Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions for the Circular Entrepreneurship Award 2026

The Circular Entrepreneurship Award is a competition for startups and SMEs in the tech and innovation sector. The aim is to make circular innovations for dismantling automation and the recycling of raw materials from industrial components more visible, and to strengthen collaborations between startups or SMEs within the award categories and Knorr-Bremse, a global player for industrial components and the sponsor of the Circular Entrepreneurship Award.

The Circular Entrepreneurship Award ceremony will be held on May 6, 2026, at IFAT Munich, where 4 winners from two categories will present their ideas to a broad audience.

The Circular Entrepreneurship Award is an Award by UnternehmerTUM GmbH and its CIRCULAR REPUBLIC team, Knorr-Bremse AG and Heinz Hermann Thiele Familienstiftung.

Knorr-Bremse AG and Heinz Herrmann Thiele Familienstiftung are the financial sponsors of the award.

The co-organizers of the Circular Entrepreneurship Award are UnternehmerTUM GmbH, Lichtenbergstr.6, 85748 Garching, and Knorr-Bremse AG, Moosacher Str. 80, 80809 Munich (hereinafter referred to as the "Organizers"). 

The Circular Entrepreneurship Award is aimed at entrepreneurs from startups and SMEs, dealing with technologies for automated disassembly and recycling of critical raw materials used for industrial products.

Eligible to participate are companies that meet the following criteria at the time of application:

● Your startup or SME is registered in the commercial register (like German Handelsregister) 

● Your solution or product has a reference to the relevant technologies explained on the award website.

● Your solution is (or can be) used for industrial products and components. 

Further provisions and conditions for participation:

● Maximum one solution per category can be submitted by a startup or SME

● The competition is thematically linked to the two award categories described on the Circular Entrepreneurship Award website

● You as a (co)-founder or representative, represent your start-up or SME during the award process.

● If you are selected as a finalist, you and/or your team will hand in a 2-minute video pitch for the final jury session, which decides upon the winners.

● If your company is selected as a winner, you and/or your team will take part in the IFAT Munich award ceremony on May 6, 2026. 

● Winners need to be present at the IFAT Munich award ceremony on May 6, 2026 and pitch on stage. Award participation does not cover traveling and accommodation costs for the award ceremony at IFAT Munich and must be carried by the participant. 

Legal recourse is excluded.

The Organizer reserves the right to review eligibility in individual cases and to exclude

participants who do not meet the criteria.

The application phase ends on March 2, 2026, 11:59 pm.

● Applications must be submitted exclusively via the application form by the Organizer which can be found on the Award website.

● The application deadline is March 2, 2026, 11:59 pm. The time of receipt of the complete application documents is decisive.

● The application must be complete, truthful, and include all required documents (pitch deck in PDF format, completed questionnaire).

● By submitting the application, the participant confirms that the submitted documents

are their intellectual property or that they have the necessary rights of use.

● The Organizer reserves the right to request additional information or presentations from the participants as part of the selection process.

● The Organizer reserves the right to exclude incomplete or incorrect applications from participation.

● There is no right to the return of the submitted application documents.

All applications will be reviewed by a team of UnternehmerTUM and Knorr-Bremse AG. 10 finalists will be selected. The evaluation is based on the two award categories (Automated Disassembly, Critical Raw Materials Recovery) as well as the evaluation criteria, described on the award website. 

Finalists will be contacted via e-mail and are expected to hand in a 2-minute pitch video for the final jury session. The selection decision is final and not contestable. Legal recourse is excluded.

All videos will be reviewed together with the original application by a high caliper jury consisting of renowned experts from industry, politics and research. The jury will select the 4 award winners.

The winners take part in the final award ceremony at IFAT Munich 2026.

The selection decision is final and not contestable. Legal recourse is excluded.

The 4 selected winners of the Circular Entrepreneurship Award will receive a comprehensive support package, including:

• Visibility & Reach: Generate attention for your startup or SME by receiving media coverage of the award, which will be promoted in the social media channels of UnternehmerTUM and Knorr-Bremse AG. At the same time, the solutions of all winners are presented here on the website in the form of a short profile.
• Networking: Meet relevant industry contacts and present your startup or SME to the high-caliber jury of UnternehmerTUM and Knorr-Bremse.
• Award: Get honored and receive a trophy and certificate as part of the award ceremony at the Circular Entrepreneurship Award. The winners may refer to themselves as "Circular Entrepreneurship Award 2026 winners" and use the title in their communications.
• Possible collaboration: As a winner, you may receive the opportunity to work together with Knorr-Bremse AG on a Proof of Concept (PoC).

