The Global Innovator Awards is the UK’s first awards programme dedicated to recognising the achievements of founders, innovators, and exceptional talent who came to the UK under a qualifying innovation or talent route.
It is calling for nominations to celebrate founders, innovators and researchers who have come to the UK through the above qualifying innovation routes!
Recipients of the UK Global Talent Visa, Innovator Founder Visa, Graduate Visa, Innovator Visa, Start-up Visa, Tier 1 Exceptional Talent and Tier 1 Entrepreneur Visa are eligible to enter.
These awards are open to founders, innovators and exceptional talent who made an active decision to come to the UK
Nominations are free.
The Global Innovator Awards exist to make you visible. If you made a deliberate decision to come to the UK and are building, creating or contributing something significant here in the UK, these awards have been created just for you.
You are actively shaping UK industries, research and culture. You may be mid-journey, still building, still proving yourself. Recognition at this stage is not ceremonial. It shows credibility to investors, partners and the wider market at exactly the moment it matters most.
Entries close on 28 August 2026 with shortlisting to occur in September. The Awards evening will be held in London on 16 November 2026.
Nominate yourself or someone you know who is a recipient of one of the above visas by clicking the ‘Nominate | Apply’ button. It takes less than five minutes.
The Ten Categories include:
- Founder of the Year
- Tech & Deep Science Innovation
- Global Talent Award
- Scale up of the Year
- Co-founding Team of the Year
- Rising Star
- Creative and Cultural Innovation
- UK SME Global Expansion
- Breakthrough Innovation of the Year
- Ecosystem Builder of the Year
- Pioneer Award
The Global Innovation Awards are powered by Nexus.
NEXUS is a UK innovation hub connecting frontier technology companies, incubators, science parks and scale-ups across global markets. They work at the intersection of international ambition and UK opportunity, helping founders and innovators establish, grow and scale in the UK.
*The contents of this blog and images have been sourced from the Global Innovator Awards website. Find out more here
https://www.globalinnovatorawards.com/
