Innovation & Impact Initiative Management Software

Launch innovation challenges, accelerator intakes and impact calls with no-code forms, eligibility screening and reusable templates.
Sort, score and tag every application as it arrives, and remove ineligible entries before review begins.
Run fair, multi-stage reviews with weighted score bars, external reviewer access and a full audit trail.
Keep mentoring, communications and outcome reporting on the same record as the original application.

Who Submit.com Is Built For

Submit.com innovation management software is built for teams that select founders, ideas or projects from an applicant pool and need to show how they chose.

Corporate innovation and venture teams running challenges and supplier programmes across several cohorts a year.
Accelerators, incubators and university teams coordinating staged selection, external judges and mentors.
Enterprise agencies, public bodies and foundations funding innovation programmes that must stand up to audit.

Outcomes You Can Expect

Replace spreadsheets, shared inboxes and emailed documents with one system that records every stage of selection.

Less admin: automation handles triage, and the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Local Enterprise Office (LEO) reports saving about two days a month on evaluation committees, by its own rough estimate.
Fairer selection: weighted criteria, required scoring notes and anonymised review give every applicant the same assessment.
Clearer communication: send confirmations, reminders and decisions by tag, score, stage or cohort.

Is This the Right Kind of Innovation Management Software for You?

Innovation management software covers three quite different kinds of tool.
Knowing which one your programme needs keeps your shortlist honest.



Employee Idea Management Platforms

Suggestion boxes, idea campaigns and voting inside one organisation.



Start-Up Portfolio and Learning Tools

Follow investee revenue and fundraising over years, or deliver an accelerator’s curriculum.



Structured Selection: Where Submit.com Fits

Outside applicants submit a proposal, a panel scores it against set criteria, and your organisation stands behind the result.

Submit.com is a Strong Fit When

Applications come from outside your organisation, often in large numbers or from several countries.
Your programme has more than one stage, such as an expression of interest, a full application, a pitch and due diligence.
Internal staff and external judges need one scoring framework and access limited to what each person should see.
A board, sponsor, funder or public body expects an audit trail and exportable evidence of decisions.
You run several programmes or cohorts a year and want to reuse forms, stages and scoring.

One Applicant Record, From First Submission to Final Report

1IntakeBranded forms, eligibility checks, auto-reject
2TriageAuto-tags, auto-scores and smart folders
3ReviewWeighted score bars, notes, external reviewers
4DecideAdvance, waitlist or decline, every step logged
5SupportMentor assignments and visit reports
6ReportReporting phases, charts, exports and the API

Need ideation, a course library or portfolio analytics as well? Use a specialist tool for that part. Submit.com still runs application, selection and reporting, and the Submit.com application programming interface (API) passes selected applicants to the system that handles the rest.

See API and integrations

Core Capabilities

The tools that take an innovation programme from first submission to final report, with every decision recorded.



Smart, Branded Applications

No-code forms with more than 30 question types, branching questions, file and video uploads, eligibility screening and in-form language switching, on your own branded domain.



Phased Workflows

Run expression of interest, full application, pitch, due diligence, offer and progress reports as connected phases on one record, each with its own invitation email.



Collaborative Reviews

Weighted score bars with tooltips and required notes, grouped criteria and in-context comments keep internal staff and external judges scoring to one standard.



Automation that Scales

Auto-reject ineligible entries, auto-score answers against your criteria and auto-tag by theme, sector or region, routing applications straight into the right reviewer folders.



Centralised Messaging

Send branded confirmations, reminders and outcome emails in bulk by tag, status or stage, and keep applicant conversations in an in-app mailbox.



Ranking and Moderation

See an overall average score with a breakdown by reviewer, filter by score range and tag together, and check consistency between evaluators with the scores report.



Analytics and Reporting

Filter submissions by status, tag, date or any answer, turn questions into charts and maps, and export to comma-separated values (CSV) or Excel for boards.



Compliance and Audit Trails

Time-stamped comments, logged decisions, lockable tags and role-based access give you a defensible record of who did what, and when.

Manage Challenges, Accelerators and Impact Programmes in One System

Run every programme from one branded workspace, where each team member and reviewer sees only what they have been given.

Start each new cohort from an existing form, with questions, phases and scoring in place.
Set permissions by form and folder, so staff, judges and mentors see only their programmes.
Handle large submission volumes and distributed review teams working in their own assigned folders.

Innovation Challenge Applications

Open innovation challenges and challenge prizes usually share a pattern: a public call with a fixed deadline, a rush of entries near the close, and several themes or categories, each with its own judges. Submit.com innovation challenge software handles that pattern directly.

Applicants register with an existing Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or Microsoft account.
Forms save automatically and show applicants their progress.
Auto-tags sort each entry into its challenge theme as it arrives.
Tags route entries into folders, giving each category's judges their own queue.

In practice: Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019

The Next Web's innovation programme team selected just over 1,000 participants in Submit.com, with each category's judges working only in their own folder.

5,500+

applications

140

countries

50+

external evaluators

5

Multi-Stage Evaluation and Reviewer Workflows

Narrow a large field in stages, with every phase, score and comment held on one applicant record.

Invite applicants to the next phase from their record, or move one past a phase.
Weighted score bars with required notes keep every evaluator scoring against the same criteria.
Anonymised review, lockable tags and office use forms support decisions that may be questioned.

