Contest Rules

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Preamble
The Innovert competition is an innovation competition for plant professionals.
Every year, professionals from the sector (communities, specialized distribution, mass distribution, landscaping, production) come to visit the Salon du Végétal and go to the Innovert space to discover the innovations of the moment.
These regulations define the rules applicable to the competition.

Article 1
The Innovert contest is organized by the Organization Committee of the Salon du Végétal, and is held as part of the Salon du Végétal, on September 10th, 11th and 12th, 2024 at the Exhibition Centre of Angers.
In accordance to the vocation of the Salon du Végétal, it concerns the vegetal branch in its entirety :
production, distribution, green areas, landscaping and floristry.

Organizer’s address :
SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS – Salon du Végétal
Route de Paris
49044 ANGERS CEDEX 01
Phone : +33 2 41 93 40 40

Article 2
The Innovert contest is aimed to showcase, reward and promote the innovations (products, services or solutions) that are likely to foster the development of the vegetal branch, that will present one or several of these qualities:

• Market interest – issue for the sector (problem or need addressed by the innovation)
• Innovative character compared to existing solutions (competitive advantage)
• Environmental interests and benefits
• Quality of presentation of the file (commercial and technical arguments, experimental results carried out by third parties, sending of the product to the prejury and jury)


For the Varietal Innovation category, other aspects will be studied such as the quality of the seed, the production method and the selection methodology used.
A product/service can only be entered into the Innovert competition if it has not been marketed before September 2022.
Each candidate cannot present more than two products in all categories of the competition.
A file presented during a previous edition of the Innovert competition cannot be presented a second time, except at the explicit request of the jury.
The 3 possible winning prizes are Gold, Silver, Bronze. There may be a Gold winner and/or a Silver winner and/or a Bronze winner in each category. The Jury is free to designate several Gold, Silver or Bronze winners per competition category. It may also not designate a Gold, Silver or Bronze winner in one or more categories.

 

Article 3

The candidate may submit – details in Article 5 of these regulations – projects in the categories listed below. The product, service or device must constitute a real innovation on the market and not a simple variant or evolution of an existing product.

There are four categories:

• Varietal innovation (A)
Seeds & plants horticulture and nursery

• Plant commercial novelty: marketing concepts for plant sales (B)

• Products & services for the marketing and/or use of plants (C):
Supplies and equipment, marketing, packaging, digital support services, etc.

• Products, services and devices for landscaping (D):
Exterior design, material & surface covering, equipment and materials, services, maintenance and treatment products…

Criteria specific to categories A and B:

• Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit a specimen of their plant during the pre-jury and jury phases, so that experts can attest to the plant’s innovative characteristics.
• A plant not presentable at the time of the show, for reasons linked to its cultivation cycle, may be judged on photos by the jury. These must be precise, from different angles, of good quality and very descriptive on the innovative characteristics.
• The competition being professional in nature and serving the sector, the plant must be offered to the market in significant quantities, in relation to its market.
• To compete, the Community Plant Variety Protection Title (OCVV/CPVO) is not mandatory. If the variety has been the subject of an application for protection, it is obligatory to provide it.
• For category B: When a range (or series) comprising several varieties is presented, the entire range is judged.


Article 4
Each candidate wishing to participate in the competition must apply to the organizing committee.
Submission of files is done in 2 phases:
– Phase 1 (mandatory to access phase 2): submission of the file before the closing date for registrations (dates communicated on the competition website)
– Phase 2 (if phase 1 completed): if necessary, possibility of finalizing the deposit with all the elements up to 2 weeks after the closing of registrations.

The Salon du Végétal reserves the right to interrupt, modify, shorten, extend the dates, or even cancel the competition. It cannot be held responsible for this. In this case, the information will be sent by email to all candidates.

Each file must include all the technical data of the product or service presented, as well as an argument highlighting it in relation to the qualities retained as criteria in Article 2. A very complete and detailed file will allow members of the pre-jury and jury to best evaluate the file.

