Applications for the PEPITE 2020 Awards now open

The 2020 edition of the PEPITE Prize is open. Candidates have until June 30 to compete for the PEPITE Prize, the Student Prize for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship. This is the ^7th edition of the competition, which celebrates the national support scheme for innovative business start-up projects by student entrepreneurs.

Organized by the French Ministry of Higher Education and BpiFrance, the national agency responsible for supporting business start-ups in France, The aim of the PEPITE Awards is to encourage the creation of innovative and creative businesses by students and young graduates with student-entrepreneur status. Every year, 6,500 young people benefit from this status.

Who is eligible?

Any student or recent graduate with student-entrepreneur status (or who has been a student-entrepreneur for less than 3 years) can submit a project to set up an innovative and creative business.

What type of project?

Among these "innovative and creative" projects, the student-entrepreneur can propose a technological or non-technological innovation. This could be a social, usage or service innovation, or a product, process, marketing or organizational innovation, for example.

The resulting company must be based in France.

How to enter?

Registration is online. At the time of registration, an application form is opened, in which the student-entrepreneur is asked to describe his or her project, including who the promoter is and his or her team, the target market, the marketing plan and financing requirements.

After this preliminary phase, the 33 PEPITEs throughout France will select their prizewinners and then their champion, the one with the most promising project. These champions will then become the 33 national winners of the PEPITE Tremplin pour l'Entrepreneuriat Étudiant prize.

What prizes?

Each champion's company will receive an endowment of 10,000 euros from the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.The national winners will also be invited to an event organized in partnership with BpiFrance, for an official awards ceremony.

Find out more about the 2020 PEPITE Awards on thewebsite of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

©PEPITE-France