The Bernardo Nobile Award celebrates its 20th anniversary with a renewed format

The Bernardo Nobile Award celebrates its 20th anniversary. Promoted by Area Science Park, it aims to promote the use of scientific and technical information contained within patent documentation as part of research and innovation pathways. With the 2025 edition, the Award is renewed, offering six prizes and addressing highly topical themes.

The 20th edition of the Award, dedicated to the memory of Bernardo Nobile — founder and first head of the Area Science Park PatLib Centre — has been updated to recognise studies and methodologies for the analysis of data and information, both related to intellectual property and concerning potentially high-impact technologies. In particular, the main innovations include:

• studies that enhance the use of patent documentation and information, including through Artificial Intelligence (AI) analysis of data, information, and processes related to Intellectual Property (IP);
• studies and/or scenario analyses and/or technological foresight focusing on “deep-tech” technologies, with particular attention to their impact and/or valorisation.

The initiative, organised with the involvement of the Italian Association of Patent Documentalists (AIDB), will award six cash prizes of €2,500 each to as many graduates and/or PhD holders who have been selected as winners in the following three categories:

• Category 1 and 2: respectively for Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations that explicitly use patents as an information source, possibly also analysing opportunities arising from the use of AI techniques in the research, processing and analysis of data and information, or in managing processes related to IP;
• Category 3: for Master’s theses and/or doctoral dissertations that have explored the impact and/or valorisation of “deep-tech” technologies, possibly including foresight, forecast, or anticipatory analyses in the following sectors:
  a. Life Sciences
  b. Materials Science
  c. Advanced Digital Technologies
  d. Green Energy Supply Chains

The deadline for submitting applications is 30 June 2025.

All details and the full call for applications are available here.