As the culmination of this program, winners will have the opportunity to present and showcase their start-up or SME and their business solution to a broad audience and the jury at the pitch session during the Award Ceremony at IFAT Munich on May 6, 2026, in Munich.

The price money of 4 times 25,000 € will be paid within 60 business days to the winners by Knorr-Bremse AG.
The Award winners are invited to submit a plan for the PoC execution. Up to two of these applications will be selected to carry out the PoC and will each receive a PoC budget of up to € 150.000. PoC planning will be aligned with the Organizers. The conditions will be communicated to the award winners after the Award Ceremony. 

The PoC budget winners will be exclusively decided by Organizers and cannot be appealed. The Organizers are not obliged to reward the full PoC budget. The organizers can choose to only award one single company with the budget or to only award a share of the budget.

The awarded PoC budget of up to 150.000 EUR must be used for the agreed upon Proof of Concept.

The evaluation of finalists will be conducted by an expert team from UnternehmerTUM, and
Knorr-Bremse AG, based on the award categories and evaluation criteria described on the
award website.

The evaluation process involves three stages:

● Nomination of Finalists: Based on the applications received until the award application deadline of March 02, 2026, the team of experts from UnternehmerTUM, and Knorr-Bremse AG will decide for the finalists of the Circular Entrepreneurship Award. Finalists will be contacted directly from the expert team.

● Finalists Video Pitch: The award finalists will be asked to submit a 2-minute video pitch to the Organizer. The final award winners will be awarded based on the video pitches, evaluation criteria, and final evaluation of the jury. 

● Award Ceremony: The top 4 startup or SME solutions will be recognized at the Award Ceremony at the IFAT Munich 2026 on May 6, 2026.

The Organizer reserves the right to cancel the competition at any time without prior notification or liability. Participants acknowledge that they are not entitled to any specific prize.

The solutions and documents submitted by the participants will be treated confidentially and used exclusively for the purposes of the competition. The Organizer agrees not to redistribute the submitted company information, short descriptions and solution drafts to third parties without the consent of the participant. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, the participants agree that their submitted documents and data will be forwarded to the jury, coaches, experts and sponsors supporting the competition.

The participants declare that they will keep secret all disclosed information about business solutions from other participants. They accept that all new solutions and feedback regarding presented business solutions pass over to the intellectual property of the presenting participant/team.

The confidentiality obligation applies both to the duration of the competition as well as the period thereafter.

All documents and data (excluding data as defined by Art. 4 Nr.1 GDPR), if permission is not explicitly refused, will, after the conclusion of the competition, be included in the UnternehmerTUM start-up network database for the purpose of possible subsequent contact.

If you do not wish for your data to be included, please state your preference with your application. The data will be deleted after the competition in this case.

The Organizer shall be liable to the participants for damages only if they have been caused

intentionally or through gross negligence. Liability for lost profit is excluded. The limitations do not apply for damages resulting from injury to life, limb, or health.

The Organizer shall not be liable for any advice or the depth, extent, quality, and/or quantity of services provided as part of the support package granted under the Circular Entrepreneurship Award. Furthermore, the Organizer assumes no liability for the correctness of the statements made by judges and other persons participating in the competition.

The participants agree further that the services provided under the competition of the Circular Entrepreneurship Award are merely advisory in nature, without any binding effect on the participant.

The participant is free to accept and/or reject such advice offered, shall exercise due diligence and caution in receiving such advice, and will exercise informed and independent judgment in accepting and/or rejecting any such advice.

Participants exempt the Organizer from all possible claims by third parties that could be derived from any violations of copyrights, industrial property rights, trade secrets, or other rights due to the documents submitted.

The Information about the collection and processing of your personal data pursuant to Art. 13 GDPR can be found in our UnternehmerTUM GmbH privacy policy.

Personal data within the meaning of the GDPR of the Participant will only be stored, processed, and used by UnternehmerTUM within the scope of the purpose defined by these

Terms and Conditions and for internal statistical purposes. Personal Data will not be disclosed to third parties.

Insofar as images are created as part of the Circular Entrepeneurship Award, these are used exclusively for the internal documentation of the program and may be published in individual cases for marketing and PR purposes in social media. The legal basis for this is UnternehmerTUM’s legitimate interest, according to Art. 6 Para. 1 f) GDPR.

Furthermore, you agree that your name and email address may be passed on to external jurymembers, experts and coaches involved in the competition.

The jury’s decision is final.

Should individual provisions of these Terms and Conditions be wholly or partially invalid or lose their legal validity at a later date, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining Terms and Conditions. The same applies if there is an unforeseen gap in the Terms and Conditions.