essay competition international 2023

THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH ESSAY COMPETITION

Since 1883, we have delivered The Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition, the world's oldest international schools' writing competition. Today, we work to expand its reach, providing life-changing opportunities for young people around the world.

ENTER THE QCEC 2024

The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2024 is now live!

Find out more about this year’s theme

'Our Common Wealth' and make sure to enter by 15 May 2024!

140 years of The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition

The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC) is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools and has been proudly delivered by the Royal Commonwealth Society since 1883. 

ABOUT THE COMPETITION 

An opportunity for young Commonwealth citizens to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences on key global issues and have their hard work and achievement celebrated internationally.

Frequently Asked Questions for the Competition. Before contacting us please read these.

MEET THE WINNERS 

In 2023 we were delighted to receive a record-breaking 34,924 entries, with winners from India and Malaysia. Read their winning pieces as well as those from previous years.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Terms and Conditions for entrants to The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition. Please ensure you have thoroughly read them before submitting your entry.

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Best Essay Writing Contests in 2024

Showing 48 contests that match your search.

Narratively 2023 Memoir Prize

Narratively

Genres: Essay, Humor, Memoir, and Non-fiction

Narratively is currently accepting submissions for their 2023 Memoir Prize. They are looking for revealing and emotional first-person nonfiction narratives from unique and overlooked points of view. The guest judge is New York Times bestselling memoirist Stephanie Land.

Additional prizes:

$1,000 and publication

💰 Entry fee: $20

📅 Deadline: November 30, 2023 (Expired)

Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize

Gotham Writers Workshop

Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult

The Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize is a writing competition sponsored by the stage and radio series Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is recorded for Public Radio and heard nationally on both the radio and its weekly podcast. This years entries will be judged by Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House, Her Body and Other Parties).

💰 Entry fee: $25

📅 Deadline: March 01, 2024 (Expired)

Aurora Polaris Creative Nonfiction Award

Trio House Press

Genres: Essay, Memoir, and Non-fiction

We seek un-agented full-length creative nonfiction manuscripts including memoir, essay collections, etc. 50,000 - 80,000 words.

Publication

📅 Deadline: May 15, 2024

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Irene Adler Prize

Lucas Ackroyd

Genres: Essay, Non-fiction, and Travel

I’ve traveled the world from Sweden to South Africa, from the Golden Globes to the Olympic women’s hockey finals. I’ve photographed a mother polar bear and her cubs and profiled stars like ABBA, Jennifer Garner and Katarina Witt. And I couldn’t have done it without women. I’ve been very fortunate, and it’s time for me to give back. With the Irene Adler Prize, I’m awarding a $1,000 scholarship to a woman pursuing a degree in journalism, creative writing, or literature at a recognized post-secondary institution.

2x honorable mentions: $250

📅 Deadline: May 30, 2024

Great American Think-Off

New York Mills Regional Cultural Center

Genres: Essay and Non-fiction

The Great American Think-Off is an exhibition of civil disagreement between powerful ideas that connect to your life at the gut level. The Cultural Center, located in the rural farm and manufacturing town of New York Mills, sponsors this annual philosophy contest.

📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024

International Voices in Creative Nonfiction Competition

Vine Leaves Press

Genres: Essay, Memoir, Non-fiction, and Novel

Small presses have potential for significant impact, and at Vine Leaves Press, we take this responsibility quite seriously. It is our responsibility to give marginalized groups the opportunity to establish literary legacies that feel rich and vast. Why? To sustain hope for the world to become a more loving, tolerable, and open space. It always begins with art. That is why we have launched this writing competition.

Book publication

📅 Deadline: July 01, 2024

Young Sports Journalist 2024

The Young Sports Journalist Competition, 2024, seeks well-argued articles from aspiring journalists aged 14-21. Winning entries will be published online and printed in the Summer Issue of Pitch. Critiqued by our panel of accomplished judges, winners will also receive a £50 cash prize and offered work experience here at PITCH HQ. The competition runs from 7 February 2024 to 5 April 2024. And winners will be announced in May.

Publication in magazine and online

📅 Deadline: April 05, 2024

Work-In-Progress (WIP) Contest

Unleash Press

Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Science Fiction, Science Writing, and Young Adult

We aim to assist writers in the completion of an important literary project and vision. The Unleash WIP Award offers writers support in the amount of $500 to supplement costs to aid in the completion of a book-length work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Writers will also receive editorial feedback, coaching meetings, and an excerpt/interview feature in Unleash Lit.

Coaching, interview, and editorial support

💰 Entry fee: $35

📅 Deadline: July 15, 2024

Annual Contest Submissions

So To Speak

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, LGBTQ, Non-fiction, and Poetry

So To Speak is seeking submissions for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with an intersectional feminist lens! It is no secret that the literary canon and literary journals are largely comprised of heteronormative, patriarchal, cisgender, able-bodied white men. So to Speak seeks work by writers, poets, and artists who want to challenge and change the identity of the “canonical” writer.

💰 Entry fee: $4

📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)

Red Hen Press Women's Prose Prize

Red Hen Press

Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Short Story, Essay, Memoir, and Novel

Established in 2018, the Women’s Prose Prize is for previously unpublished, original work of prose. Novels, short story collections, memoirs, essay collections, and all other forms of prose writing are eligible for consideration. The awarded manuscript is selected through a biennial competition, held in even-numbered years, that is open to all writers who identify as women.

Publication by Red Hen Press

📅 Deadline: February 28, 2024 (Expired)

Bacopa Literary Review Annual Writing Contest

Writers Alliance of Gainesville

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story

Bacopa Literary Review’s 2024 contest is open from March 4 through April 4, with $200 Prize and $100 Honorable Mention in each of six categories: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction, Free Verse Poetry, Formal Poetry, and Visual Poetry.

📅 Deadline: April 04, 2024

The Hudson Prize

Black Lawrence Press

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story

Each year Black Lawrence Press will award The Hudson Prize for an unpublished collection of poems or prose. The prize is open to new, emerging, and established writers.

💰 Entry fee: $28

📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024

African Diaspora Awards 2024

Kinsman Avenue Publishing, Inc

Up to $1000 in cash prizes for the African Diaspora Award 2024. African-themed prose and poetry wanted. Top finalists are published in Kinsman Quarterly’s magazine and the anthology, “Black Butterfly: Voices of the African Diaspora.”

Publication in anthology, "Black Butterfly: Voices of the African Diaspora" and print and digital magazine

📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024

Military Anthology: Partnerships, the Untold Story

Armed Services Arts Partnership

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Humor, Memoir, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story

Partners are an integral aspect of military life, at home and afar, during deployment and after homecoming. Partnerships drive military action and extend beyond being a battle buddy, wingman, or crew member. Some are planned while others arise entirely unexpectedly. Spouses, family, old or new friends, community, faith leaders, and medical specialists all support the military community. Despite their importance, the stories of these partnerships often go untold. This anthology aims to correct that: We will highlight the nuances, surprises, joy, sorrow, heroism, tears, healing power, and ache of partnerships. We invite you to submit the story about partnerships from your journey, so we can help tell it.

$250 for each genre category (prose, poetry, visual art)

Indignor Play House Annual Short Story Competition

Indignor House Publishing

Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Young Adult

Indignor House Publishing is proud to announce that our annual writing competition (INDIGNOR PLAYHOUSE Short Story Annual Competition) is officially open with expected publication in the fall of 2024. Up to 25 submissions will be accepted for inclusion in the annual anthology.

2nd: $250 | 3rd: $150

The Letter Review Prize for Books

The Letter Review

Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Writing, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult

The Letter Review Prize for Books is open to writers from anywhere in the world. Seeking most unpublished (we accept some self/indie published) novels, novellas, story collections, nonfiction, poetry etc. 20 entries are longlisted.

📅 Deadline: October 31, 2023 (Expired)

Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award

Killer Nashville

Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Poetry, Science Fiction, Script Writing, Short Story, and Thriller

The Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award is committed to discovering new writers, as well as superlative books by established authors and, upon discovery, sharing those writers and their works with new readers. There are a large number of both fiction and non-fiction categories you can enter.

💰 Entry fee: $79

📅 Deadline: June 15, 2024

World Historian Student Essay Competition

World History Association

Genres: Children's and Essay

The World Historian Student Essay Competition is an international competition open to students enrolled in grades K–12 in public, private, and parochial schools, and those in home-study programs. Membership in the World History Association is not a requirement for submission. Past winners may not compete in the same category again.

📅 Deadline: May 01, 2024

Jane Austen Society of North America Essay Contest

Jane Austen Society of North America

JASNA conducts an annual student Essay Contest to foster the study and appreciation of Jane Austen's works in new generations of readers. Students world-wide are invited to compete for scholarship awards in three divisions: high school, college, and graduate school.

Two nights’ lodging for JASNA’s Annual General Meeting

📅 Deadline: June 02, 2022 (Expired)

Rigel 2024: $500 for Prose, Poetry, Art, or Graphic Novel

Sunspot Literary Journal

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Script Writing, and Short Story

Literary or genre works accepted. Winner receives $500 plus publication, while runners-up and finalists are offered publication. No restrictions on theme or category. Closes: February 29. Entry fee: $12.50. Enter as many times as you like through Submittable or Duotrope

Runners-up and finalists are offered publication

💰 Entry fee: $12

📅 Deadline: February 29, 2024 (Expired)

Literary and Photographic Contest 2023-2024

Hispanic Culture Review

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, and Poetry

As we move forward we carry our culture wherever we go. It keeps us alive. This is why we propose the theme to be “¡Hacia delante!”. A phrase that means to move forward. This year we ask that you think about the following questions: What keeps you moving forward? What do you carry with you going into the future? How do you celebrate your successes, your dreams, and your culture?

Publication in magazine

📅 Deadline: February 07, 2024 (Expired)

swamp pink Prizes

From January 1st to January 31st, submit short stories and essays of up to 25 pages or a set of 1-3 poems. Winners in each genre will receive $2,000 and publication.

📅 Deadline: January 31, 2024 (Expired)

Creative Nonfiction Prize

Indiana Review

Genres: Essay, Fiction, and Non-fiction

Send us one creative nonfiction piece, up to 5000 words, for a chance at $1000 + publication. This year's contest will be judged by Lars Horn.

Share Your Story

FanStory.com Inc.

Genres: Essay and Memoir

Write about an event in your life. Everyone has a memoir. Not an autobiography. Too much concern about fact and convention. A memoir gives us the ability to write about our life with the option to create and fabricate and to make sense of a life, or part of that life.

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: September 15, 2022 (Expired)

Anthology Travel Writing Competition 2024

Anthology Magazine

The Anthology Travel Writing Competition is open to original and previously unpublished travel articles in the English language by writers of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. We are looking for an engaging article that will capture the reader’s attention, conveying a strong sense of the destination and the local culture. Max 1000 words.

💰 Entry fee: $16

📅 Deadline: November 30, 2024

Tusculum Review Nonfiction Chapbook Prize

The Tusculum Review

A prize of $1,000, publication of the essay in The Tusculum Review’s 20th Anniversary Issue (2024), and creation of a limited edition stand-alone chapbook with original art is awarded. Editors of The Tusculum Review and contest judge Mary Cappello will determine the winner of the 2024 prize.

The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books

Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Writing, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult

The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books (Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction) is open to writers from anywhere in the world. Three Winners are awarded, and 20 entries are Shortlisted.

Brink Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing

Genres: Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Memoir, Non-fiction, Poetry, Science Writing, and Short Story

The Brink Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing will be administered to the winner of a literary contest designed to champion innovative hybrid and cross-genre work.

💰 Entry fee: $22

📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)

Artificial Intelligence Competition

New Beginnings

Genres: Essay, Non-fiction, Science Fiction, Science Writing, and Short Story

There is no topic relating to technology that brings more discussion than artificial intelligence. Some people think it does wonders. Others see it as trouble. Let us know your opinion about AI in this competition. Include experiences you have had with AI. 300-word limit. Winners will be selected January 1, 2024. Open to anyone, anywhere.

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: December 15, 2023 (Expired)

Climate Change Writing Competition

Write the World

This month, dear writers, ahead of COP27, help us raise the voices of young people in this urgent fight. In a piece of personal narrative, tell the world’s leaders gathering in how climate change impacts you. How has this crisis changed your environment, your community, your sense of the future? Storytelling, after all, plays a critical role in helping us grasp the emergency through which we are all living, igniting empathy in readers and listeners—itself a precursor to action.

Runner-up: $50

📅 Deadline: October 18, 2022 (Expired)

Environmental Writing 2024

The writer and activist Bill McKibben describes Environmental Writing as "the collision between people and the rest of the world." This month, peer closely at that intersection: How do humans interact with their environment? Given your inheritance of this earth, the world needs your voices now more than ever.

Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50

📅 Deadline: April 22, 2024

Vocal Challenges

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, and Short Story

Enter themed storytelling contests to put your creativity to the test and be in with a chance of winning cash prizes and more. To submit, you'll need to sign up for a monthly fee of $9.99, or $4.99/month for 3 months.

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: March 07, 2024 (Expired)

National Essay Contest

U.S. Institute of Peace

Genres: Essay

This year, AFSA celebrates the 100th anniversary of the United States Foreign Service. Over the last century, our diplomats and development professionals have been involved in groundbreaking events in history – decisions on war and peace, supporting human rights and freedom, creating joint prosperity, reacting to natural disasters and pandemics and much more. As AFSA looks back on this century-long history, we invite you to join us in also looking ahead to the future. This year students are asked to explore how diplomats can continue to evolve their craft to meet the needs of an ever-changing world that brings fresh challenges and opportunities to the global community and America’s place in it.

Runner-up: $1,250

Solas Awards

Best Travel Writing

Extraordinary stories about travel and the human spirit have been the cornerstones of our books since 1993. With the Solas Awards we honor writers whose work inspires others to explore. We’re looking for the best stories about travel and the world. Funny, illuminating, adventurous, uplifting, scary, inspiring, poignant stories that reflect the unique alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result. We hope these awards will be a catalyst for those who love to leave home and tell others about it.

📅 Deadline: September 21, 2024

Personal Essay Competition 2024

We want to hear about an experience in your life, rife with characters and description and conflict and scene… but we also want to hear how you make sense of this experience, how it sits with you, and why it has surfaced as writing. Open a window into your life and invite your readers to enter.

