Students and graduates in the field of digital health can now apply for the DMEA sparks Award 2026. Each year, the award recognises the best theses that contribute to the digitalisation of healthcare with innovative ideas and research results.

The competition is aimed at young talents from the fields of IT, medicine, health economics and related disciplines who focus on new technologies, concepts or applications in their bachelor's and master's theses.

Applications can now be submitted here on the DMEA website: www.dmea.de/en/newcomers/newcomer-award

The deadline for applications is 31 January 2026.

Prize money of up to 2,000 euros is up for grabs.

A jury of experts will then review all submitted theses and select the finalists in the bachelor's and master's thesis categories. The winners will be announced at DMEA on 22 April 2026.

DMEA is Europe's leading event for digital health, which gathers decision-makers from all areas of the healthcare sector, including IT specialists, physicians, hospital and nursing care executives as well as experts from politics, science and research.

In 2025, around 20,500 participants gathered at the Berlin Exhibition Grounds. There were 870 national and international exhibitors and more than 470 speakers.

The DMEA is organized by the Bundesverband Gesundheits-IT - bvitg e.V. (Federal Association for Health IT) and is hosted by Messe Berlin GmbH. It is organized in cooperation with the industry associations GMDS (German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology) e.V., BVMI (Professional Association of Medical Informatics) e.V. and with the content-related participation of KH-IT (Federal Association of Hospital IT Managers) e.V. and CIO-UK (Chief Information Officers - University Hospitals).

This press release is also available on our website: www.dmea.de

Press photos are available here.

You can watch videos of DMEA on the YouTube channel of DMEA.

LinkedIn: DMEA - Connecting Digital Health