Criteria & Categories

What the awards focused on?

We have asked our judges to focus on the following criteria to assess the entries. As part of the consultation with our Advisory Board, we have determined that the following five focus areas are vital ingredients to success.

Commercial success

Judges will review what commercial success looks like for your organisation, your export potential and success stories within the international marketplace. We want to see evidence of your company’s track record in creating a product or service, then effectively selling to domestic and/or international markets. It’s a Commercial Disco(very)!

Translation of intellectual property

Intellectual property (IP) is developed in different environments and there are many strategies to successfully bring the research outputs to market. Judges will reward excellence in the translation of IP – through programs that enable successful research collaborations across various sectors as well as those companies that continue to develop IP internally. 

Impact

What is your company’s impact on its sector? Does your product or service take Australian smarts and create new jobs and wealth for the nation, or make the lives of citizens better? Does your innovation inspire through originality and ambition? Judges will review how entrants are aligning their success measures –such as addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals or CSIRO’s Challenge Missions.

Non-R&D innovations

We will also be looking for business innovations that have helped your organisation translate its IP for commercial or societal success. Elements will include your organisation’s business strategy, a successful pivot, or its adaptability to major challenges, risk or unexpected outcomes. It will look at your leadership and human resources strategy and all the other non-R&D factors that are vital to successful growth.

Applied technologies

Judges also want to hear stories of organisations that have adapted or pivoted research and innovations to build a product or service for an entirely different sector. What horizonal applications of these particular technologies have been used to solve a challenge? How are they themselves consumers of emerging tech to create new products?