📅 Deadline: June 24, 2024

Discover the finest writing contests of 2024 for fiction and non-fiction authors — including short story competitions, essay writing competitions, poetry contests, and many more. Updated weekly, these contests are vetted by Reedsy to weed out the scammers and time-wasters. If you’re looking to stick to free writing contests, simply use our filters as you browse.

Why you should submit to writing contests

Submitting to poetry competitions and free writing contests in 2024 is absolutely worth your while as an aspiring author: just as your qualifications matter when you apply for a new job, a writing portfolio that boasts published works and award-winning pieces is a great way to give your writing career a boost. And not to mention the bonus of cash prizes!

That being said, we understand that taking part in writing contests can be tough for emerging writers. First, there’s the same affliction all writers face: lack of time or inspiration. Entering writing contests is a time commitment, and many people decide to forego this endeavor in order to work on their larger projects instead — like a full-length book. Second, for many writers, the chance of rejection is enough to steer them clear of writing contests. 

But we’re here to tell you that two of the great benefits of entering writing contests happen to be the same as those two reasons to avoid them.

When it comes to the time commitment: yes, you will need to expend time and effort in order to submit a quality piece of writing to competitions. That being said, having a hard deadline to meet is a great motivator for developing a solid writing routine.

Think of entering contests as a training session to become a writer who will need to meet deadlines in order to have a successful career. If there’s a contest you have your eye on, and the deadline is in one month, sit down and realistically plan how many words you’ll need to write per day in order to meet that due date — and don’t forget to also factor in the time you’ll need to edit your story!

For tips on setting up a realistic writing plan, check out this free, ten-day course: How to Build a Rock-Solid Writing Routine.

In regards to the fear of rejection, the truth is that any writer aspiring to become a published author needs to develop relatively thick skin. If one of your goals is to have a book traditionally published, you will absolutely need to learn how to deal with rejection, as traditional book deals are notoriously hard to score. If you’re an indie author, you will need to adopt the hardy determination required to slowly build up a readership.

The good news is that there’s a fairly simple trick for learning to deal with rejection: use it as a chance to explore how you might be able to improve your writing.

In an ideal world, each rejection from a publisher or contest would come with a detailed letter, offering construction feedback and pointing out specific tips for improvement. And while this is sometimes the case, it’s the exception and not the rule.

Still, you can use the writing contests you don’t win as a chance to provide yourself with this feedback. Take a look at the winning and shortlisted stories and highlight their strong suits: do they have fully realized characters, a knack for showing instead of telling, a well-developed but subtly conveyed theme, a particularly satisfying denouement?

The idea isn’t to replicate what makes those stories tick in your own writing. But most examples of excellent writing share a number of basic craft principles. Try and see if there are ways for you to translate those stories’ strong points into your own unique writing.

Finally, there are the more obvious benefits of entering writing contests: prize and publication. Not to mention the potential to build up your readership, connect with editors, and gain exposure.

Resources to help you win writing competitions in 2024

Every writing contest has its own set of submission rules. Whether those rules are dense or sparing, ensure that you follow them to a T. Disregarding the guidelines will not sway the judges’ opinion in your favor — and might disqualify you from the contest altogether. 

Aside from ensuring you follow the rules, here are a few resources that will help you perfect your submissions.

Free online courses

On Writing:

How to Craft a Killer Short Story

The Non-Sexy Business of Writing Non-Fiction

How to Write a Novel

Understanding Point of View

Developing Characters That Your Readers Will Love

Writing Dialogue That Develops Plot and Character

Stop Procrastinating! Build a Solid Writing Routine

On Editing:

Story Editing for Authors

How to Self-Edit Like a Pro

Novel Revision: Practical Tips for Rewrites

How to Write a Short Story in 7 Steps

How to Write a Novel in 15 Steps

Literary Devices and Terms — 35+ Definitions With Examples

10 Essential Fiction Writing Tips to Improve Your Craft

How to Write Dialogue: 8 Simple Rules and Exercises

8 Character Development Exercises to Help You Nail Your Character

Bonus resources

200+ Short Story Ideas

600+ Writing Prompts to Inspire You

100+ Creative Writing Exercises for Fiction Authors

Story Title Generator

Pen Name Generator

Character Name Generator

After you submit to a writing competition in 2024

It’s exciting to send a piece of writing off to a contest. However, once the initial excitement wears off, you may be left waiting for a while. Some writing contests will contact all entrants after the judging period — whether or not they’ve won. Other writing competitions will only contact the winners. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind after you submit:

Many writing competitions don’t have time to respond to each entrant with feedback on their story. However, it never hurts to ask! Feel free to politely reach out requesting feedback — but wait until after the selection period is over.

If you’ve submitted the same work to more than one writing competition or literary magazine, remember to withdraw your submission if it ends up winning elsewhere.

After you send a submission, don’t follow it up with a rewritten or revised version. Instead, ensure that your first version is thoroughly proofread and edited. If not, wait until the next edition of the contest or submit the revised version to other writing contests.

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Essay Competition: Win a 100% Scholarship With Immerse Education

Take part in the Immerse Education Essay Competition for your chance to win a full or partial scholarship to our university and career preparation programmes

12th September 2024: Submission Deadline

Competition Open

full scholarships Awarded each year

entries each year

Share Your Success

Scholarship Award Certificate PDFs For Winners

What is the Essay Competition?

The Immerse Education Essay Competition provides the opportunity for students aged 13-18 to submit essay responses to a question of their choice relating to a subject of interest. There are over twenty questions to choose from which can be found in our full Essay Competition Guide. 10 winners will receive a 100% scholarship to study with us at a world-leading university of their choosing. Outstanding runners-up also receive partial scholarships.

23rd February 2024

Competition opens

12th September 2024

Competition closes

17th October 2024

Results announced

January, July & August 2025

Programme dates

7th September 2023

4th january 2024, 6th february 2024, january, july & august 2024, who can apply.

• The Immerse Education Essay Competition is open to students worldwide of all nationalities. You must be aged between 13-18 during your chosen programme.

10 winners will receive a 100% scholarship. Take a look at previous essay competition winners.

Runners Up will be awarded partial scholarships of up to 50% to study their chosen subject with Immerse. The number of runners-up will be determined by the number of entries received and the quality of the work submitted. The next category of entrants who are not runner-ups receive partial scholarships worth up to 20%.

Our Guest Judges

Programmes our scholarship can be redeemed against, reviews and winners, what do our alumni say.

I loved the little conversations we had when a question about the topic turned into explanations of the ethical, personal and economic issues that surround medicine. Overall, I found my lessons very beneficial. I know so much more about medicine and its different subsets, but also about what a career in medicine really looks like.

Immerse alumni, and scholarship winner

I could see that the essay competition was an incredible opportunity for international students to win a scholarship purely based on merit. More importantly, after doing some more research, I realised that the process for choosing winners was incredibly fair, that everyone would get an equal chance regardless of their socio-economic background, race, nationality, gender, etc.

100% Scholarship Winner

I enrolled because I wanted to expand my knowledge of physics and meet other people with the same interests as myself. Both of which I was successful in doing! My favourite aspect of the programme was the small class sizes – this helped both the tutor and students with learning and understanding the subject.

Immerse was very fun as well as useful. You were able to experience what it would be like if you studied here for university. The most beneficial part of the course was being able to see what International Relations is like, and it helped me decide what I want to study in the future.

My school invited everyone to participate, and the further I read about Immerse Education, the more motivated I was to enter the competition. Not only did I have the chance to study a subject I love, I would also be able to expand on my essay skills since writing has always been a passion of mine.

I really wanted to go to medicine summer school this year, and so I literally was searching for summer school opportunities and Immerse is one that came up. Through this, I found out about the essay competition and I decided to submit an answer. Immerse was very helpful whilst I was writing my essay, especially with things like the referencing guide.

I’m 16, so I’ve never written an academic essay before, so it was really important that I actually knew what I was doing in the first place and it definitely helped me with that. The programme so far has been very enriching. It’s helped me understand more about medicine and made me realise that this is what I want to do in life. Meeting new friends, tutors, and the mentors, they’re all amazing. My favourite things on the programme have been the evening activities, like murder mystery night. I am so happy to be able to have seen people that are like minded, and competitive as well. I really think that the tutors and the mentors have all been very supportive of me.

Academic Insights, Medicine

Hear From a Previous Scholarship Winner

The Immerse Education Essay Competition is open to entries from young people aged 13-18 interested in all subjects, from Architecture to Medicine, Creative Writing to Film Studies. If participants are successful, they should be aged 13 and above before the start of their programme.

Immerse provides a full essay-writing guide which is sent to your email address once you register your interest in the competition. This guide includes a full list of essay questions, our essay specification, top tips for writing an academic essay, referencing guidance, our terms and conditions and guidance on plagiarism! Registering interest also ensures that you’re on track to submitting your essay on time, through a series of helpful reminder prompts. To support further you can register for our  webinars , which offer top tips and guidance with essay writing from our experts. You are also welcome to explore our  creative writing resources .

Funded scholarship to study abroad:  Our essay competition offers students like you the chance to win a full or partial scholarship to one of our Online Programmes or residential programmes in locations such as Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, London and more.

Ongoing support from Immerse while you write:  Full support from our team as you write your essay, with free guides and top tips to help you along the way. Sign up to receive our full Essay competition Guide and free tips and tricks as you write. You can also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok to get more useful essay writing tips.

Demonstrate what you know:  The competition is a chance for you to demonstrate your content knowledge by answering advanced university-style questions.

Build your skills and knowledge:  The opportunity to apply and advance your essay writing skills. You will likely learn something new in the process!

Develop your self-discipline:  A chance to strengthen your self-discipline as you commit to a challenging project and complete it from start to finish.

If you win a scholarship via the Essay Competition 2024/2025 you can use it toward any residential course in any of our locations. Use your scholarship to enrol on one of our renowned online programmes* or enriching in-person/residential summer school programmes in cultural melting pots such as Cambridge, Oxford, London or Sydney and more. * Essay competition schorlaships cannot be redeemed against online Intensive programmes.

No, there is no entry fee and you do not need to have already enrolled onto any of our programmes to take part in the essay competition.

The deadline for all essay entries for the last round of the competition is 4th January 2024. The next deadline will most likely be on 12th September 2024.

Register to receive free Essay Competition guidance

The Immerse Education Essay Competition provides the opportunity for students aged 13-18 to submit essay responses to a pre-set question relating to their chosen subject. Register interest to receive your guide with the comprehensive list of questions including:

• – Essay Specifications
• – Top Tips for Writing an Academic Essay
• – Referencing Guidance
• Name * First Name Last Name
• School City
• School Country
• School Name
• I would like to receive updates from Immerse Education. See Privacy Policy
• First Name *
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• Writing Tips

7 Essay Writing Contests to Look Out For in 2023

• 7-minute read
• 28th December 2022

Essay contests are not only a great way to exercise your essay-writing skills but also an awesome way to win cash prizes, scholarships, and internship or program opportunities. They also look wonderful on college applications as awards and achievements.

In this article, you’ll learn about 7 essay writing contests to enter in 2023. Watch the video below, or keep reading to learn more.

1. Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 

Deadline: Now–April 30, 3023

Who may enter:

This is an international contest for people of all ages (except for residents of Syria, Iran, North Korea, Crimea, Russia, and Belarus due to US government restrictions).

Contest description:

●  The contest is organized by Winning Writers, located in MA, USA.

●  They accept stories and essays on any theme, up to 6,000 words each. This contest defines a story as any short work of fiction and an essay as any short work of nonfiction.

●  Your stories and essays must be submitted in English.

●  You may submit published or unpublished work.

Entry fee: USD 22 per entry

●  Story: First Prize is USD 3,000.

●  Essay: First Prize is USD 3,000.

●  10 Honorable Mentions will receive USD 300 each (any category).

●  The top 12 entries will be published online.

Official website

Please visit the competition’s official website for more information on judges and submissions.

2. 2023 Calibre Essay Prize 

Deadline: Now–January 15, 2023, 11:59 pm

Who may enter: All ages and any nationality or residency are accepted.

●  This contest is hosted by the Australian Book Review.

●  Your essay must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.

●  You may submit nonfiction essays of all kinds, e.g., personal, political, literary, or speculative.

●  You may enter multiple essays but will need to pay separate fees for each one.

●  Your essay must be unpublished.

Entry fee: AU 30 for non-members

Prize: AU 7,500

Official website:

For more information on this contest, please visit its official website.

3. John Locke Institute Essay Competition 

Deadline: June 30, 2023

●  Students from any country.

●  Students aged 15 to 18 years by the competition deadline.

●  Students aged 14 years or younger by the competition deadline are eligible for the Junior prize.

●  The contest is organized by the John Locke Institute.

●  Your essay cannot exceed 2,000 words.

●  There are seven subjects or categories for essay submissions: Philosophy, Politics, Economics, History, Psychology, Theology, and Law.

Entry fee: Free to enter

●  The best overall essay winner receives an honorary John Locke Fellowship, which comes with a USD 10,000 scholarship to attend one or more summer schools or gap year courses.

●  There is also a prize for the best essay in each category. The prize for each winner of a subject category and the Junior category is a scholarship worth USD 2,000 toward the cost of a summer program.

●  All winning essays will be published on the Institute’s website.

For more information about this competition and the John Locke Institute, please visit the official website . Also, be sure to check out our article on all you need to know about this contest.

4. The American Foreign Service Association 2023 Essay Competition 

Deadline: April 3, 2023

●  Students in grades 9–12 in any of the 50 states, DC, the US territories, or if they are US citizens or lawful permanent residents attending high school overseas.

●  Students attending a public, private, or parochial school.

●  Home-schooled students.

●  Your essay should be 1,000–1,500 words.

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●  You will select a country or region in which the United States Foreign Service has been involved at any point since 1924 and describe how the Foreign Service was successful or unsuccessful in advancing American foreign policy goals – including promoting peace – in this country or region and propose ways in which it might continue to improve those goals in the coming years.

●  Your essay should follow MLA guidelines.

●  Your essay should use a variety of sources.

