The EDF Pulse Awards are back for their tenth edition to support and promote those who are imagining the carbon-free world of tomorrow. This edition marks the arrival of a brand new BOOST programme for Group employees who wish to develop their ideas and market them externally. We meet Régis Combaluzier, Director of the EDF Pulse Incubation intrapreneurship programme, to find out more.
Why did you decide to create a BOOST programme?
Since their creation in 2014, the EDF Pulse Awards have been an opportunity to highlight innovative projects developed within the Group to decarbonise the world. Some of these projects could enable the Group to create new businesses and activities, thereby generating economic value.
We have partnered with the Group's various accelerators, Pulse Studio and R&D, to enable employees who wish to do so to go one step further by trying to develop their solution for the external market.
What is the BOOST programme?
This new programme, exclusively for internal applications, complements the initial EDF Pulse Awards. It enables employees to assess the potential value of their solution on the external market.
To do so, candidates must provide an initial analysis of their solution's positioning: potential customers, the size of the addressable market in France and internationally, the time needed to bring their solution to market, possible synergies with the Group's various entities, market and competition analysis, and, of course, the value it could create for the EDF Group.
Applications will be evaluated by a jury composed mainly of experts from outside the EDF Group (entrepreneurs, external incubators, startup studios, etc.).
What projects are you interested in?
We are interested in any type of project, whether software or hardware, that can generate value for the Group on the external market. These projects must fall into one of the five categories of the 2026 EDF Pulse Awards, in line with the Group's ambitions:
- Improving prevention measures in the field of health and safety
- Accelerating and developing electrification
- Managing and promoting flexibility
- Improving operational efficiency
- Strengthening the environmental adaptability of our activities
What is the benefit for internal candidates within the Group to participate in this programme?
This new programme offers successful candidates the opportunity to receive personalised support from one of the EDF Group's accelerators (Pulse Studio, EDF Pulse Incubation, etc.) in order to test their solution on external markets.
EDF Pulse Incubation, for example, is the Group's intrapreneurship programme. It was created to develop innovative business projects proposed by employees through to market launch. It enables intrapreneurs to benefit from the most innovative working methods and support from high-level internal and external business experts to refine their project, define a solid business model and prototype their solutions.