NURSE
INNOVATION
DESERVES TO BE HONORED.
SONSIEL and The DAISY Foundation recognize nurses whose innovation changes what is possible while preserving what matters most: humanity, compassion and the people nursing serves.
Innovation is one of the ways nurses care for the future.
The DAISY Foundation has made extraordinary nursing visible through a global culture of gratitude and recognition. SONSIEL brings another essential dimension to that story: the nurse who sees what is not working, imagines something better and has the courage to help build it.
The SONSIEL + DAISY Innovation Awards were created to ensure those contributions are seen. They honor innovation not as something separate from nursing practice, but as one of the ways nurses improve care, strengthen systems, solve persistent problems and advance the profession.
Two organizations. One belief in extraordinary nursing.
SONSIEL and The DAISY Foundation bring complementary traditions together: recognition grounded in compassion and a global nursing innovation movement built around the belief that nurses should help design the future of healthcare.
Recognition rooted in gratitude.
DAISY began with one family's gratitude for extraordinary nursing care and grew into an international movement celebrating the clinical excellence, humanity and compassion of nurses.
Visit The DAISY Foundation →Recognition for nurses who change systems.
SONSIEL magnifies, networks and elevates nurses who identify problems, develop solutions, build evidence and lead transformation through innovation, science, leadership, intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship.
Together, SONSIEL and DAISY recognize that redesigning care can itself be an extraordinary expression of nursing.
The moment it began.
In 2025, SONSIEL and The DAISY Foundation presented the inaugural SONSIEL + DAISY Innovation Awards.
In a distinctly SONSIEL moment, Miroka joined the presentation recognizing Hiyam Nadel and Sigal Shafran Tikva as the first recipients in the history of the awards.
A moment designed for the future of nursing.
The inaugural presentation brought nursing recognition, innovation and emerging technology together while keeping the profession's humanity at the center.
Miroka's participation gave the moment a distinctly future-facing character, reinforcing a simple idea: technology should expand human possibility, not replace the human heart of nursing.
Humanity, creativity and nursing excellence are powerful forces of innovation.
The inaugural honorees.
The names recognized in 2025 are part of the permanent history of the SONSIEL + DAISY Innovation Awards. Hiyam Nadel and Sigal Shafran Tikva became the first nurses recognized through the global innovation awards and established the foundation for the honorees who will follow.
Two awards. Two dimensions of innovation leadership.
One recognizes nurses who create the conditions in which innovation can thrive. The other recognizes nurses who personally demonstrate extraordinary innovation through curiosity, courage and action.
SONSIEL DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Innovation
Honors a nurse leader who builds cultures, systems and pathways that enable innovation. This recognition centers leaders who create psychologically safe environments, support frontline ideas, remove barriers, connect people with resources and help nurses move solutions forward.
SONSIEL DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses in Innovation
Honors a nurse who demonstrates curiosity, courage and action by identifying opportunities, championing new ideas, participating in innovation and advancing solutions that strengthen nursing, healthcare or communities.
Innovation with humanity at its center.
These awards look beyond a single invention or project. Recognition considers professional courage, compassion, collaboration, sustainable change and the conditions required for innovation to succeed.
Recognition begins with someone noticing.
Extraordinary innovation is often visible first to a colleague, leader, patient, collaborator or community member. A nomination creates a pathway for that contribution to become part of a larger nursing innovation story.
Tell the story.
Identify a nurse whose leadership, ideas or actions demonstrate meaningful innovation.
Look beyond the idea.
Recognition considers how the nominee demonstrates innovation, compassion, collaboration, courage and impact.
Make innovation visible.
Honorees join a recognition tradition that celebrates extraordinary contributions to nursing.
Let recognition multiply.
Visible nurse innovators help other nurses see possibility, challenge assumptions and imagine their own pathway to change.
Global recognition. Local visibility.
Alongside the two global awards, SONSIEL and DAISY have expanded innovation recognition through selected country-specific pathways. These pathways help make nurse innovators visible within their professional and national communities while connecting their work to a wider global movement for nursing innovation.
Country-specific nomination timelines, eligibility requirements and recognition processes may differ by pathway.
Help the world see what nurse innovators are building.
Recognition does more than celebrate one person. It signals what a profession, an organization and an industry believe deserves to be valued. SONSIEL welcomes mission-aligned partners interested in strengthening visibility for nurse-led innovation.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson served as the inaugural sponsor of both SONSIEL + DAISY Innovation Awards in 2025, supporting the launch of this new recognition pathway for nursing innovation.
Recognize leadership.
Help make extraordinary nurse innovators and innovation leaders visible across nursing and healthcare.
Strengthen innovation culture.
Signal that curiosity, intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship, evidence, creativity and frontline problem-solving matter.
Invest in nursing's future.
Help strengthen an ecosystem where nurses lead innovation and where nursing students and midwives can see innovation, science, leadership, intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship as pathways for impact.
Put your organization behind the people changing healthcare.
Talk with SONSIEL about opportunities to support recognition, country-specific pathways, award experiences, storytelling and amplification of nurse-led innovation.
Someone's innovation deserves to be seen.
Nominate a nurse whose courage, curiosity, leadership or innovation is changing nursing, healthcare, a community or an organization.
Every DAISY Award begins with one family's experience of nursing.
The DAISY Foundation was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, whose family wanted to honor the extraordinary nursing care they experienced during his illness.
They remembered the skill, compassion and humanity of the nurses who cared not only for Patrick, but for the people who loved him. DAISY became their way of saying thank you to nursing.
The SONSIEL innovation awards carry that spirit forward by recognizing another expression of extraordinary nursing: seeing what could be better and doing the work required to help make it real.
Read the DAISY Story →Your ideas matter. Your innovation is needed. Your impact should be seen.
Help recognize the nurses who are changing what healthcare can become while never losing sight of why nursing exists.