●  The first-place winner receives USD 2,500, a paid trip to the nation’s capital from anywhere in the U.S. for the winner and their parents, and an all-expense-paid educational voyage courtesy of Semester at Sea.

●  The runner-up receives USD 1,250 and full tuition to attend a summer session of the National Student Leadership Conference’s International Diplomacy program.

Please visit the American Foreign Service website for more information.

5. The Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) 2023 Essay Contest 

Deadline: Mid-February 2023–June 1, 2023

Who may enter: High school (including homeschooled), college, and graduate students worldwide.

●  The 2023 essay contest topic is marriages and proposals.

●  High school students may focus on Pride and Prejudice only or bring in other Austen works.

●  Undergraduate and graduate students should discuss at least two Austen novels of their choice.

●  Your essay must be in MLA format and 6 to 8 pages (not including your Works Cited page).

●  Your essay must be written in English.

●  First place wins a USD 1,000 scholarship.

●  Second place wins a USD 500 scholarship.

●  Third place wins a USD 250 scholarship.

●  Winners will also receive one year of membership in JASNA, publication of their essays on this website, and a set of Norton Critical Editions of Jane Austen’s novels.

For more information and submission guidelines, please visit JASNA’s official website .

6. 2023 Writing Contest: Better Great Achievements by EngineerGirl

Deadline: February 1, 2023

●  Students in Grades 3–12. If international or homeschooled, please select your grade level based on if you were attending a public school in the U.S.

●  This contest is organized by EngineerGirl.

●  Students should write a piece that shows how female or non-white engineers have contributed to or can enhance engineering’s great achievements.

●  You should choose one of the 20 Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century as a topic and explore the technologies developed in the last century and the new ones being developed today. Make sure to follow the specific guidelines for your grade level.

●  Essays should be 650–750 words based on your grade level.

●  Please visit the contest’s website to see specific requirements based on your grade.

Winners in each grade category will receive the prizes listed below:

●  First-place winners will be awarded USD 500.

●  Second-place entries will be awarded USD 250 .

●  Third-place entries will be awarded USD 100 .

For more information and submission guidelines, please visit the official website .

7. World Historian Student Essay Competition

Deadline: May 1, 2023

Who may enter: Students enrolled in Grades K–12 in public, private, and parochial schools and home-study programs worldwide.

●  Your essay must address the following issue: In what way has the study of world history affected my understanding of the world in which I live?

●  Your essay should be 1,000 words.

Prizes: USD 500

For more information and submission requirements, please visit the contest’s official website.

Essay contests are a great way to expand your writing skills, discuss a topic that is important to you, and earn prize money and opportunities that will be great for you in the long term. Check out our articles on writing thesis statements, essay organization, and argumentative writing strategies to ensure you take first place every time.

If you need help with your essays and would like to make sure that every comma is in place, we will proofread your first 500 words for free !

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Discourse, debate, and analysis

Cambridge re:think essay competition 2024.

Competition Opens: 15th January, 2024

Essay Submission Deadline: 10th May, 2024 Result Announcement: 20th June, 2024 Award Ceremony and Dinner at the University of Cambridge: 30th July, 2024

We welcome talented high school students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Entry to the competition is free.

About the Competition

The spirit of the Re:think essay competition is to encourage critical thinking and exploration of a wide range of thought-provoking and often controversial topics. The competition covers a diverse array of subjects, from historical and present issues to speculative future scenarios. Participants are invited to engage deeply with these topics, critically analysing their various facets and implications. It promotes intellectual exploration and encourages participants to challenge established norms and beliefs, presenting opportunities to envision alternative futures, consider the consequences of new technologies, and reevaluate longstanding traditions. 

Ultimately, our aim is to create a platform for students and scholars to share their perspectives on pressing issues of the past and future, with the hope of broadening our collective understanding and generating innovative solutions to contemporary challenges. This year’s competition aims to underscore the importance of discourse, debate, and critical analysis in addressing complex societal issues in nine areas, including:

Religion and Politics

Political science and law, linguistics, environment, sociology and philosophy, business and investment, public health and sustainability, biotechonology.

Artificial Intelligence 

Neuroengineering

2024 essay prompts.

This year, the essay prompts are contributed by distinguished professors from Harvard, Brown, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT.

Essay Guidelines and Judging Criteria

Review general guidelines, format guidelines, eligibility, judging criteria.

Awards and Award Ceremony

Award winners will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony and Dinner hosted at the King’s College, University of Cambridge. The Dinner is free of charge for select award recipients.

Registration and Submission

Register a participant account today and submit your essay before the deadline.

Advisory Committee and Judging Panel

The Cambridge Re:think Essay Competition is guided by an esteemed Advisory Committee comprising distinguished academics and experts from elite universities worldwide. These committee members, drawn from prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT, bring diverse expertise in various disciplines.

They play a pivotal role in shaping the competition, contributing their insights to curate the themes and framework. Their collective knowledge and scholarly guidance ensure the competition’s relevance, academic rigour, and intellectual depth, setting the stage for aspiring minds to engage with thought-provoking topics and ideas.

We are honoured to invite the following distinguished professors to contribute to this year’s competition.

The judging panel of the competition comprises leading researchers and professors from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford, engaging in a strictly double blind review process.

Keynote Speeches by 8 Nobel Laureates

We are beyond excited to announce that multiple Nobel laureates have confirmed to attend and speak at this year’s ceremony on 30th July, 2024 .

They will each be delivering a keynote speech to the attendees. Some of them distinguished speakers will speak virtually, while others will attend and present in person and attend the Reception at Cambridge.

Why has religion remained a force in a secular world? 

Professor Commentary:

Arguably, the developed world has become more secular in the last century or so. The influence of Christianity, e.g. has diminished and people’s life worlds are less shaped by faith and allegiance to Churches. Conversely, arguments have persisted that hold that we live in a post-secular world. After all, religion – be it in terms of faith, transcendence, or meaning – may be seen as an alternative to a disenchanted world ruled by entirely profane criteria such as economic rationality, progressivism, or science. Is the revival of religion a pale reminder of a by-gone past or does it provide sources of hope for the future?

‘Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Jürgen Habermas (European Journal of Philosophy, 2006)

In this paper, philosopher Jürgen Habermas discusses the limits of church-state separation, emphasizing the significant contribution of religion to public discourse when translated into publicly accessible reasons.

‘Public Religions in the Modern World’ by José Casanova (University Of Chicago Press, 1994)

Sociologist José Casanova explores the global emergence of public religion, analyzing case studies from Catholicism and Protestantism in Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the USA, challenging traditional theories of secularization.

‘The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West (Edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Columbia University Press, 2011)

This collection features dialogues by prominent intellectuals on the role of religion in the public sphere, examining various approaches and their impacts on cultural, social, and political debates.

‘Rethinking Secularism’ by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Oxford University Press, 2011)

An interdisciplinary examination of secularism, this book challenges traditional views, highlighting the complex relationship between religion and secularism in contemporary global politics.

‘God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World’ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin, 2010)

Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue for the coexistence of religion and modernity, suggesting that religious beliefs can contribute to a more open, tolerant, and peaceful modern world.

‘Multiculturalism’ by Tariq Modood (Polity Press, 2013)

Sociologist Tariq Modood emphasizes the importance of multiculturalism in integrating diverse identities, particularly in post-immigration contexts, and its role in shaping democratic citizenship.

‘God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England’ by Matthew Engelke (University of California Press, 2013)

In this ethnographic study, Matthew Engelke explores how a group in England seeks to expand the role of religion in the public sphere, challenging perceptions of religion in post-secular England.

Gene therapy is a medical approach that treats or prevents disease by correcting the underlying genetic problem. Is gene therapy better than traditional medicines? What are the pros and cons of using gene therapy as a medicine? Is gene therapy justifiable?

Especially after Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, gene therapy is getting more and more interesting approach to cure. That’s why that could be interesting to think about. I believe that students will enjoy and learn a lot while they are investigating this topic.

The Hall at King’s College, Cambridge

The Hall was designed by William Wilkins in the 1820s and is considered one of the most magnificent halls of its era. The first High Table dinner in the Hall was held in February 1828, and ever since then, the splendid Hall has been where members of the college eat and where formal dinners have been held for centuries.

The Award Ceremony and Dinner will be held in the Hall in the evening of  30th July, 2024.

Stretching out down to the River Cam, the Back Lawn has one of the most iconic backdrop of King’s College Chapel. 

The early evening reception will be hosted on the Back Lawn with the iconic Chapel in the background (weather permitting). 

King’s College Chapel

With construction started in 1446 by Henry VI and took over a century to build, King’s College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and is a splendid example of late Gothic architecture. 

Attendees are also granted complimentary access to the King’s College Chapel before and during the event. 

Confirmed Nobel Laureates

Dr Thomas R. Cech

The nobel prize in chemistry 1989 , for the discovery of catalytic properties of rna.

Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but also that it can speed up the necessary reactions.

He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.

As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado

Sir Richard J. Roberts

The nobel prize in medicine 1993 .

F or the discovery of split genes

During 1969–1972, Sir Richard J. Roberts did postdoctoral research at Harvard University before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was hired by James Dewey Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a fellow Nobel laureate. In this period he also visited the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology for the first time, working alongside Fred Sanger. In 1977, he published his discovery of RNA splicing. In 1992, he moved to New England Biolabs. The following year, he shared a Nobel Prize with his former colleague at Cold Spring Harbor Phillip Allen Sharp.

His discovery of the alternative splicing of genes, in particular, has had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology. The realisation that individual genes could exist as separate, disconnected segments within longer strands of DNA first arose in his 1977 study of adenovirus, one of the viruses responsible for causing the common cold. Robert’s research in this field resulted in a fundamental shift in our understanding of genetics, and has led to the discovery of split genes in higher organisms, including human beings.

Dr Aaron Ciechanover

The nobel prize in chemistry 2004 .

F or the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

Aaron Ciechanover is one of Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science, earning his Nobel Prize in 2004 for his work in ubiquitination. He is honored for playing a central role in the history of Israel and in the history of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr Ciechanover is currently a Technion Distinguished Research Professor in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Russian Academy of Sciences and is a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he was a visiting Distinguished Chair Professor at NCKU, Taiwan. As part of Shenzhen’s 13th Five-Year Plan funding research in emerging technologies and opening “Nobel laureate research labs”, in 2018 he opened the Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus.

Dr Robert Lefkowitz

The nobel prize in chemistry 2012 .

F or the discovery of G protein-coupled receptors

Robert Joseph Lefkowitz is an American physician (internist and cardiologist) and biochemist. He is best known for his discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family G protein-coupled receptors, for which he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Brian Kobilka. He is currently an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University.

Dr Lefkowitz made a remarkable contribution in the mid-1980s when he and his colleagues cloned the gene first for the β-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This led to the seminal discovery that all GPCRs (which include the β-adrenergic receptor) have a very similar molecular structure. The structure is defined by an amino acid sequence which weaves its way back and forth across the plasma membrane seven times. Today we know that about 1,000 receptors in the human body belong to this same family. The importance of this is that all of these receptors use the same basic mechanisms so that pharmaceutical researchers now understand how to effectively target the largest receptor family in the human body. Today, as many as 30 to 50 percent of all prescription drugs are designed to “fit” like keys into the similarly structured locks of Dr Lefkowitz’ receptors—everything from anti-histamines to ulcer drugs to beta blockers that help relieve hypertension, angina and coronary disease.

Dr Lefkowitz is among the most highly cited researchers in the fields of biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical medicine according to Thomson-ISI.

Dr Joachim Frank

The nobel prize in chemistry 2017 .

F or developing cryo-electron microscopy

Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate. He is regarded as the founder of single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. He also made significant contributions to structure and function of the ribosome from bacteria and eukaryotes.

In 1975, Dr Frank was offered a position of senior research scientist in the Division of Laboratories and Research (now Wadsworth Center), New York State Department of Health,where he started working on single-particle approaches in electron microscopy. In 1985 he was appointed associate and then (1986) full professor at the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University at Albany, State University of New York. In 1987 and 1994, he went on sabbaticals in Europe, one to work with Richard Henderson, Laboratory of Molecular Biology Medical Research Council in Cambridge and the other as a Humboldt Research Award winner with Kenneth C. Holmes, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1998, Dr Frank was appointed investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Since 2003 he was also lecturer at Columbia University, and he joined Columbia University in 2008 as professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of biological sciences.

Dr Barry C. Barish

The nobel prize in physics 2017 .

For the decisive contributions to the detection of gravitational waves

Dr Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

In 2017, Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”. He said, “I didn’t know if I would succeed. I was afraid I would fail, but because I tried, I had a breakthrough.”

In 2018, he joined the faculty at University of California, Riverside, becoming the university’s second Nobel Prize winner on the faculty.

In the fall of 2023, he joined Stony Brook University as the inaugural President’s Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics.

In 2023, Dr Barish was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Biden in a White House ceremony.

Dr Harvey J. Alter

The nobel prize in medicine 2020 .

For the discovery of Hepatitis C virus

Dr Harvey J. Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called “non-A, non-B hepatitis” caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice.

Dr Alter has received recognition for the research leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award conferred to civilians in United States government public health service, and the 2000 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Dr Ardem Patapoutian

The nobel prize in medicine 2021 .

For discovering how pressure is translated into nerve impulses

Dr Ardem Patapoutian is an Lebanese-American molecular biologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel Prize laureate of Armenian descent. He is known for his work in characterising the PIEZO1, PIEZO2, and TRPM8 receptors that detect pressure, menthol, and temperature. Dr Patapoutian is a neuroscience professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. In 2021, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I participate in the Re:think essay competition? 

The Re:think Essay competition is meant to serve as fertile ground for honing writing skills, fostering critical thinking, and refining communication abilities. Winning or participating in reputable contests can lead to recognition, awards, scholarships, or even publication opportunities, elevating your academic profile for college applications and future endeavours. Moreover, these competitions facilitate intellectual growth by encouraging exploration of diverse topics, while also providing networking opportunities and exposure to peers, educators, and professionals. Beyond accolades, they instil confidence, prepare for higher education demands, and often allow you to contribute meaningfully to societal conversations or causes, making an impact with your ideas.

Who is eligible to enter the Re:think essay competition?  

As long as you’re currently attending high school, regardless of your location or background, you’re eligible to participate. We welcome students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Is there any entry fee for the competition? 