The application is submitted online on the website www.concours-innovert.com and takes the following form:
• An application form
• A description of the product or service
• An argument
• A commercial brochure or any other document that the candidate considers relevant to best judge their innovation
• Photos of the product
• Test results

The candidate will be able to save their file in “Draft” and make as many modifications as necessary before sending it definitively to the Salon du Végétal for posting online.
Once the file has been definitively validated and posted online, a registration confirmation will be sent by email to the candidate. Only applications that comply with these regulations will be considered.

Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS reminds the candidate of the characteristics and limits of the internet network and declines all responsibility for the consequences of connecting to this network via www.concours-innovert.com/, in particular due to congestion, error, malicious intervention, software or hardware malfunctions, and any case of force majeure.
Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS cannot be held responsible for any material or immaterial damage caused to application elements and related stored data, as well as any consequences that may result therefrom.

An application may be refused by the Salon du Végétal organizing committee if the product or service presented is not considered sufficiently innovative with regard to the criteria developed in article 2. Any application submitted in a form other than that provided for in these regulations cannot be taken into account and will be deemed void. Any application not meeting the eligibility conditions, or made using incomplete, erroneous or even fraudulent information will be refused.


Article 5
Each exhibitor can submit several different applications to the competition, up to a maximum of two. However, it is not possible to submit the same file in several categories.

The first application submission is offered to all exhibitors at the Salon du Végétal 2024, and the 2nd will be charged €180 excluding tax.
Non-exhibiting companies can submit an application file only in category A “Varietal Innovation”, with a limit of one file per company, for a registration fee of €360 excluding tax.

Each file must be complete in terms of the sections to be filled in while remaining as concise as possible. However, the transmission of additional documents (photograph, test report, certification and other document) is strongly recommended. Candidates for the competition are not required to disclose to the Jury certain manufacturing secrets or tricks of their own, with the exception of those benefiting from protection by trademark or patent registration.


Article 6
Candidates must ensure before applying that their rights relating to intellectual and industrial property are well preserved and the corresponding trademarks and patents registered.
Each candidate thus declares to legitimately hold the intellectual property rights relating to the projects presented during the competition and thus guarantees the organizer Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS against any action, complaint, demand or opposition from a third party who would invoke an intellectual property right or an act of unfair and/or parasitic competition.
As such, the candidate is informed that the validity of a patent is in particular conditioned on the new nature of the invention, such that any disclosure to a third party not bound by an obligation of confidentiality before its filing constitutes anteriority. destructive of the novelty likely to invalidate the patent, it being specified that the novelty of the invention is assessed on the date of filing of the patent application.

To this end and to the extent that the project must be the subject of an exhibition on the candidate’s stand in accordance with article 9 of these regulations, any candidate, who does not hold a patent on his project, cannot seek liability from the organizer for lack of validity of any patent application which may subsequently be filed at the Salon du Végétal.
By submitting their application to the competition, candidates undertake on their honor to:
• Guarantee the sincerity and veracity of the information they provide
• Declare if their project is not their only intellectual property and if so,
• Guarantee, when the intellectual property rights of the project are held by third parties, to have previously obtained their express authorization as well as the titles necessary for their use and exploitation, before applying for the competition.
The Salon du Végétal and the Members of the Jury cannot be held responsible for communication of the file during the examination period or for its communication after deliberation.
Concerning the information transmitted by the candidates in the internal part for the jury, the experts and members of the juries sign a charter guaranteeing their commitment to confidentiality with regard to the information received.

Article 7
The procedures for designating the winners are as follows:

> 1st phase – over the course of applications, from opening until the start of phase 2:
Each file will be submitted to an expert specializing in the field, chosen for their skills, who will formulate an opinion concerning: the level of innovation, the challenges and benefits brought by the solution. This notice will be an additional element of information for the prejury.

> 2nd phase – during April 2024:
The prejury, made up of technical institutes, scientific establishments in the sector and linked to the categories of the competition, professional, economic and prevention organizations, will only establish an opinion on the innovative nature of the applications. The jury does not judge the product but the innovative nature of the product; it verifies that it is indeed an innovation. This will give rise to a pre-selection of files which will then be “nominated”. The nominees will be announced a few days (between 1 and 7 working days) after the pre-jury meeting and will be communicated to the public and the press.

