A team of Polish engineers developing magnetic levitation technology for railway freight transport has reached the finals of the European Inventor Award 2026.
The MagRail system, created by Przemek Ben Pączek and his team at Nevomo, allows railway carriages to move without a locomotive at speeds of up to 160 km/h by using electromagnetic propulsion integrated into existing rail infrastructure.
The invention was selected as a finalist in the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises category of the European Inventor Award 2026, organised by the European Patent Office. Ben Pączek developed the technology together with Łukasz Mielczarek, Paweł Radziszewski, Katarzyna Foljanty and Tomasz Kublin.
According to the inventors, the system modernises conventional railway lines by combining a passive magnetic module mounted beneath a wagon’s bogie with a so-called third rail installed between the tracks. The electromagnetic field generated by the system propels and brakes the wagons without mechanical contact between the drive components and the rails.
The developers said the technology could improve the flexibility and efficiency of freight transport by allowing wagons to move independently without locomotives.
“We decided to stop dreaming about building new vacuum tunnels and start thinking about modernizing the railway we already have. The biggest challenge was securing financing. When you are working on something completely new, without existing benchmarks, it is extremely difficult to convince people to invest in it”, Ben Pączek said in a press release.
The Nevomo team earned its finalist position for developing the Cargo MagRail Booster system. In the SME category, the Polish inventors compete against Czech inventor Jan Čmelík and his team, who developed industrial-scale needle-free electrospinning technology for nanofibre production, and French inventor Franck Zal, creator of a universal oxygen carrier derived from marine worm haemoglobin for organ and tissue preservation.
The competition also includes categories for Industry, Research and Non-EPO Countries, which recognises inventors from outside the European Patent Office region.
The jury includes Marta Karczewicz, a Polish mathematician nominated for the European Inventor Award Lifetime Achievement distinction in 2019.
Winners of the European Inventor Award 2026 will be announced on July 2 in Berlin. The same ceremony will also include the Young Inventor Award and the Popular Prize, decided by online voting.
The European Inventor Award has been presented annually since 2006 by the European Patent Office to scientists and engineers whose inventions “spark real change with technologies that safeguard our health, protect the planet, enrich daily life and drive economic progress”.
In 2024, the Lifetime Achievement award and the Popular Prize were awarded to Olga Malinkiewicz for developing perovskite solar cell technology.
The European Patent Office provides patent protection for inventors across 46 countries and is one of Europe’s largest public institutions. (PAP)
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