Mentor and Reviewer Coordination

External judges and mentors get their own login and see only the folders and applications assigned to them. For mentoring, Submit.com includes a dedicated workflow, first developed with the South Cork LEO for its business mentoring programme:

1
Build your panel

Upload mentors individually or in bulk, and tag them by expertise.
2
Assign

Set minimum hours, visits and a completion date, as a free or paid assignment.
3
Report

Mentors read the application and file a visit report after each session.
4
Review

Applicants rate the mentoring they received, so you can measure mentor performance.

The workflow was built around one-to-one business mentoring, so ask in your demo how it would fit your own model, such as office hours or group sessions.

Programmes Submit.com Supports

Accelerators and incubators, sector-specific or general
Open innovation challenges and challenge prizes
Hackathons and pitch competitions
Corporate venture and supplier inclusion programmes
Social innovation and environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact cohorts
Research and development (R&D) calls, pilots and proof-of-concept tracks

Why Teams Choose Submit.com

Innovation programmes in Ireland and internationally already run their selection in Submit.com.

The Next Web ran Global Entrepreneurship Summit selection with judges working in category folders.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) shortlisted four platforms and chose Submit.com for configurability.
IGNITE moved its start-up initiatives from emailed Word documents to Submit.com.

What Innovation Teams Say

Programme teams describe running selection, review and start-up support in Submit.com.

R

“Because we were able to give exclusive folder access to the 50 judges responsible for each category, there wasn’t any mismatch issue with the votes.” The Next Web innovation programme team

R

“Submit provides an effective platform to capture, track, share and assess applications across all our start-up initiatives.” Director, IGNITE

R

“The freedom and amount of customisation that we could apply to the application process Submit.com was offering, we couldn’t find anywhere else.” Head of Innovation, KAUST

Outcome and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Tracking

Submit.com collects outcomes on the same record as the original application. Define your KPIs as specific questions and ask them at each stage, so the before and after sit together, alongside scores, tags and decisions.

Ask the same questions at every stage

1ApplicationAsk for a baseline on each indicator.

2Progress reportAsk the same questions, in the same words.

3Final reportAsk them again and request evidence.

Use number or table questions for anything you plan to add up, and keep each indicator's wording identical in every phase.

Reporting tools that support this

Form SummaryFilter by status, tag, date or any answer, and export to CSV or Excel.

BreakdownsTurn any question into a chart, or plot location answers on a map.

Grants reportingTrack amounts awarded, drawn down and remaining.

Scores reportCompare scoring by evaluator for moderation.

Cohort tagsFilter reports and message one cohort or track at a time.

Following investee companies over several years? Export the outcome data, or send it through the API to the portfolio tool you already use.

Security and Support

Innovation programmes hold unreleased ideas, financial projections and personal data. Submit.com is independently certified to protect them.

System and Organisation Controls (SOC) 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified, Cyber Essentials certified, General Data Protection Regulation compliant and G-Cloud listed.
Encryption in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication, role-based permissions and full audit trails.
Guided onboarding, training resources and a team that works through security questionnaires with your IT team.

Have a security questionnaire or data residency requirement? Raise it early and we will work through it with you.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Submit.com an idea management platform for employee suggestions?

Submit.com is built for structured application and evaluation: a defined call, a form, a review panel and a recorded decision. It can run an internal innovation call in that format, with employees submitting proposals that are screened, scored and progressed. If your main requirement is an always-on suggestion board with social features between employees, test that requirement specifically in a demo.

How many applications can Submit.com handle in one round?

Submit.com does not publish a fixed submission limit. As a reference point, The Next Web used Submit.com to evaluate more than 5,500 applications from 140 countries for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019, with more than 50 external evaluators working across five categories.

Can external judges and mentors use Submit.com?

Yes. External reviewers receive their own login and see only the folders and applications assigned to them, where they score with score bars and add notes. Mentors also get their own accounts, see the applications they are assigned to and submit a visit report after each session.

Can applicants apply in a language other than English?

Yes. Submit.com supports localised application forms, and applicants can switch language inside a form without restarting or losing their answers. Irish, Welsh, Polish and English are listed on the Submit.com pricing page, with additional languages available. Confirm the languages you need during your demo.

Can we track outcomes after a cohort finishes?

Yes, through reporting phases. You add progress and final report stages to the same programme, invite participants when each is due, and report on their answers with charts and CSV or Excel exports, or send the data to another system through the Submit.com API.

Can Submit.com collect entry fees for a challenge or hackathon?

Yes. Submit.com includes a payment question powered by Stripe, which can collect fees within the application form.

How is Submit.com priced?

Submit.com is sold on Starter, Pro and Enterprise plans, and some capabilities, such as single sign-on options, depend on the plan. Request a quote with your programme volumes and requirements for an accurate price.

Can UK public sector bodies buy Submit.com through G-Cloud?

Submit.com is a listed supplier on the UK Government’s G-Cloud framework. Check the current listing and your own procurement rules before you begin a purchase.

See Your Programme Running in Submit.com

Bring your current stages, scoring criteria and reporting requirements. We will show how Submit.com innovation management software would handle intake, review, mentoring and reporting for your programme.

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