The prejury may request additional information, before or following this 2nd phase; if the latter is not provided, the product may subsequently not be selected as the winner. Complaints will be received and examined by members of the prejury. The jury is sovereign in its decisions. It reserves the right to change a product category.

> 3rd phase – during June 2024:
The nominated applications will then be submitted to the final Jury, once again made up of experts but also journalists, producers, distributors, Green Spaces technicians and some members of the Salon du Végétal Organizing Committee. This final Jury will meet at the end of June – beginning of July 2024 and will designate the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners of the competition.


Article 8
The Juries are sovereign. The decisions of the pre-jury and the final jury are final. Juries protect the secrecy of their deliberations. They make their decisions in a discretionary manner; they are not obliged to provide reasons for their decisions. They are therefore not subject to appeal, which the candidate understands and accepts.
The pre-jury and the final jury reserve the right to verify the validity of the documents and arguments provided by the participants in the competition. Among the products selected by the prejury, the Final Jury determines the most interesting on the basis of the rating criteria provided for by these regulations and determines the award of the prizes.

In addition, the Final Jury may refuse to award a distinction for one or another category if none of the competing products and services seem to merit this distinction.
The distinguished companies will receive a trophy which will be presented during the Salon du Végétal 2024.

Article 9
The results will be known after the final jury of the competition, and announced to the candidates, then to visitors via email.
A press release will also be drawn up for this purpose.
The award ceremony will take place solemnly during the Salon du Végétal.

Any product or service subject to participation in the Innovert competition must be presented in the presentation area dedicated to the competition at the show. The Organizing Committee declines all responsibility in the event of theft, disappearance or deterioration which could affect the products exhibited.

Participants in categories A and B undertake to provide, at the Salon du Végétal, between two and ten copies of each product presented in the competition. We insist on the fact that it is essential that the innovative character of the product is clearly identifiable by visitors.

The winners will also have a logo/sticker that can be used on their corporate documents, referring to the prize obtained. A distinctive display (sticker on the ground in front of the stand and badge on the sign) will be made on the stands of the award-winning exhibitors to highlight the innovations on their respective stands.

Article 10
The awarded exhibitors as well as their principals will be able to report their distinction both on their stand and on other occasions subsequently, specifying the elements having been distinguished.
The official badge of the Innovert 2024 winners will be sent in PDF format to the winners so that they can duly affix them.

By the sole fact of their application or their prize, candidates authorize the organizers to use their civilities, associated both with their brand(s), product(s) or service(s) and with the Innovert competition without time limitation. or in space, and without this use being able to give rise to any rights other than the prizes won.

Article 11

The application and participation fees for a product or service are free for exhibitors at the Salon du Végétal 2024. If they wish to offer a second product or service, they will be asked for a participation fee of €180 excluding tax.

For non-exhibiting companies wishing to submit an application for the competition, they can do so in the “Varietal Innovation” category only, for a participation fee of €360 excluding tax.

The candidate thus undertakes to respect the following obligations:
• Authorize in advance Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS to publish its name, its company name, the name of its legal representatives, its professional address and its photograph as part of the communication linked to the competition and the Salon du Végétal;
• Expressly and unconditionally grant Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS the right to take photographs and any other method of capturing images of it, its principals and its products during its participation in the competition and to use them as part of the communication linked to the competition and the show, throughout its duration, and without this being able to give rise to any rights other than the awarding of the prize;
• Expressly and irrevocably grant the right to Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS to use, exploit, publish, reproduce, represent, distribute, rebroadcast, in whole or in part, on any medium (such as brochures, websites, articles, posters, videos, small multimedia objects, social networks…etc. or any other process not yet known to date), and in any place, any sound and/or visual recording that would be made of it, without this being able to open up rights other than the awarding of the prize;
• Expressly and irrevocably grant the right to Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS to exploit the result of its application to the competition, its name, its image, its voice and any other aspect of its person or its application, reproducible or not, by means currently known, or which will be known in the future and this at the sole discretion of Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS;
• Expressly authorize Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS to transfer the rights listed above in the preceding paragraphs, in whole or in part, to third parties or to grant a license to use these rights to third parties, in particular to for the purposes of promoting the show, the company SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS, its commercial activities and the Angers region and/or the Pays de la Loire region;
• Commit to studying proposals for participation in any communication action launched by the partners of Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS;
• Commit to being present or validly represented at the competition prize-giving ceremony.

