Eager to stimulate reflection and innovation on development from diverse disciplinary and contextual perspectives and with the generous support of Ambassador Jenö Staehelin, the Graduate Institute has launched in 2014 the Advancing Development Goals Contest, an international competition for graduate students.
The Challenge
The idea is to gather contributions that are both theoretically grounded and offer pragmatic solutions to a relevant international development problem stemming from an interdisciplinary collaboration between 3 to 5 enrolled master students from anywhere in the world.
We invite teams of students to:
- identify a challenge stemming from employment;
- construct an interdisciplinary analysis on how it affects different aspects of development in a specific (but transposable) context;
- propose innovation at the policy, practice, process or technology levels turning the challenge into development opportunity.
Selection Process
Your submissions will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary academic steering committee who will select semi-finalists to be published on the competitions website and then reviewed by an independent jury of experts with academic, governmental and private sector backgrounds.
Three finalist teams will be invited (traveling and accommodation expenses covered) to an oral presentation in Geneva, where they will defend their ideas and answer questions from the jury and from the public. The finalists will also be present at an awards ceremony where the results of the contest will be announced preceded by a high-level key-note speech on the challenges of employment.
Prizes
The ADG contest distributes 17,500 CHF in monetary prizes. The winning project is awarded 10,000 CHF, the second prize receives 5,000 CHF and the third, 2,500 CHF.
Submission Requirements
- Submissions must be sent by email to: geneva.challenge-at-graduateinstitute.ch before midnight 12 am, on 31st July 2017 Central Europe Time (CET).
- Entries will have a maximum length of 8000 (eight thousand) words excluding all notes, graphics and references as well as short biographies of each team member and must be written in English or French.
- The submissions will combine theoretical analyses, creativity, critical thinking on technical assistance, capacity building and on the agency of development.
- Entries must be original. All long listed works will go through a background check before being forwarded to the Jury members as semi finalists of the ADG contest 2017.