Graduate Institute’s Geneva Challenge 2024 For Graduate Students Worldwide

Published: 04 Mar 2024 1,006 views

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 Master students.

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 three to five enrolled master students from anywhere in the world.

Five prizes will be distributed; one in each of the following categories (based on the UN Statistics list):

• Universities located in Africa
• Universities located in Asia
• Universities located in Europe
• Universities located in North America and Oceania
• Universities located in Latin America

GIG Geneva Challenge

Application Deadline	April 22, 2024
Value	25,000 CHF
Type	Graduate Programme
Sponsor	Graduate Institute of Geneva
Gender	Men and Women

Benefits of GIG Geneva Challenge

The ADG contest distributes 25,000 CHF in monetary prizes. The winning project will be awarded CHF 10,000; the two teams in second place will receive CHF 5,000 each and the two teams in third place, CHF 2,500 each.

Requirements for GIG Geneva Challenge

• Participants must be enrolled as graduate students at the time of their registration for the contest.
• They must gather in teams of 3 (three) to 5 (five) graduate students. In the submitted analysis, they should contribute with an interdisciplinary approach or from at least 2 (two) different disciplinary perspectives.
• Projects will have a maximum length of 8000 (eight thousand) words excluding all notes, graphics and references 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.

Selection Process

Submissions are evaluated by an interdisciplinary academic steering committee that will select three submissions per category to be published on the competition's website and then reviewed by an independent jury of experts with academic, governmental and private sector backgrounds.

Five finalist teams, one team per continent, will be invited to an oral presentation in Geneva, where they will defend their ideas and answer questions from the jury and the public. The finalists will also be invited to an awards ceremony where the contest results will be announced, preceded by a high-level keynote speech. 

Application Deadline

April 22, 2024

How to Apply

Interested and qualified? Go to Graduate Institute of Geneva on www.graduateinstitute.ch to apply