Article 12
Candidates are required to provide certain personal data when submitting their application.
This information intended for Salon du Végétal – SPL ALTEC – DESTINATION ANGERS / INNOVERT Competition may be communicated to third parties as part of the competition and used for various purposes related to: management of applications, monitoring of the competition, communication around the event , respond to requests made by any competent authority…

In accordance with the provisions of Law 78-17 of January 6, 1978 and EU Regulation No. 2016/679 of April 27, 2016, each candidate has the rights of access to their personal data, rectification or erasure of these, the right to limit the processing concerning them, or the right to oppose it and the right to data portability.
To exercise this right, simply write to the Show Organizing Committee at the address mentioned in article 1.

Article 13
Participation in this competition implies the full agreement of the candidates to the acceptance of these rules and to decisions concerning any aspect of the competition, decisions which will be final and binding. Any fraud, or more generally any violation of all or part of these regulations, will result in the cancellation of the application and the definitive elimination of the candidate.

Article 14
The prizes awarded to the winners of the Innovert competition are as follows:

• For Gold and Silver laureates

  • 1 trophee
  • Exhibition of innovation in the Innovert Space of the show, located in the Cœur Végétal, with descriptive sheet of the innovation
  • A reduction of €150 excluding tax on the price of your stand for the following edition
  • 1 communication package with a value of 2 500 € excl. VAT including :
     Highlight of your product on the Innovert website’s homepage, from the results announcement and until the launch of the contest’s next edition
     At least 2 posts on each of our social networks (Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn)
     Laureates highlight through a specific emailing campaign to the visitors
     Special signage on your booth (“2024 Innovert Gold / Silver laureate” sticker on your booth’s sign), and floor sticker in front of your booth
     Press articles reminding of the laureates list in the final press release of the contest
     Highlighting the winning companies on the show map


• For Bronze laureates

  • 1 trophee
  • Exhibition of innovation in the Innovert Space of the show, located in the Cœur Végétal, with descriptive sheet of the innovation
  • 1 communication package with a value of 2 500 € excl. VAT including :
     Highlight of your product on the Innovert website’s homepage, from the results announcement and until the launch of the contest’s next edition
     At least 2 posts on each of our social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn)
     Laureates highlight through a specific emailing campaign to the visitors
     Special signage on your booth (“2024 Innovert Gold / Silver laureate” sticker on your booth’s sign), and floor sticker in front of your booth
     Press articles reminding of the laureates list in the final press release of the contest
     Highlighting the winning companies on the show map


• For the nominees of the contest

  • Exhibition of innovation in the Innovert Space of the show, located in the Cœur Végétal, with descriptive sheet of the innovation
  • 1 communication package with a value of 1 500 € excl. VAT including :
     Highlighting nominees via specific Innovert emailing for visitors
     Promoting your business via a publication on our social networks (LinkedIn and Facebook)
     Specific press release with the results of the nominees, following the competition prejury


• For the non exhibitors candidates (Varietal innovation category only, whatever the prize is) :

• 1 laureate certificate
• Exhibition of innovation in the Innovert Space of the show, located in the Cœur Végétal, with descriptive sheet of the innovation
• 1 communication package including :
• Highlight of your product on the Innovert website’s homepage, from the results announcement and until the launch of the contest’s next edition
• At least 2 posts on each of our social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn)
• Highlighting laureates / nominees via specific Innovert emailing for visitors
• Press articles reminding of the laureates list in the final press release of the contest

Article 15
The present regulation has been deposited on the study of:
Mrs Véronique GOUKASSOW, Court bailiff 
122 rue du Château d’Orgemont
49003 Angers Cedex 1

Article 16
The present regulation is submitted to the French law. Any inquiry, application file request, as well as the proceeding of these files, must be done on the website www.innovert-contest.com.

The present regulation is also downloadable on www.concours-innovert.com

Dowload the Contest Rules in PDF