“There’s a strong jury at the table”

The jury members bring a wide range of skills and experience to the table when judging the winners of the Bright Idea 2022 award.

The jury is in the process of selecting the talented researchers from Danish universities to be honoured as winners of the Bright Idea Award 2022. 25 May marks the fourth time that the Otto Mønsted Foundation awards the prize and a cash prize of DKK 500,000. But before the winners are revealed on the day, the jury has had a lot of work to do with a thorough review of this year’s applications. And many different competences are needed here.

“The composition of the jury is really good, because we have a very broad range of competences. Some have expertise in healthcare, some have solid experience in commercial aspects, others have deep technical knowledge and so on. We complement each other very well, so in that way it’s a strong jury around the table,” says Nis Alstrup, Chairman of the Otto Mønsted Foundation and member of the jury.

Just like last year, the submitted research ideas will be judged and categorised according to the stage of development of each project. In the Early-stage category, the ideas are still diamonds in the rough, but they must show potential to shine commercially. While the second category of Late-stage ideas includes significantly more mature ideas, where a prototype or a well-defined service will typically have been developed.

The chairman emphasises that the jury is of course first and foremost committed to judging each submitted project according to the four criteria described to the applicants. A research idea is judged on excellence in thought, communication, analysis and documentation. In addition, an idea must also demonstrate commercial understanding and potential in order to support the foundation’s charter and create value for Danish trade and industry.

It must be ideas with a high level of innovation

“Whether it’s Early-stage or Late-stage projects, and where it can be harder or easier to see the fulfilment of the application criteria, the main thing for me in the assessment is that there is excellence in thought, i.e. a truly original idea that has a high level of innovation with commercial potential,” says Nis Alstrup.

It’s a journey that the chairman has experienced first-hand after working as a specialist in surgery for a number of years. Nis Alstrup then started his own business as co-founder of Denmark’s first chain of private hospitals, Danske Privathospitaler. The company was later acquired by Swedish investors and is now Denmark’s largest chain of private hospitals under the name Aleris-Hamlet. Today, Nis Alstrup is associated with several startups, primarily in med tech, as a business angel and board member.

It’s also about the people behind the idea

Jury member Christian Brix Tillegreen also brings a special focus to the table when judging this year’s research ideas. He is employed as a business developer at the Bioinnovation Institute (BII), established by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Here, Christian Brix Tillegreen’s task is to find startups or research projects that are working to replace or develop something new with biology as an alternative to conventional chemical solutions.

“One of the things I focus on in an assessment is whether the idea can be scaled to something bigger. Is it something that can be disseminated, perhaps for export, and what can the idea contribute to Danish society in terms of, for example, jobs or Danish industrial clusters? Here, I want to see that the applicant is able to put the idea into a real context in the society they and the project are part of.

I also look a lot at the people behind the project. Do they have the right motivation and diversity on their team? Because in the early stages of a project, the only real value in the project is the people who drive it and who must have a passion for making the changes needed,” says Christian Brix Tillegreen.

The jury behind The Bright Idea Award consists of:
Kigge Hvid, partner, JA studio, Ole Kring, partner, VF Venture (Vækstfonden), Bjarne Kjær Ersbøll, professor DTU Compute and board member of the Otto Mønsted Foundation, Jesper Højberg Christensen, adjunct professor at CBS, Nis Alstrup, chairman of the Otto Mønsted Foundation, Karina Bergstrøm Larsen, director of Q-Consulting, Christian Brix Tillegreen, senior business developer, Bioinnovation Institute, Nigel Edmondson, adm. director, MADE and Vibeke Svendsen, board member of the Otto Mønsted Foundation.

The Bright Idea 2022 Award will be presented on 25 May and the announcement of the winners will be livestreamed on the foundation’s Facebook profile.