2004 prize was:

Research for Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Challenges in the Academic Community or Wider Society for Industrial Design & Manufacturing, Technology Management & Entrepreneurship”.

Three candidates could be nominated for the prize per ECIU member institution and a pre-selection committee consisting of three professors within the field of innovation and entrepreneurship selected three candidates, who gave a presentation about their research to the participants of the ECIU General Meeting on 27 May 2004. The communication skills of the three nominees were central in evaluating who the winner of the ECIU Young Researchers Prize 2004 would. Based on the judgement that communicative skills of the excellent young researchers could be improved, the ECIU Executive Board decided to award a shared second prize to Matthias Mayer (PhD degree from the University of Dortmund), and Torben B. Pedersen (PhD degree from Aalborg University). Veronica Martinez received a third prize, based on the presentation of her PhD work from the University of Strathclyde.

Following the awarding of the prize in 2004 the ECIU Executive Board decided to keep in line with the three core areas and consequently use the funding hitherto spent on the Young Research Prize on activities within the core areas.

The ECIU will consequently not award future Young Researcher Prizes.