Przemek Ben Pączek was among the finalists of the European Inventor Award 2026, one of the most important European awards for inventors.
The Polish innovator, together with the Nevomo team, was nominated in the “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” (SME) category for the MagRail technology, i.e. a passive magnetic levitation and electromagnetic drive system that can be implemented on existing railway infrastructure.
The solution developed by Przemek Ben Pączek, Łukasz Mielczarek, Paweł Radziszewski, Katarzyna Foljanty and Tomasz Kublin is intended to answer one of the biggest problems of rail transport: low flexibility and high operating costs. Instead of building completely new lines, MagRail allows you to expand current tracks and wagons with elements enabling non-contact electromagnetic drive.
MagRail – a modern railway without building it from scratch
The use of MagRail and Cargo MagRail Booster technology allows single wagons or small groups of wagons to move independently, without a locomotive, at a speed of up to 160 km/h. The system can also support automatic coupling and uncoupling of wagons, and in terminals, industrial zones or on sidings, replace some of the maneuvers currently performed by diesel locomotives.
Nevomo’s history began with projects related to high-speed trains using tunnels (hyperloop), but the team quickly decided that a more realistic path was to modernize the railway that already exists. The technology was tested, among others, in Nowa Sarzyna, where the MagRail vehicle reached 135 km/h while levitating.
Where exactly would we place this infrastructure? This was the moment when we decided to stop dreaming about building new vacuum tunnels and start thinking about modernizing the railway we already have.
– said Przemek Ben Pączek.
In the “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” (SME) category, apart from the Polish team, the nominees were also Jan Čmelík with a team working on needle-free electrospinning, which enables the production of nanofibers on an industrial scale, and Franck Zal, who developed an oxygen carrier using hemoglobin obtained from sea worms, which is used for the preservation of organs and tissues. The winners will be announced on July 2, 2026, during a ceremony in Berlin. The Audience Award will also be awarded on the same day, with voting starting on May 12.