There is no entry fee for the competition. Waiving the entry fee for our essay competition demonstrates CCIR’s dedication to equity. CCIR believes everyone should have an equal chance to participate and showcase their talents, regardless of financial circumstances. Removing this barrier ensures a diverse pool of participants and emphasises merit and creativity over economic capacity, fostering a fair and inclusive environment for all contributors.

Subscribe for Competition Updates

If you are interested to receive latest information and updates of this year’s competition, please sign up here.

10 Break-Out Sessions

• Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

India is undergoing its economic, technological and demographic transition simultaneously. An old country is becoming youthful and adventurous with the passage of time. Young Indians like OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal are quietly taking charge of Indian ethos by becoming icons of audacious aspirations and tangible proofs of its potential, spawning startups that are becoming most valuable and famous than many legacy companies. How can young revolutionaries find ways to carry the older generation of investors, regulators, workers and consumers with them and what can other economies and founders learn from India’s momentous transition?

For over 50 years teams of student have volunteered to organise the St. Gallen Symposium. They have written countless invitations, met thousands of partners, and welcomed some of the most important personalities of their time on stage. Together with former members of the ISC we will reflect on the St. Gallen Symposium experience of cross-generational dialogue and collaboration, the lessons they have learned for their lives and on how the symposium has evolved. This session is organised together with ISC Alumni.

As the need for innovation is growing, the routinisation of well-structured creative processes within organizations is key for concurrent value creation. Prof. Susan Goldsworthy of IMD, this year's St. Gallen Symposium artist Javiera Estrada and Light Artist Gerry Hofstetter will discuss the role of collaboration in the creative process. Together, and in conversation with the audience, they’ll explore the way collaboration can drive creativity in various organisational contexts, and, on the other hand, the role of introversion and lone contemplation in creating something new.

Many employee volunteering and giving programs are presented as an employee perk, similar to casual Fridays or a team-building event. But treating workplace giving and volunteering this way fails to fully capitalise on the great potential of such programs: to foster employee personal growth, and address key societal challenges. The panel will particularly explore the potential of skills-based volunteering, its benefits, and the unique challenges that arise when moving from merely transactional volunteering to something far more transformative.

The investment landscape over the next twenty years will be radically different from previous generations. While there appears to be greater access to capital, there also appears to be much more volatility and debt with no clear dominant financing mechanism. Entrepreneurs, VC, Private Equity, and banks will have to find new ways to work together to create growth and stimulate innovation. How can investors and entrepreneurs better collaborate and find mutually beneficial agreements that balance risk and return?

The fashion industry accounts for 10% of humanity’s annual carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. For long, the fashion and luxury watchmaking industry drove, together with the fashion media industry, unsustainable dynamics in the sector: generating more and more demand through an artificial cycle of new collections and seasonal trends. Businesses’ marketing, media as well as influencers thereby create a constant longing and demand for their products. How can designers, fashion houses and publishers exit this vicious cycle and, collaboratively, drive the transition towards more sustainable and ethical fashion and luxury watchmaking?

Media diversity, freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Europe are currently under threat. Journalists and independent media companies are increasingly joining forces across borders to respond to such challenges as well as to be able to continue to offer independent quality journalism in the future. This session will identify learnings from new media partnerships such as the Leading European Newspaper Alliance (LENA) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to identify how media can most effectively work together.

Technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are key drivers of the modern economy and social mobility. Given their importance, we should strive to improve accessibility to tech, education and entrepreneurship across all backgrounds. Creating open and inclusive communities, especially with tech is important to accomplishing this goal, but it is easier said that done. Simultaneously, a third iteration of the internet – Web3 – has the potential to radically transform the internet of things and reduce barriers to access. How can these forces be effectively harnessed and directed for the benefit of all people and move the world forward?

Over the past decades, the tech sector, especially the internet of things, has become a central component of modern economies. Trying to catch up with the exponential pace of technological development, the US, China, and Europe are crafting rules of the game on digital markets. What are the emerging characteristic differences between regulatory regimes of digital markets, in the US, Europe and beyond, and how do they balance innovation and regulation? In light of strategic competition over tech dominance between the US and China, what are the opportunities and challenges for Europe in particular?

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world of work forever. The fast and widespread adoption of remote work and an ever-increasing concern of employees with purpose and meaning on their job have intensified the war for talents. Reaching out to and concurrently engaging employees is key for businesses across sectors and regions. What learnings can be drawn from the pandemic as regards our approach to work? Has the world of work changed for the better? And what role does leadership culture and a new approach to hiring play going forward?

• A Demographic Revolution: Young India Takes Charge (with All India Management Association) 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Collaborative Advantage Across Generations: Reflecting on the SGS Experience (ISC Alumni) 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Collective Genius? Cultivating Creativity in the Arts and Beyond 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Connecting Business with Purpose: The Potential of Skills-Based Volunteering 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Financing the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Hacking the Fashion & Luxury Watchmaking Industry towards more Sustainability (with Condé Nast College) 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• M100 Sanssouci Colloquium@St. Gallen: Media’s New Power: More Impact Through Collaborative Journalism 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Democratizing Access to the next Generation of Technology and Innovation: Communities and Radical Transformation 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Varieties of Tech Capitalism: Europe's Approach to Innovation and Regulation in a Global Context 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
• Changed for Good? Engaging with the New World of Work 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

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Global Essay Competition

Compete in our Global Essay Competition and qualify for participation as a Leader of Tomorrow in the world’s premier opportunity for cross-generational debates: The St. Gallen Symposium.

Meet 300 of society’s brightest young minds. Present and debate your ideas with 600 senior leaders. Be inspired by some of the world’s most impressive speakers. Gain a unique and new perspective on this year’s topic. Become a member of a unique global community. Participate in the symposium with us. Win prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst the three winners.

Topic Question

Striving for more or thriving with less – what pressing scarcity do you see, and how do you suggest to tackle it.

Scarcity generally refers to a situation where human needs exceed available resources . This year’s Global Essay Competition invites young leaders worldwide to focus on a specific contemporary or future challenge related to scarcity and propose an innovative way to address it.

Be creative in thinking about proposed solutions: do we need to strive for more and find ways to boost the availability of the resource in question? Or does it focus on ways to thrive with less and thus rethink our needs and demand?

Be free in choosing which scarce resource you focus on: examples include – but are NOT limited to – human labour, capital, natural resources, or intangibles like time, creativity, or care. Be bold and precise in describing a contemporary or future challenge of scarcity and the specific kind of resources you focus on, and offer a concrete and actionable idea of how we should confront it.

Registration window for the GEC for the 53rd St. Gallen Symposium is closed.

If problems occur during registration, please clear your cached images and files in your browsing history or consider using the browser Google Chrome. If you still cannot apply, use the following  link. For any unanswered questions please contact us via e-mail at  [email protected]

Prerequisites

Qualify with an excellent essay.

We expect a professional, creative and thought-provoking essay. Be bold, unconventional, and distinctive on the competition question.

For your contribution to be valid, the following criteria must be met

Check your eligibility and prepare documents, to be eligible, you must fulfill all of the following criteria:.

• Enrolled in a graduate or postgraduate programme (master level or higher) in any field of study at a regular university
• Born in 1994 or later

Make sure you can provide the following documents:

• Copy of passport or other identification (in English for non-Roman languages)
• Confirmation of matriculation/enrolment from your university which proves your enrollment in a graduate/postgraduate level programme as of 1 February 2024 (download sample document  here )
• Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself

Meet us and ask your questions!

Meet our student representatives to learn how you can qualify for a participation in the 53 rd St. Gallen Symposium. We will have physical presentations at your university again as well as regular webinars to answer your questions!

Accompanying a Leader of Tomorrow

General questions, who can compete for a participation as a leader of tomorrow at the st. gallen symposium.

Students enrolled at a regular university, who are matriculated in a graduate or postgraduate programme.

What is the St. Gallen Global Essay Competition?

The St. Gallen Global Essay Competition is a global student essay competition, offering students who study at graduate or postgraduate level around the world the opportunity to apply for participation at the St. Gallen Symposium.

What is the Knowledge Pool?

The Knowledge Pool is a group of Leaders of Tomorrow with a strong affiliation to topics of relevance to the St. Gallen Symposium. They show outstanding track records in the particular fields they work or study. They are hand-selected by the International Students’ Committee. It is not possible to apply for membership in the Knowledge Pool.

How much does it cost to participate? 

The participation in the symposium is free for all Leaders of Tomorrow. Moreover, expenses for travel, board and lodging are covered by the ISC. However, we recommend bringing a small amount of pocket money for your convenience.

Essay Competition

Who is eligible for the 54 th  st. gallen symposium.

Students enrolled at a regular university, who are matriculated in a graduate or postgraduate programme as of 1 February 2025, from any field of study, born in 1995 or later.

What is a “regular university”?

In the context of the Global Essay Competition, a regular university is defined as an institution of higher education that also conducts research and offers at least one PhD programme. Exceptions are possible and are granted on a case-by-case basis.

Can Bachelor students participate?

Unfortunately, students on bachelor level do not fulfil the eligibility criteria and therefore cannot enter the competition. There is no other way to apply for participation and we, therefore, encourage all students to join the competition once they pursue with their studies at a graduate level. You may, however, be eligible if the level of study in your current year is equivalent to international graduate level which must be confirmed in writing by your university.

Can teams participate?

Only individual submissions are allowed as we can only grant participation to one contender per contribution.

How long should the contribution be? 

The maximum amount of words is 2,100 (excluding bibliography or graph descriptions and the like). There is no minimum word count. Please make sure to state the exact word count in your document. Also keep in mind that you must not state your name in the contribution.

Do I have to quote my sources?

All sources must be quoted and all essays are scanned for plagiarism. You must refer each source to the respective text passage. Please note that plagiarism is a serious offense and that we reserve the right to take further steps in case of deliberate fraud. Self-plagiarism will also result in disqualification, as the work has to be written exclusively for the Global Essay Competition of the St. Gallen Symposium.

Can I have a look at previous Winner Essays?

Yes, you can find winner essays as well as other publications from the Global Essay Competition here .

What file formats are accepted?

Please make sure to hand in your essay in either a doc, docx or pdf format. The document must allow to copy the text easily (no document protections).

What documents do I need to submit?

In addition to your contribution, make sure to upload

• a copy of your passport (or any other official government ID but no driver’s license) to verify your age
• a confirmation of matriculation from your university confirming your graduate or postgraduate student status as of February 2023
• a short abstract (200–300 words) which can be entered in the registration form directly

in the applicable field of the registration form.

What happens after I submitted my application?

The ISC will verify your eligibility and check all submitted documents for completeness and readability. Due to the large amount of essays we receive, our response may take some time, so thank you for your patience. If the jury selects your essay in the top 100 , you qualify as a Leader of Tomorrow for an expenses-paid participation in the 52 nd St. Gallen Symposium (4-5 May 2023). The results will be announced via e-mail by mid-March 2023. The jury selects the three awardees based on the quality of the idea on paper. The award is endowed with a total prize money of CHF 20,000. In addition, there will be a chance for the very best competitors (including the awardees) to present their ideas on the big stage at the symposium. For this, the students will be asked to pitch their idea on video beforehand.

Who’s in the jury?

The Award Jury consists of leading executives, journalists and professors from all around the world. The Academic Jury is composed of young top academics from the University of St. Gallen and the ETH Zurich.

When will the results be announced?

The jury’s decision will be announced by mid-March at the latest.

Participation

How do the travel arrangements work.

The organizing committee will get in touch with you prior to the symposium to discuss your itinerary and to book your travel.

Can the organising committee help me get a visa?

All Leaders of Tomorrow are self-responsible to get a visa. However, we will inform the applicable Swiss embassy about the invitation and will provide you with the necessary documents. Should a problem arise anyway, we are happy to help. Expenses for visa application are borne by the Leaders of Tomorrow themselves.

Where am I accommodated during the symposium?

All Leaders of Tomorrow are accommodated at private student flats across the city. Please give us an early notice should you have any special requirements (e.g. female flatmates only).

What transport is provided?

We book flights or train tickets and provide shuttle service from and to the airport. Furthermore, all Leaders of Tomorrow receive a free ticket for the public transport in St. Gallen during the week of the symposium.

How much money do I need? 

We recommend bringing some pocket money (CHF 100–200) for your convenience. Please note that depending on your time of arrival and departure, some meals might not be covered.

Can disabled people participate as well? 

Yes, of course. Most of the symposium sites are wheelchair-accessible and we are more than happy to help where we can. Although our ability to provide personal assistance is very limited, we do our best to provide the necessary services.

Is there any touristic programme and do I have time for sightseeing?

During the symposium there will be no time for sightseeing. However, we may offer selected touristic programmes a day before or after the symposium. These days can, of course, also be used for individual sightseeing. Nearby sites include the old town of St. Gallen, the lake Constance and the mountain Säntis.

Can I extend my stay in Switzerland?

Yes, upon request we can move your return flight to a date of your choice. If the new flight is more expensive, we may ask you to cover the price difference. Please note that we are unable to provide any services such as accommodation or transportation after the end of the symposium week.

Can I bring a spouse?

Unfortunately, we cannot provide any services such as travel, room, board or symposium access to any additional person.

Past Winners & Essay Reviews

Out of approx. 1,000 annual contributions submitted by graduate and post-graduate students from all around the globe, the jury selects three winner essays every year. Meet our competition’s past winners and read their contributions.

2023 – A New Generational Contract

Elliot gunn, gaurav kamath, megan murphy, essay question:.

The best or worst legacy from previous generations: How to preserve or replace it?

A great deal of our lives is influenced by when we were born. As those currently alive, we have inherited the world which previous and older generations have built. We owe a great deal to the efforts of our forebears, but we also inherit problematic legacies.

2022 – Collaborative Advantage

Sophie lara neuber, anton meier, bryan kwang shing tan.

Collaborative Advantage: what should be written into a new intergenerational contract?

 The idea of a “generational contract” embodies the principles that younger and older generations rely on each other to provide mutual support across different stages of their lives. Inclusive education systems, sustainable welfare states and meaningful environmental action are some of many challenges requiring a cross-generational collaborative effort. Yet, with the climate crisis, rapid technological change and societal aging in many countries, the generational contract and notions of intergenerational fairness have been challenged. Members of the younger generation are raising their voices as they reflect on how their futures are being compromised by current decision-makers.

