LEARN MORE ABOUT THE AWARD

1. What is the WeMed Award about?
The WeMed Award 2026 is conceived as a tool to give visibility to sustainable businesses in the early and growth stage focusing on the nexus between green and social innovations.

2. What are the WeMed Award objectives?
The aim of the current edition is to:

  • Recognise the outstanding achievements of green, blue, and circular economy enterprises with sustainable business models;
  • Inspire other entrepreneurs to integrate environmental and social innovations into their business models, thereby scaling up these approaches across the region; and
  • Promote an entrepreneurial ecosystem that enables the growth of green, blue, and circular economy enterprises and recognises successful actions carried out by the actors within this ecosystem.

The award will provide visibility to the contributions of green, blue, and circular economy enterprises to the Sustainable Development Goals in the Mediterranean region, and in particular to Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). Special consideration will be given to the company's circular business model as a whole, rather than to a specific action or product.

3. Who can apply to the 2026 WeMed Award?
For this edition, the WeMed Award is targeting success stories of sustainable businesses in the early and growth stage focusing on the nexus between green and social innovations.

All selected ventures must be legally constituted in:

  • Southern Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia.
  • EU candidate countries benefiting from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, with a Mediterranean coastline: Türkiye, Albania, Montenegro, and the Republic of North Macedonia.
  • Less developed regions of EU countries (where GDP per capita is below 75% of the EU average), with a Mediterranean coastline:
    • Croatia: the entire country
    • Greece: Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Western Greece, Epirus, Central Macedonia, Thessaly
    • Italy: Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Apulia
    • Spain: Andalusia and Murcia

4. What is the prize?
The prizes are:

Category A / Early-Stage: 20.000 € (cash prize)
Category B / Growth-Stage: 20.000 € (cash prize)

5. When will the call for applications open?
The call will open on the 1st of July at 9 a.m. and will close on the 30th of July at 2 p.m. (GMT+2) Any candidature submitted after this date won’t be evaluated.