 What’s your specific and actionable idea that should be written into a new generational contract? Choose an area where you see evidence that intergenerational fairness is – or, going forward, will be – challenged and where the generational contract needs to be rewritten. Potential areas include, but are not limited to, business strategy and the economy, inclusive governance and education, the welfare state and health care, environmental sustainability, or the world of work. Describe your problem and offer concrete and practical proposals how inter-generational fairness can be restored or reinvented. Explain your idea’s impact for the future.

2021 – Trust Matters

Janz irvin chiang.

1st place – Peking University

Joan  Nyangena

2nd place – York University

Karl Michael Braun

3rd place – Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

A Matter of Trust: How Can Trust be Repaired When It’s Lost?

In recent years, we have seen many reports about “trust crises” in the realms of politics, health, business, technology, science, and media. Political and corporate scandals, mass protests, and deteriorating trust indicators in global perception surveys support this diagnosis. As a result, senior leaders in many of these sectors publicly aspire to “rebuild trust” in their decisions, products, or institutions. What would be your advice to them?

Choose an area in one of the above-mentioned sectors where you see evidence that citizens’, consumers’, regulators’, employees’ or other stakeholders’ trust has been lost. Describe your example of an apparent loss of trust; offer concrete and practical proposals on repairing damaged trust. Describe your idea’s impact for the future.

2020 – Freedom Revisited

Symposium  postponed.

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the final review and communication of the results of the contributions to the Global Essay Competition was stopped prematurely.

Freedom Revisited: Which aspects of freedom need to be defended, or recalibrated, to meet the challenges of our time?

Domestically and on the international stage, values of individual, economic, and political freedom are subject to critical inquiry or outright attack. Diverse phenomena such as populism, global power shifts, climate change, the digital revolution, and global migration call for a reflection on the value of freedom for the way we live, do business, and organize politically in the years ahead. While some call for a defence of established freedoms, others call for recalibration of our concept of freedom, or the balance we strike between freedom and other values, such as equality, sustainability, and security. Where do you stand in this debate? Choose one of the following positions as you develop your essay:

In defence of freedom: Choose an area in the realm of business, economics, politics, or civil society where current concepts of freedom are under pressure and where they need to be defended. Describe the problem and offer a concrete and practical proposition of how established concepts of freedom should – and can be – defended. Describe its impact for the future.

In defence of recalibrating freedom: Choose an area in the realms of business, economics, politics or civil society where current concepts of freedom are unsuitable for the challenges we face and where they need to be recalibrated. Describe the problem and offer a concrete and practical proposition of how established concepts of freedom should and can be recalibrated. Describe its impact for the future.

2019 – Capital for Purpose

Reuben muhindi wambui (ke).

1st place – The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Natalie Hei Tung Lau (HK)

2nd place – University of Pennsylvania

Toan Do (VN)

3rd place – Yale University

Is it as good as it gets? – What approach would you suggest to change the current purpose of capital?

Political volatility, environmental issues, precarious labour markets, technological monopolies, managerial and investment short-termism are only a few challenges we face. The time has come to counter excessive short-termism and start doing business as unusual. Think about the status quo and its implications. What would be an idea to change it? Develop projects or actions you would trust in to bring new and expanded purposes to capital and aim for a long-term positive impact. In your essay you should consider how the use of capital (financial, human, social,…) can solve complex challenges and address substantial changes, be it by individuals, civil society, businesses or governments. Your idea must inspire leaders worldwide to take on responsibility and put it into practice. Be bold and develop a truly impactful concept to win our prestigious award.

2009 – 2018

2018  – beyond the end of work, nat ware (au).

1st place – University of Oxford

Janis Goldschmidt (DE)

João abreu (br).

3rd place – Harvard University

Robots are coming for your job. How do you augment yourself to stay economically relevant?

Author Yuval Noah Harari claims that the rapid progress of artificial intelligence technology will render the human species economically useless within decades. Imagine a world in which humans fight back, harnessing AI and other technologies to stay economically indispensable – and, ultimately, competitive against the computers. Describe the job you aspire to in the future, how it will potentially be influenced by AI, and how you would augment yourself technologically if necessary to prevail in your chosen career.

2017  – The dilemma of disruption

1st Place – University of Oxford

Benjamin Hofmann (DE)

2nd Place – University of St. Gallen

Sigin Ojulu (SS)

3rd Place – University of Southern California

Breaking the status quo – What’s YOUR disruptive idea?

The notion of disruption captures today’s innovation zeitgeist. Nowadays, it seems everyone claims to be a disruptor – particularly young people with an entrepreneurial mindset. Let’s think beyond disruptive innovation in management and look at disruption more generally as something that breaks the status quo – be it in business, politics, science, or society. Pick the one of these four fields you are most passionate about, identify a problem of greater magnitude and come up with a disruptive idea to solve it. Your idea must aspire to inspire top-notch leaders worldwide. Do not free ride on the buzzword “disruption” but rather be bold and develop a truly novel and radical concept to win our prestigious award.

2016  – Growth – the good, the bad, and the ugly

Schima labitsch (at).

1st place – Fordham University

Alexandra Ettlin (CH)

2nd place – University of St.Gallen

Colin Miller (US)

3rd place – New York University

What are alternatives to economic growth?

2015  – Proudly Small

Laya maheshwari (in).

1st place – London School of Economic

Leon Schreiber (ZA)

2nd place – Freie Universität Berlin

Katharina Schramm (DE)

3rd place – University of St.Gallen

Essay Questions:

• What is the next small BIG thing?

Think about unconventional ideas, undiscovered trends or peripheral signals that may turn into ground-breaking changes for societies. Present one idea which is not on the radar of current leaders yet but will change the game in business, politics or civil society – the best ones will be put to the test by the global audience of the St. Gallen Symposium.

• Collaborative Small State Initiative

Although small states lead the global rankings in international benchmark studies on competitiveness, innovation and wealth, they are often politically marginalised. Explore a common agenda for small and prosperous countries and identify one joint project that would increase the relevance of small states on the global stage. Go beyond politics and diplomacy by also including economic and civil players.

• Elites: small but superior groups rule the world – at what price?

Human history shows that the world has been ruled by tiny but superior groups of people. It is the elites who have been controlling societies and the allocation of resources. Given the rise of inequality, a devastating level of famine that still exists, ubiquitous corrupt systems of government, limited access to education for the underprivileged, to name just a few of the world’s greatest problems, elites are challenged to redefine their roles and agenda settings. Share your thoughts on how elites are supposed to emerge and transform in the 21st century.

2014  – The Clash of Generations

Ashwinikumar singh (in).

1st place – University of Mumbai

Martin Seneviratne (AU)

2nd place – University of Sydney

Set Ying Ting (MY)

3rd place – National University of Singapore

• Balancing Generational Claims

The presumption of an altruistic relation between generations and its positive effect on the economic well-being of societies is illusionary. Welfare states have widened fiscal gaps to an irreparable extent for the next generations. When aspiring to a sustainable welfare system, how should intergenerational claims balance without having to rely on selflessness?

• A Double-Edged Legacy

Let’s be frank: The generational contract has failed everywhere – but for different reasons. Exuberant public debts, zooming healthcare costs, unequal distribution of wealth, loss of ethical and moral anchors, loss of trust in existing institutions: each state is facing a unique set of problems. Briefly describe the situation in your country and propose a generational contract defining mutual responsibilities on an economic and social level.

• A Prospect for the Young

Highly educated and ambitious, yet unemployed. A whole generation of young is entering the labour market with little prospect of success. The implications go way beyond individual tragedies as economies with lasting high levels of youth unemployment risk social instability. Present new solutions on how we can overcome this crisis.

• Business between Generations

Slogans like “rent is the new own” or Botsmann and Rogers’s “what’s mine is yours” (HarperBusiness, 2010) mark the trend of shared economy. Although not a new economic phenomenon per se, particularly the Millennials are embracing this attitude towards doing business where they value access over ownership. The trend is gaining global mainstream acceptance which is resulting in a lasting impact on economic performance. Discuss the future of shared economy, its overall implications and the dynamics between supply and demand.

2013 – Rewarding Courage

Kilian semmelmann (de).

1st place – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Dragov Radoslav (BG)

2nd place – Rotterdam School of Management

Bree Romuld (AU)

3rd place – University of St.Gallen (HSG)

The competitors must choose from one of four competition questions, which refer to the four topic clusters “Putting incentives right”, “Coping with institutions”, “Against the current – courageous people” and “Management of excellence”

• Putting incentives right

How come that both in the corporate world and in politics, responsible courage (e.g. whistleblowing, courage to disagree with current paradigms, etc.) is hardly ever rewarded? Where the big decisions for the future are taken, anxiety, conformity and despondence prevail. How can this be changed?

• Coping with institutions

Institutions of all kinds shape our behaviour – be it economic, political or social behaviour. How should institutions be designed in order to foster a sustainable economic and social development?

• Against the current – courageous people

Observers lament that younger generations, as individualistic as they are, tend to settle for a highly streamlined social and economic world that does not ask for big decisions or unconventional thinking. Please share your opinion on this observation and explain why you agree or disagree. Please use examples that support your arguments.

• Management of excellence

New insights can only flourish within a culture of dialogue in different opinions. No assumptions should be taken for granted nor should there be any unquestioned truth. However, most people (decision makers, managers, students, etc.) often fail to deal constructively with conflicting opinions. How can companies encourage their employees to build a healthy attitude towards unconventional thinking and acting?

2012 – Facing Risk

Rodrigues caren (in).

1st place – St. Joseph’s Institute of Management

Jennifer Miksch (DE)

2nd place – Geneva Graduate Institute

Jelena Petrovic (SR)

3rd place – King’s College London

Detecting Risks

• The methodological tools that allow early detection of what will shape future trends are pivotal. While risks are emerging faster, these tools still need fostered advancement. What is the role of scenario planning and forecasting methods and who is or should be responsible for these aspects in the organisation? How should the detection of risks be addressed in an increasingly complex and interconnected global landscape?

Risk Aversion

• In wealthy societies, most people tend to suppress risk taking. Given this increasing trend of risk aversion in saturated societies, what are the long term consequences for economy and society? What are the long term consequences of a high level of risk aversion?

Emerging Risks

• There are tremendous risks facing the global community and many people have not yet become aware of their potential consequences (e.g. public debt burden). What are the societal, economic and/or political risks your generation of decision makers will be facing in the future? How could you convert these risks into opportunities?

Managing Risk

• There is often a disconnect between taking risks and bearing the burden of the consequences of doing so (e.g. risk taking in investment banking). Who should bear the consequences of negligent risk taking and why? How can healthy risk taking be fostered in wealthy societies?

2011 – Just Power

Marcelo ber (ar).

1st place – New York University

Dhru Kanan Amal (IN)

2nd place – London School of Economics

Maria de los Angeles Lasa (AR)

3rd place – Università di Camerino

• Justice and Power
• Rethinking Leadership
• Public Goods and Values

We asked you to contribute visions and ideas to the theme “Just Power” – Power in the sense of its use in various areas of politics and economics. We expected a professional work which could be an essay, a scenario, a project report or proposal, a multi- media presentation or an entrepreneurial concept. It should be constructive, provocative or instructive, inspiring thoughts and actions as well as introucing new approaches and unconventional ideas. Within the framework of the theme you may choose between three subtopics for your contribution.

2010 – Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change

Ainur begim (kz).

1st place – University of Oslo

James Clear (USA)

Christoph birkholz (de).

• What makes an entrepreneur an “agent of change”?
• Changing of the guard: Who are the new entrepreneurs?
• Corporate entrepreneurship within large companies: a concept for the future or a mere pie in the sky?
• Entrepreneurship between environmental risks and opportunities: What does it take to succeed?

2009 – Revival of Political and Economic Boundaries

Shofwan al-banna choiruzzad (id), jason george (us), aris trantidis (gr), 1999 – 2008, 2008  – global capitalism – local values, guillaume darier (ch), jacobus cilliers (za), feerasta aniqa (nz), christoph matthias paret (de), 2007  – the power of natural resources, benjamin block (us), gustav borgefalk (se), kevin chua (ph), 2006  – inspiring europe, maximilian freier (de), chen yesh (sg), elidor mëhilli (al), william english (us), 2005  – liberty, trust and responsibility, christian h. harding (de), luana badiu (ro), norbert jungmichel (de), fabien curto millet (es /fr), 2004  – the challenges to growth and prosperity, ravi rauniyar (np), peter g. kirchschläger (at / ch), xin dong (cn), 2003 – seeking responses in times of uncertainty, stefanie klein (de), rosita shivacheva (bg), 2002 – pushing limits – questioning goals, constantine (dino) asproloupos (ca / gr), manita jitngarmkusol (th), 2001 – new balance of power, marion mühlberger (at), uwe seibel (de), moses ekra (ci / ca), gerald tan (my), 2000 – time, martin von brocke (de), pei-fu hsieh (tw), tzvetelina tzvetkova (bg), 1999 – new markets, new technologies, new skills, peter doralt (fr), valérie feldmann (de), rajen makhijani (in).

“Partaking in the competition was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only was I able to come to St. Gallen and meet incredible young entrepreneurs and leaders who I’m still in contact with, but it provided me the opportunity to develop and share ideas with key decision-makers. The main idea I submitted was for a new way to finance retraining and healthcare at no cost to individuals or governments. Given the COVID- 19 pandemic, this idea is needed now more than ever, so I’m currently implementing the idea through a new organization I’ve established called FORTE ( Financing Of Return To Employment ).” NAT WARE , Founder & CEO of FORTE, Leader of Tomorrow at the 47th and 48th St. Gallen Symposium

[email protected]

555 (22) 456 789

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The international

The Institute for Youth in Policy International Essay Contest was launched to empower students to critically think about the issues that matter to them. By providing a platform for students to express their ideas and opinions, we aim to spotlight valuable insights and ideas from young people around the world.Ultimately, the Institute for Youth in Policy International Essay Contest may be seen as an opportunity for the Institute to invest in the future by supporting and uplifting the voices of young people, and by fostering a sense of civic engagement and social responsibility in the next generation. At the moment, the International Essay Contest is inactive due to structural changes. Please stay tuned for more information on the next cycle.

Fall 2023 Winners

You've been elected leader of your country. What would you say during your inaugural address to inspire the citizens of your country, including those of every race, religion, political party, and creed?

Salma Amanda Latifa, Indonesia

Indonesia: diversity, natural wealth, and a leader’s commitment to an inclusive future.

This essay shined in particular because of its excellent integration of academic research, personal voice, and policy-oriented focus. Furthermore, as an organization that greatly values youth civic participation, the essay’s focus on the importance of youth in the modern world deeply resonated with our team. Fantastic work Read the essay here.

Sophia Rosin, United States

What are the greatest attributes of our democracy.

This essay highlights that the backbone of Democracy, specifically in the United States, is its ability to encourage deliberation and tolerance. We as a nonpartisan organization that encourages depolarization find the importance in shedding light on this particular subject in the increasingly divided global political climate.  This succinct and engaging description of democracy captured our attention. ‍ Read the essay here.

Clarence Tay Han Yang, Singapore

Looking forward.

This speech excelled in its powerful word choice and ability to efficiently incorporate and explain numerous challenging topics. Its smooth progression from the past to the present and future provided a well-researched image of Singapore that garnered our applause. ‍ Read the essay here.

Prompt: Spring 2023

Countless countries around the world suffer from a plethora of issues – economic hardship, social turmoil, political polarization, pandemic recovery, unreliable leadership, corrupt governance, warfare and conflict, the list goes on. If you were elected the leader of your country, what would you do to address the issues your country faces in order to build a more prosperous society?

Ethan Lee Yee Chien Singapore

"Singapore in the 21st Century: Addressing the Unique Challenges of my Homeland" Read the essay here.

Ototleng Molelekedi South Africa

"My South African Manifesto" Read the essay here.

Saarah Hussain Bangladesh

"Beyond the Paradox of Plenty: Battling Bangladesh’s Burdens" Read the essay here.

Insight: Does the essay provide unique or interesting insights, analysis or perspectives on its subject matter? Impact: Is the significance or impact of the issue(s) being discussed, idea(s) being brought up, or point-of-views being communicated sufficiently captured in the essay? Clarity and organization : Is the essay easy to understand, with a clear and logical flow? Style: Is the essay engaging and well-written, with appropriate yet compelling tone, language and syntax for the subject matter?

Who can participate?

Any student, in any country, who is enrolled in an accredited high school or college/university at the time of submitting their essay is eligible to participate in the Institute for Youth in Policy International Essay Contest and compete for the prizes. Students taking academic gap years or semesters are also eligible. No current employees of the Institute for Youth in Policy, however, will be permitted to enter the contest.

Submission Guidelines

Essays can take the form of anything from an analytical research paper to a personal narrative to allegorical fiction. This means essays can be written in any citation style or with no citations at all if it is not a research-heavy paper. Word Limit: 1250 words All essays should be submitted as a .docx or a PDF document and should include your name as well as a title for your essay. Cover pages are acceptable but not necessary. Essays should be written in an easily readable font size (11 or 12 pt.) with a professional font style (Times New Roman, Arial, etc.).  

A platform that honed my skills and perspectives.

Applications Closed Now

Applications for our second essay contest were due December 15, 2023.

Results generally get released within 45 days after the initial deadline.

The monetary ($250) and publication prizes will be sent via email to winners directly.

Bookings Open for Online Summer Courses

Essay Writing Webinars

• Thursday, 7th March, 5pm UK time: Essay Writing Essentials: Top tips from a writing expert
• Wednesday, 20th March, 5pm UK time: Q&A with 2023 Essay Competition winners

Watch our Explainer Video

How Our Essay Competition Works

Submit your entry.

Research and write your essay and then submit it, along with your references, via our short form below.

Entries close at 9pm UK time on 31st March 2024 !

Awards Ceremony

All shortlisted entrants and their parents and teachers will be invited to attend our Awards Ceremony in April 2024, where the winners will be announced.

Over £100,000 Worth of Academic Prizes

Free Conference place

The first thousand students who are successfully shortlisted will be awarded a free place at one of our OxBright Conferences (worth £95) in the autumn. Alternatively, you can put this credit towards an Online Course or Online Internship .

All shortlisted entrants and their parents and teachers will be invited to attend our online Awards Ceremony in April 2024, where the winners will be announced.

Matilda Winner, History, 2023

I’m both thrilled and flabbergasted at the outcome of the competition.

Winning this competition undoubtedly made me feel much more confident in researching and writing in my field from now on, opening a lot of new doors for me!

Regina Winner, Psychology, 2023

I’m very happy and grateful to win such a meaningful competition. I truly learned a lot.

My advice to anyone considering entering is to try to think deeper and further about your chosen topic.

Alex Winner, Philosophy, 2023

Frequently Asked Questions

Entering the essay competition, how will entering the oxbright essay competition help me in the future, why do you run an essay competition.

OxBright is about giving students the edge to help them to succeed, find their purpose and make a difference in the world.

We think it’s the greatest time to be alive, but we’re aware that young people face challenges their predecessors didn’t. We’re passionate about encouraging students to be optimistic about the future by being active thinkers interested in collaborating to create a better future for the long-term. You can read more about this in our Worldview .

Our essay competition combines these two elements – encouraging students to think actively about the future, and giving them tools to help them to succeed.

Who can enter?

Anyone can enter – the only eligibility criteria is that you must be aged between 15-18. You don’t need to have previously joined an OxBright programme in order to take part.

Kindly be aware that to be eligible to take up any of the free places offered as prizes, such as our online courses/internships, winning students must be between the ages of 15 and 18 at the commencement of the programme.

Can I write more than one essay?

Sorry, we only accept one essay per student in each Essay Competition. This is due to the volume of essays we receive.

Can I enter jointly with a friend?

No, we can only accept entries from individuals, and it’s important to make sure that your work is entirely your own.

Is there a fee to enter the OxBright Essay Competition?

No, the essay competition is completely free to enter.

When is the entry deadline?

The entry deadline is 9pm on Sunday 31st March 2024.

Are you connected to any university?

No, OxBright is an independent education organisation which is not connected to any university.

Where can I see the results of the Essay Competition 2023?

You can see the results of our previous Essay Competition, including the winning essay in full, here .

Writing Your Essay

What are the subject categories i can enter for, how long should my essay be.

There are three parts to the essay:

• Essay title: the title of your essay can be up to 100 characters long, including spaces
• Essay: your essay can have up to 3,800 characters , including spaces (this is about 500 words). This includes everything you write, like the main text and in-text citations. In-text citations are little notes you put in your essay to show where your information came from. For example, if you quote something from a book by John Smith, you would add (Smith, 2010, p. 50) right after the quote. These citations are part of your word count, so make sure to include them
• References: as for references, there’s no word limit – you can include as many as you need! These are important for showing where your information came from. Please use the Harvard Referencing Style for your references (you can find how to do this in the guidelines provided here ). This won’t count towards your essay character limit, so please list all the sources you used

What are the evaluation criteria?

We’ll be assessing essays on the following criteria:

• Fluency of written English
• Relevance to the question
• Creativity and originality of ideas
• Use of evidence or examples
• Relevance to the OxBright Worldview

Should I use references?

Please make sure to include references to your sources, using the Harvard Referencing Style (guidelines here ).

What makes a good essay?

Make sure to read our criteria carefully (you can find it in the FAQ above).

We want essays that are thoroughly researched, packed with examples and solid evidence. What really catches our attention are essays with unique analysis. So, we’re not just interested in essays that simply describe things – we want your thoughts, analysis, and fresh ideas.

Don’t forget, it’s crucial to use and mention trustworthy sources for the evidence you provide.

Do you accept personal or descriptive essays?

We’re looking for clear, concise and compelling answers to the question above, written and formatted in an academic style. Please don’t submit personal essays or creative writing samples.

What Happens Next?

When will i hear the results.

We’ll be in touch within two weeks of your entry to let you know whether or not you’ve been shortlisted (all entrants who meet our core standards of relevance and coherence will be shortlisted).

All shortlisted entrants and their parents and teachers will be invited to our Awards Ceremony in April 2024, when the winners in each subject category will be announced.

How are essays assessed?

You can read about the criteria we use to assess your essay in the FAQ above (“What are the evaluation criteria?”).

Essays are assessed using our proprietary system which combines a mixture of technology and personal assessment. Essays which are deemed to be plagiarised or be written by AI will be rejected and our decision on this is final.

There are two stages to our assessment process:

Shorlisting Our first stage assessment reviews whether the essay is relevant and coherent. If so, your essay will be shortlisted, you will be offered a free place at an OxBright Conference and you will be invited to the Awards Ceremony.

Awards Shortlised essays are then given further assessment by our panel. This includes a review of the References. In the application form, we ask for a the name of a teacher who is familiar with your academic work. If your essay is nominated for an Award, we will ask this teacher to confirm that the essay was genuinely written by you.

What are the prizes?

Please click here for more information about the prizes and awards.

Why is the overall prize a place at Oxford Scholastica in 2025, not 2024?

Will i receive feedback.

Unfortunately, due to the volume of entries received, we are unable to provide feedback on essays.

Does everyone who enters get a free place at a Conference?

The first thousand students to who make a valid submission and are shortlisted will be invited to attend an OxBright Conference of their choice, free of charge (worth £95). Conference subjects include Business, Medicine, Law and Psychology. It is optional to attend a Conference.

Alternatively, you’ll be able to choose to apply the £95 credit toward another programme with us.

Does everyone receive a certificate?

Only students who win one of the awards receive a certificate. Certificates are issued in online format.

Do you publish the names of the award winners?

Yes, award winners will be published on our website after the Awards Ceremony.

How can I pass on some feedback about the essay competition?

Harvard International Economics

Essay contest (hieec).

HIEEC provides students the opportunity to demonstrate an accomplished level of writing and understanding of economic theory. Through the contest, students hone their academic and professional skills and exhibit their knowledge. 

HIEE C 202 3 -2024

Hieec 2023-2024 is now closed. .

The 2023-2024  Harvard International Economics Essay Contest is sponsored by the Harvard Undergraduate Economics Association (HUEA). This essay competition is open to high school studen ts of any year and is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrat e an accom plished level of writing and understanding of economic the ory. T hrough the contest, student competitors hone their academic and professional skills and exhibit their knowledge to future employers and academic programs. 

Competitors must construct a convincing argument using economic theory and real-world examples. Winning essays will be published on our website  and will be available for the greater Harvard community to read. Essays should focus on argumentation supported with facts and references, although data-based support is also welcome.

Yiheng Lyu​

Audrey Ku k​

Hyoungjin Jin

Juyoung Chun

Kevin Zhang

Matthew Choi

Mikayil Zadikhov

Raunak Agarwal

Vallabh Himakunthala

Highly Commended

Aronima Biswas

Aryan Nangia

Kridaya Gupta

Leonardo Jia

Rohan Mathur

Anagha Chakravarti

Amberlynn Gong

Neha Shanavas

Donghyeon Oh

2023-2024  Essay Questions

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to affect growth, inequality, productivity, innovation, and employment. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in particular, has greatly increased public awareness about the significance of AI and its implications for the future. What impact will the development of AI have on economic inequality, the composition of the workforce, and economic output as a whole? How can nations prepare for the micro and macroeconomic changes brought about by AI?

Measuring national and global economic activity allows us to understand how economies change in size and structure—how they grow and contract. In addition to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), government budgets, and the money supply, alternatives like the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gross National Income (GNI) are used to assess economic progress. What are the advantages of our current economic indices, including GDP, HDI, GNI, government budgets, and the money supply, and in what areas are they lacking? Which of these indices do you find most helpful, and how can we enhance or combine them to improve our understanding of economic measurement?

Proponents of income redistribution support the idea that redistribution policies will increase economic stability and give more opportunities to the less wealthy. Others, however, are more skeptical and believe it could have negative consequences for economic growth. Current methods of redistribution include taxation, welfare, public services, and other monetary policies. What strategies for income redistribution should the U.S. adopt from other countries? What economic impacts could a wealth tax or super millionaire tax have? What type of redistribution is most effective and feasible? What would be the impacts of the U.S. enacting universal basic income? Discuss the implications of any of these issues and feel free to expand on other areas of economic redistribution.

As the United States weighs the impacts of China’s rise to global prominence, economics and national security have become increasingly intertwined. As a result, the United States government has imposed both tariffs and investment restrictions on China to limit the nation’s access to both US markets and intellectual property (specifically in sensitive industries such as semiconductors). What are the economic implications of these policies for United States firms, consumers, and workers? Discuss the most important perspectives of the US-China trade war and provide suggestions on how both countries can manage the prospect of a changing economic order.

2nd November 2023 – Essay titles released

11:59pm EST 5th January 2024  – Essay submission deadline

Late February 2024*  – Highly Commended and Finalists notified

Early March 2024 * – Winners notified, results published on the website

*We received a high volume of submissions, therefore we anticipate  that it will take us a couple m ore w eeks to release the results. 

Entrants must choose one of the four prompts and write a response to it with a strict limit of 1500 words. Submission must be via the HUEA website and entrants are limited to submitting one essay with only the first submission being considered. Each essay submission will have a $20 reading fee which should be paid upon submission of the essay. If this fee will impose a significant financial burden on your family, please email us. The deadline for submitting the essay is 11:59pm EST January 5th, 2024. ​

Please submit essay submissions via this form.

If the above link does not work, use:  https://forms.gle/9NVDu9WVbU71iPpq6

*Be sure to read all the details in the submission form carefully before submitting, as failure to complete any of the steps correctly may result in your submission not being considered.

The essays will be judged by the board of the HUEA, with the top 10 submissions being adjudicated by the esteemed Harvard professor and 2016 Economics Nobel Prize winner Oliver Hart.

The top three winning essays will be published ( with the author’s permission) on our website. A finalist s list of the top  submissions will be published online and adjudicated by 2016 Economics Nobel Prize Winner Oliver Hart. A list of names that will receive the "Highly Commended" distinction will also be published online​. The judges' decisions are final.

Terms and Conditions

The word limit of 1500 must be strictly adhered to. Any words past the limit will be truncated. This limit excludes references, footnotes, titles, headers and footers.

Essays must be written only by the entrant. Any outside assistance must be declared in the beginning or end of the essay.

Only your first submission will be accepted. Any further submissions will not be read.

References must be included, and any plagiarism will lead to disqualification.

References must be in Chicago or APA format. 

The only accepted document formatting is PDF. Any other format will not be accepted, nor will refunds be given to those who do not follow this rule.

No refunds are granted.

Grades 9-12 are permitted.

The essay must not be entered in any other competition nor be published elsewhere.

No individual feedback of essays will be granted.

The decisions made by HUEA by the final round of adjudication are final.

All winners agree to their names being published on the HUEA website.

Past Winners

2022  prompts an d winners.

In recent years and decades, many countries have seen fertility rates drop, potentially leading to falling populations. Currently, China has a fertility rate of 1.3, one of the lowest in the world. However, in 2021, China experienced GDP growth of 8% with output totaling $17.7 trillion. Will this lowered fertility rate (with potential to fall further) affect China’s economic growth and policy? How so? What, if anything, can the Chinese government do to limit the risk of falling fertility rates?

U.S. mortgage rates recently passed 7%, making the purchase of a new home increasingly unaffordable. Meanwhile, the United States has suffered from a chronic shortage of available housing for decades, particularly in urban areas, leading to what many scholars and advocates call an affordability crisis. Why is housing so unaffordable in the U.S.? What can (or should) be done by private actors, state and local governments, and the federal government to alleviate the affordability crisis?

It is often suggested that a tradeoff exists between economic growth and the health of the environment, especially now as the threat of climate change becomes more dire. What economic risks does a changing climate pose? Can economic growth be consistent with a healthy environment? What policies, either market-based or otherwise, should governments enact to protect the environment while posing the least danger to economic efficiency? 

Central banks such as the Federal Reserve in the U.S. and the Bank of England in the UK manage their nation’s macroeconomies with the goal of ensuring price stability and maximum employment. Globally, inflation rates are rising to levels not seen since the 1980s, particularly in the U.S. and European countries. To what extent should the monetary policies of central banks in various Western countries differ or resemble one another as a reaction to the specific causes of inflation facing their economies?

​ Click below to view each winner's essay

Ashwin t elang  *   nanxi jiang   *   duncan wong, 2019 wi n ner.

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/when-is-one-choice-one-t oo-many

2020 Winners

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/covid-19-and-the-market

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/automation-and-jobs-this-time-is-different

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/making-rational-decisions

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Avernus Education International Essay Competition 2023/24

• Deadline February 19, 2024
• Region Online

Call for entries for the Avernus Education International Essay Competition 2024!

Avernus Education is excited to give young people a chance to demonstrate their aptitude in the fields of politics, history, psychology, engineering, law, and medicine. These diverse topic areas highlight the value of interdisciplinary education, which is essential for laying the groundwork for future leaders in our globalized society.

Avernus Education Oxford University Summer Programme offers scholarships to the winners of the International Essay Competition! Partial grants or online course credits are awarded to all shortlisted entries. For elite UK universities (such as Oxbridge and the G5), a victory or participation can make a significant impression on your academic and university application profile.

Senior Category (Ages 17-19) –

“How has the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the global approach to public health, and what lessons should be carried into the future?”

“Analyse the role of artificial intelligence in diagnostic medicine and its potential effects on healthcare professions.”

Junior Category (Ages 14-16) –

“Discuss the ethical implications of genetic engineering and its impact on the future of medicine.”

“How do lifestyle choices impact long-term health, and what strategies can be implemented to promote healthier living from a young age?”

• Engineering:

“How will sustainable engineering need to adapt in response to the ever-changing face of climate change?”

“As society moves towards renewable energy, evaluate the engineering challenges and opportunities presented by the integration of large-scale energy storage systems with existing power grids.”

“What role should young engineers play in advocating for and designing sustainable and environmentally friendly practices?”

“As technology advances, how do we ensure safety and ethical considerations in the development of AI?”

• Psychology:

“Analyse the psychological consequences of long-term remote learning on students.”

“Investigate the role of psychological factors in addiction and the implications for treatment.”

“Analyse the effects of sleep deprivation on learning and memory among school students.”

“Explore the concept of resilience in adolescents: What factors contribute to overcoming adversity?”

“Investigate the role of cryptocurrencies in the modern economy and their potential to disrupt traditional banking.”

“Evaluate the economic consequences of income inequality and potential policies to address it.”

“Discuss the role of economic incentives in promoting recycling and sustainable consumption among households.”

“Explore how advancements in technology are changing the landscape of traditional jobs for the next generation.”

• History & Politics:

“How do museums impact the way we look at the past?”

“To succeed as a nation, you need a functional government” – What do you think of this statement?

“How does the study of history impact our understanding of current global crises?”

“What role do social media and ‘instant history ‘ play in shaping young people’s perception of the past and present?”

“In an increasingly digital world, how should international law evolve to address the challenges of digital sovereignty?”

“As space becomes the next frontier, how should legal frameworks develop to govern the use and exploration of outer space?”

“What is the role of youth in shaping the future of law in an era of rapid technological advancement?”

“How should laws evolve to protect the environment for future generations in the face of immediate economic interests?”

• Winners receive an exclusive Avernus Education Scholarship worth over £5000 – granting them free entrance to our exclusive summer camp at Oxford University!
• Runners Up receives 5 hours worth of Credits for Avernus courses, conferences, and tutoring services.
• All shortlisted participants will receive a signed Certificate of Completion and a written reference upon request.
• All shortlisted participants will become part of the Avernus Alumni network, with future invites to conferences and events.

Eligibilities

• The competition is open to students from the following age groups: Junior Category (Ages 14-16) & Senior Category (Ages 17-19).

Application Process

• Visit the Apply link by clicking on the “APPLY NOW” button.
• Complete the form and submit your essay.

Requirements & Instructions:

Each applicant is allowed to submit only ONE essay.

The word limits for the essays are as follows:

Senior applicants: The essay should be between 1300 and 1800 words.

Junior applicants: The essay should be between 1000 and 1200 words.

The essay must be submitted in PDF format.

The essay should be typed in Times New Roman font, with a 12-point size, and double-spaced.

It is important to ensure that the essay is original and free from plagiarism. This includes not using any ‘Chatbots’ to generate or assist in writing the essay.

If any citations are used in the essay, they should be properly referenced according to a recognized citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).

The essay must be written in English.

Application Deadline: February 19, 2024

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INTERNATIONAL ESSAY COMPETITION

Win a 100% Scholarship Award to our Oxford University Summer Programme!

Winners receive a unique 100% Scholarship Award to our  Oxford University Summer Programme! All outstanding Shortlisted Entries receive partial scholarships or credits for exclusive online courses.

February 19th 2024 Submission Deadline

Register here to receive the essay questions and entry details

Register below to access our essay categories, a full list of essay questions, competition guidance and support!

Click here to download free Essay Competition Guidance

Welcome to our prestigious International Essay Competition. At Avernus Education, we are thrilled to provide a platform for young minds to showcase their prowess in Medicine, Engineering, Law, Economics, Psychology, History and Politics. These varied subject categories underscore the importance of interdisciplinary study, a crucial foundation for future leaders in our increasingly interconnected world.

Winners receive an exclusive Avernus Education Scholarship worth over £5000 - granting them free entrance to our exclusive summer camp at Oxford University! Outstanding Runners Up receive 5 hours worth of Credits for Avernus Education courses, conferences and tutoring services.

All those shortlisted receive a signed Certificate of Completion and a written reference upon request.

Why should you participate?

Win  Scholarships: Winners of the International Essay Competition receive a unique 100% Scholarship Award to our  Oxford University Summer Programme! All Shortlisted Entries receive partial scholarships or credits for online courses.

Showcase Your Knowledge: Dive deep into your chosen subject and present your insights to a global audience. Enhance your academic portfolio by exploring a particular subject area in depth, developing your understanding and knowledge beyond the curriculum.

Boost Your Academic Profile: A win or participation can be a standout feature on your academic and University application profile, particularly for competitive UK Universities (such as Oxbridge and the G5).

Critical Thinking Development: The essay topics are designed to stimulate critical thinking and analytical skills. By dissecting complex issues and formulating well-reasoned arguments, students sharpen their cognitive abilities.

Networking Opportunities: Winners and participants get the chance to interact with fellow students, educators, and professionals in the field. These interactions can lead to lasting connections that might be beneficial in future academic or professional endeavors. All those shortlisted will become part of the Avernus Alumni network, with future invite to conferences and events.

How to apply?

Each applicant is allowed to submit only ONE essay.

The word limits for the essays are as follows:

Senior applicants: The essay should be between 1300 and 1800 words.

Junior applicants: The essay should be between 1000 and 1200 words.

The essay must be submitted in PDF format.

The essay should be typed in Times New Roman font, with a 12-point size and double-spaced.

It is important to ensure that the essay is original and free from plagiarism. This includes not using any 'Chatbots' to generate or assist in writing the essay.

If any citations are used in the essay, they should be properly referenced according to a recognized citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).

The essay must be written in English.

The deadline for submitting the essay is Monday, 19th February 2024.

Please contact a member of our team if you wish for further guidance on completing your essay, or if you have any questions at all.

Welcome to the competition. We look forward to reading your entry!

Avernus Education is not affiliated to the University of Oxford, nor their constituent colleges

The Goi Peace Foundation

International Essay Contest for Young People

This annual essay contest is organized in an effort to harness the energy, creativity and initiative of the world's youth in promoting a culture of peace and sustainable development. It also aims to inspire society to learn from the young minds and to think about how each of us can make a difference in the world.

* This program is an activity within the framework of UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development: Towards achieving the SDGs ( ESD for 2030 ).

Click here to send your essay online

Organized by

Under the auspices of.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, Japan Private High School Federation Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Nikkei Inc

Supported by

SEIKO GROUP CORPORATION, PLUS CORPORATION

For further inquiries concerning the International Essay Contest for Young People, please contact [email protected]

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Essay Contest 2024 Flyer (PDF)

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Frequently Asked Questions

If you still have a question, click below Inquiry Form

Past Winning Essays 2020 Winners' Gathering Report

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GRC Social Impact Essay Competition

Solutions for good, a platform for ambitious high school students to share ideas for social good.

Our 2023 Competition has concluded .

A recap and the results of the competition can be found on this page .

GRC is an international 501(c)(3) non-profit with branches at 23 top global universities, such as Harvard, Penn, and Columbia. Every year over 1,000 GRC members help startups, NGOs, governments, and corporations around the globe solve their challenging social impact issues. This year we are inviting high school students from around the world to brainstorm with our community Solutions for Good. 

GRC Affiliate Schools

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

Authors will be offered an internship with one of GRC university branches and will support a consulting team with a client project from February to May 2024.

Authors will get an Ivy League mentor to support them in their academic journey for at least three coaching sessions.

Essays will be published by GRC's think tank on our Insights platform and all authors will receive a digital laureate certificate.

Authors will receive a digital finalist certificate.

Write an argumentative piece identifying an important problem

that the world faces today and offer a compelling solution on how to solve it.

Focus your essay on one of these topics

Sustainable Development

How can countries, companies, and / or communities balance economic growth, resource consumption, and wealth distribution, global health, from nutrition to vaccination, how can we improve human quality of life around the globe, technology for good, with step changes in ai, automation, and tele-communications, technology has the potential to unlock prosperity for our society. how can we harness its power for the greater good.

Minimum 500, maximum 800 words (excluding titles, references, and footnotes).

You can attach up to 2 charts or infographics to support your argument.

You can submit an essay as an individual or a group of up to 3 students.

All essays will be screened for plagiarism using software. Any plagiarism will result in immediate disqualification.

Reference all sources, preferably using Chicago citation style . References do not count towards the word limit.

Pre-registration

August 1st, 2023

Register today

Submission deadline

December 10th, 2023

February 1st, 2024

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected].

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Optimist International Essay Contest The 2014-2015 Optimist International Essay Scholarship Contests are now closed. --> Topic for the 2023-2024 school year is: "Optimism: How It Connects Us” Who: The contest is open to contestants under the age of 19 as of October 1st of the current Optimist International contest year (October 1 – September 30) and who have not yet completed secondary school or its equivalent, including CEGEP students in Québec, Canada. There is no minimum age. Students must enter in the District in which they reside. U.S. students attending school on military installations outside the U.S. are eligible to enter in their last home of record. How To Enter: Interested students must contact their local Optimist Club. They need to submit an essay on the pre-assigned topic. To find out a contact, please e-mail the Programs Department at [email protected] . The Essay Contest planning pages are intended for use by Optimist Clubs in organizing and conducting a contest in their Club. They contain no information on entering the contest and are of no use to students wishing to enter the contest. Students must contact their local Optimist Club. When:

Club Essay Planning Guide

District Essay Planning Guide

Certificate for Club level

Certificate for Region/Zone level

Certificate for District level

Essay Contest - Prior to event (.doc)

Essay Contest - After event (.doc)

District Essay Contest - After event (.doc)

Club Planning Guide

District Planning Guide

Essay Contest Application

Essay  COMPETITION

2024 global essay prize.

The John Locke Institute encourages young people to cultivate the characteristics that turn good students into great writers: independent thought, depth of knowledge, clear reasoning, critical analysis and persuasive style. Our Essay Competition invites students to explore a wide range of challenging and interesting questions beyond the confines of the school curriculum.

Entering an essay in our competition can build knowledge, and refine skills of argumentation. It also gives students the chance to have their work assessed by experts. All of our essay prizes are judged by a panel of senior academics drawn from leading universities including Oxford and Princeton, under the leadership of the Chairman of Examiners, former Cambridge philosopher, Dr Jamie Whyte.

The judges will choose their favourite essay from each of seven subject categories - Philosophy, Politics, Economics, History, Psychology, Theology and Law - and then select the winner of the Grand Prize for the best entry in any subject. There is also a separate prize awarded for the best essay in the junior category, for under 15s.

Q1. Do we have any good reasons to trust our moral intuition?

Q2. Do girls have a (moral) right to compete in sporting contests that exclude boys?

Q3. Should I be held responsible for what I believe?

Q1. Is there such a thing as too much democracy?

Q2. Is peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip possible?

Q3. When is compliance complicity?

Q1. What is the optimal global population?  

Q2. Accurate news reporting is a public good. Does it follow that news agencies should be funded from taxation?

Q3. Do successful business people benefit others when making their money, when spending it, both, or neither?

Q1. Why was sustained economic growth so rare before the later 18th century and why did this change?

Q2. Has music ever significantly changed the course of history?

Q3. Why do civilisations collapse? Is our civilisation in danger?

Q1. When, if ever, should a company be permitted to refuse to do business with a person because of that person’s public statements?

Q2. In the last five years British police have arrested several thousand people for things they posted on social media. Is the UK becoming a police state?

Q3. Your parents say that 11pm is your bedtime. But they don’t punish you if you don’t go to bed by 11pm. Is 11pm really your bedtime?

Q1. According to a study by four British universities, for each 16-point increase in IQ, the likelihood of getting married increases by 35% for a man but decreases by 40% for a woman. Why? 

Q2. There is an unprecedented epidemic of depression and anxiety among young people. Can we fix this? How?

Q3. What is the difference between a psychiatric illness and a character flaw?

Q1. “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.” What could the speaker mean by “spiritual”?

Q2. Is it reasonable to thank God for protection from some natural harm if He is responsible for causing the harm?

Q3. Does God reward those who believe in him? If so, why?

JUNIOR prize

Q1. Does winning a free and fair election automatically confer a mandate for governing?

Q2. Has the anti-racism movement reduced racism?

Q3. Is there life after death?

Q4. How did it happen that governments came to own and run most high schools, while leaving food production to private enterprise? 

Q5. When will advancing technology make most of us unemployable? What should we do about this?

Q6. Should we trust fourteen-year-olds to make decisions about their own bodies? 

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS & FURTHER DETAILS

Please read the following carefully.

Entry to the John Locke Institute Essay Competition 2024 is open to students from any country.

Registration  

Only candidates who registered before the registration deadline of Friday, 31 May 2024 may enter this year's competition.

All entries must be submitted by 11.59 pm BST on  the submission deadline: Sunday, 30 June 2024 .  Candidates must be eighteen years old, or younger, on that date. (Candidates for the Junior Prize must be fourteen years old, or younger, on that date.)

Entry is free.

Each essay must address only one of the questions in your chosen subject category, and must not exceed 2000 words (not counting diagrams, tables of data, endnotes, bibliography or authorship declaration). 

The filename of your pdf must be in this format: FirstName-LastName-Category-QuestionNumber.pdf; so, for instance, Alexander Popham would submit his answer to question 2 in the Psychology category with the following file name:

Alexander-Popham-Psychology-2.pdf

Essays with filenames which are not in this format will be rejected.

The candidate's name should NOT appear within the document itself. 

Candidates should NOT add footnotes. They may, however, add endnotes and/or a Bibliography that is clearly titled as such.

Each candidate will be required to provide the email address of an academic referee who is familiar with the candidate's written academic work. This should be a school teacher, if possible, or another responsible adult who is not a relation of the candidate. The John Locke Institute will email referees to verify that the essays submitted are indeed the original work of the candidates.

Submissions may be made as soon as registration opens in April. We recommend that you submit your essay well in advance of th e deadline to avoid any last-minute complications.

Acceptance of your essay depends on your granting us permission to use your data for the purposes of receiving and processing your entry as well as communicating with you about the Awards Ceremony Dinner, the academic conference for essay competition finalists, and other events and programmes of the John Locke Institute and its associated entities.  

Late entries

If for any reason you miss the 30 June deadline you will have an opportunity to make a late entry, under two conditions:

a) A late entry fee of 20.00 USD must be paid by credit card within twenty-four hours of the original deadline; and

b) Your essay must be submitted  before 11.59 pm BST on Wednesday, 10 July 2024.

To pay for late entry, a registrant need only log into his or her account, select the relevant option and provide the requested payment information.

Our grading system is proprietary. Essayists may be asked to discuss their entry with a member of the John Locke Institute’s faculty. We use various means to identify plagiarism, contract cheating, the use of AI and other forms of fraud . Our determinations in all such matters are final.

Essays will be judged on knowledge and understanding of the relevant material, the competent use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force. The very best essays are likely to be those which would be capable of changing somebody's mind. Essays which ignore or fail to address the strongest objections and counter-arguments are unlikely to be successful .

Candidates are advised to answer the question as precisely and directly as possible.

The writers of the best essays will receive a commendation and be shortlisted for a prize. Writers of shortlisted essays will be notified by 11.59 pm BST on Wednesday, 31 July. They will also be invited to London for an invitation-only academic conference and awards dinner in September, where the prize-winners will be announced. Unlike the competition itself, the academic conference and awards dinner are not free. Please be aware that n obody is required to attend either the academic conference or the prize ceremony. You can win a prize without travelling to London.

All short-listed candidates, including prize-winners, will be able to download eCertificates that acknowledge their achievement. If you win First, Second or Third Prize, and you travel to London for the ceremony, you will receive a signed certificate. 

There is a prize for the best essay in each category. The prize for each winner of a subject category, and the winner of the Junior category, is a scholarship worth US$2000 towards the cost of attending any John Locke Institute programme, and the essays will be published on the Institute's website. Prize-giving ceremonies will take place in London, at which winners and runners-up will be able to meet some of the judges and other faculty members of the John Locke Institute. Family, friends, and teachers are also welcome.

The candidate who submits the best essay overall will be awarded an honorary John Locke Institute Junior Fellowship, which comes with a US$10,000 scholarship to attend one or more of our summer schools and/or visiting scholars programmes. 

The judges' decisions are final, and no correspondence will be entered into.

R egistration opens: 1 April, 2024.

Registration deadline: 31 May, 2024. (Registration is required by this date for subsequent submission.)

Submission deadline: 30 June, 2024.

Late entry deadline: 10 July, 2024. (Late entries are subject to a 20.00 USD charge, payable by 1 July.)

Notification of short-listed essayists: 31 July, 2024.

Academic conference: 20 - 22 September, 2024.

Awards dinner: 21 September, 2024.

Any queries regarding the essay competition should be sent to [email protected] . Please be aware that, due to the large volume of correspondence we receive, we cannot guarantee to answer every query. In particular, regrettably, we are unable to respond to questions whose answers can be found on our website.

If you would like to receive helpful tips  from our examiners about what makes for a winning essay or reminders of upcoming key dates for the 2024  essay competition, please provide your email here to be added to our contact list. .

Thanks for subscribing!

The John Locke Institute's Global Essay Prize is acknowledged as the world's most prestigious essay competition. 

We welcome tens of thousands of submissions from ambitious students in more than 150 countries, and our examiners - including distinguished philosophers, political scientists, economists, historians, psychologists, theologians, and legal scholars - read and carefully assess every entry. 

I encourage you to register for this competition, not only for the hope of winning a prize or commendation, and not only for the chance to join the very best contestants at our academic conference and gala ceremony in London, but equally for the opportunity to engage in the serious scholarly enterprise of researching, reflecting on, writing about, and editing an answer to one of the important and provocative questions in this year's Global Essay Prize. 

We believe that the skills you will acquire in the process will make you a better thinker and a more effective advocate for the ideas that matter most to you.

I hope to see you in September!

Best wishes,

Jamie Whyte, Ph.D. (C ANTAB ) 

Chairman of Examiners

Entries Open For 2024 Bishop Mike Okonkwo National EssayCompetition

O rganisers of the annual Bishop Mike Okonkwo National Essay competition, on Tuesday, announced the commencement of entries for the 2024 edition of the competition.

The 2023 edition of the competition was won by Destiny Ike of Vik International School, Akere, Alagbado, Ogun State while Chibuzor Alexander of Archbishop Heerey Technical College, Ogidi, Anambra State came second.

A statement signed by Rev. (Mrs.) Oluwayomi Uteh, Corporate Services Director, stated that registration for the competition will commence on April 8 and end on June 15, 2024.

The theme for the 2024 edition is “Nigeria’s Pathways: Diagnosis and The Prescriptions”.

“For participation in the 19th Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition for secondary school students, the entry requirements include an essay of a maximum of 2000 words, a passport photograph of the student, full name, address, contact telephone number, class, school and name and the telephone contact of the principal.

“All Essay should be submitted in Word document format via email to [email protected]

“For this year, the star winner will go home with Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000.00) cash price, a trophy, and a plaque while the school gets a desktop computer.

The first runner-up gets a cash prize of N250,000.00 with a plaque, while the school gets a desktop computer.

“The second runner-up gets an N100,000.00 cash prize and a plaque, while the school gets a desktop computer,” the statement added.

The competition is one of Dr. Mike Okonkwo’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities aimed at raising the standard in the educational sector in the country and at the same time sensitising the students by making them analytically minded to excel in their world by developing their ability to think through issues.

Also, the competition is lined up as part of the activities to mark the 79th Birthday of Dr. Mike Okonkwo, the Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM).

Over the years, the competition has been very successful in reshaping the students’ thought patterns and helping them develop problem-solving skills.

The Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition spans over a decade of developing and rewarding the writing skills of Nigerian youths towards national development.

The prizes for this year’s competition will be presented to the winners at the 23rd Mike Okonkwo Annual Lecture, which has been scheduled for Thursday, September 5th, 2024, at the Muson Centre (Shell Hall) by 10.00 a.m.

Dr. Mike Okonkwo is the Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), a.k.a. Power in the Word, with over 200 branches in Nigeria and across the globe. He is an Apostle to this generation whose life has impacted millions around the world.

A father to many and a pastor to pastors across the globe, Dr Mike Okonkwo is also a dynamic conference speaker, crusade evangelist, a national spokesman for Nigeria, and an advocate of balanced Christianity.

As the host of ‘Power in the Word,’ a life-transforming television broadcast series, Dr. Okonkwo’s Holy Spirit-inspired insight into the Word of God is remarkably outstanding and empowers people in Nigeria and across the globe.

He also hosts ‘Power for the Wise, ‘ a daily devotional program on the radio that transforms lives daily.

He is also an author whose books have been life-transforming tools in the hands of those who have been privileged to come in contact with them.

Dr. Mike Okonkwo holds several Doctorate and honorary awards. He is the Convener of the Communion of Covenant Ministers International (CCMI), a gathering of Pastors designed for Fellowship, Spiritual Covering, Mentoring, Strengthening, and Networking, through conferences, seminars and other interactive sessions.

He is a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria.

He is a man driven by the passion to show the love of God to humanity in every way the Lord enables him.

This passion gave birth to the Empowerment for the Less Privileged Foundation, a non-governmental organisation committed to alleviating the plight of the less privileged in society through donations to hospitals, the establishment of free vocational training centres, running free preparatory schools for students in secondary schools, and facilitating regular public enlightenment campaigns on health issues amongst others.

He also pioneers a scholarship fund for talented students. His strong faith and confidence in women and the potential in women gave him a place on the board of Trustees of the Women of Global Impact (WGI) a non-governmental organization putting smiles on the faces of women by providing Shelter to the homeless and also organizing free medical fair for both men and women across the nation amongst other things.

To contribute his quota to national development, he started the Mike Okonkwo Annual Lecture in 2000.

The lecture has grown to become a major contributor to government policies as it brings together seasoned men and women to discuss burning national issues.

Also, to encourage the writing skills of secondary school children and help them become solution providers to the nation, the Mike Okonkwo Essay Competition was born. Today, the topic for the essay is also the topic for the annual lecture.

In 2012, the Federal Government honoured him with the National Honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (MFR).

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Discover Economics launches 2024 Young Economist of the Year Competition

• March 25, 2024

Discover Economics  has launched the Royal Economic Society “Young Economist of the Year” competition sponsored by KPMG; an amazing opportunity for young people in years 10 – 13 (or equivalent) to consider real-world economic problems, and get the chance to be published in the Financial Times.

The Young Economics of the Year Competition is our annual student-based competition, to encourage students to think about current economic issues and promote the study of economic science.

Students can choose from a list of topics provided. Students do not need to be studying economics to be able to enter this competition. We welcome entries from any students who are interested in economic issues and would like to share original ideas or perspectives on these issues.

For more information, click here . More information about the past winners may be found here .

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SJMC students win 11 VIM Fest Awards

Students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications garnered 11 awards at the AEJMC Festival of Visual & Interactive Media or “VIM Fest” awards on March 13, 2024.

The competition was created by the Visual Communication Division as an opportunity to have creative research and student work vetted in a blind-juried, peer-reviewed international competition. 

“We were excited to see the level of interest and caliber of the student entries,” said VIM Fest contest chairman Ross Taylor.  “The judges and reviewers had a lot of positive comments and were impressed by the level of work by the winners.”

Honors for the SJMC students included a sweep in the single image photojournalism category, a Gold award in the overall photography category, and multiple awards among video animation, general design, and interactive and motion design categories.

“I’m especially excited about the interactive winners because this is a course that we really haven’t won many awards for,” said SJMC instructor Jason Porter. “It’s really wonderful to see the students succeed there.”

SJMC Winners

Be sure and check out their winning work in the galleries on this page.

Meredith Joyner

Gold Award - Overall Photography Award from single and photo essay entries for photojournalism essay “Choosing Home”

Faculty Mentor: Renée Ittner-McManus

Jacob Zambrano​

First Place - Single Image Photojournalism Category for “Carla Vaca Pinacho”

Faculty Mentor: Jason Porter

Katherine Taylor

Silver Award - Single Image Photojournalism Category for “Fair Shock”

Mary Clare Kreutner

Bronze Award - Single Image Photojournalism Category for “Knuckles”

Thomas Cochran

Honorable Mention - Single Image Photojournalism Category for “Maverick”

Clay Laucella

Bronze Award - General Design Category for “Infographic: The Digital Daze”

Faculty Mentor: Scott Farrand

Zoe Kennedy

Silver Award - Interactive and Motion Design Category for “The Underdog”

Madison Thompson

Bronze Award - Interactive and Motion Design Category for “Wanderly”

Faculty Mentor: Jason Porter

Honorable Mention Award - Interactive and Motion Design Category  for “Shoetopia”

First Place - Video Animation Category for "Watermelon Law"

Desiree Solenberger

Anna Ottinger

Silver Award - Video Animation Category for “How to Duel”

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