Deadline: December 8, 2020
Applications are open for the British Council COVID-19 Students’ Policy Challenge 2020. The British Council is calling for policy ideas from all bright minds among undergraduate and graduate students to address challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to getting a chance to have a go at solving some of the most pressing issues the world is faced with today, the contest will be an opportunity for networking with brilliant students from across the country and for winning an online course at universities in the United Kingdom.
About the COVID-19 Students’ Policy Challenge
The COVID-19 Policy Challenge is a students’ contest dedicated to designing policy proposals that aim to solve today’s most pressing challenges. Participants of the contest are invited to submit policy briefs in response to one of the challenge prompts. Top five individuals/teams will advance to the online final where they will have three minutes to pitch their ideas to a panel consisting of policymakers, NGOs leaders and donor representatives. The online event will be held in second half of January 2021.
Challenge Prompts
The challenge prompts are overarching thematic areas among which participants will have to pick the specific problem at local or national level, or in universities and hospitals, and try to solve it through their policy proposals. The challenge prompts for this contest are as follows:
- Challenge #1: How to respond to and recover from COVID-19 by strengthening social justice and protecting the most vulnerable.
- Challenge #2: How to respond to and recover from COVID-19 in a manner that helps building resilience to climate change.
Benefits
Benefits of participating in a competition include, but are not limited to the following:
- having an opportunity to win online courses. First-place winners will receive a voucher of GBP 1,500 for courses at universities in the United Kingdom, while second place winners will receive voucher of GBP 1,000.
- having your proposal published in the British Council online collection of all finalists’ policy briefs.
- networking with other students with diverse academic backgrounds.
- developing critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills.
Eligibility
- Open to all students currently enrolled in a bachelor’s or master’s degree program at all Universities in Serbia (public and private).
- Students must be between 18-30 years old as of the original submission deadline.
- The contest is open for both individuals and teams of up to 3 members. Multidisciplinary teams gathering students from different of study are strongly encouraged to apply. Individual applications and team applications will be treated equally, as well as applications from applicants from one field of study and from different fields of study (which thy encourage).
Application
Study carefully detailed instructions for the contest, as well as application form, and send your submission, together with basic information about your team members, by 8 December via email.
For more information, visit British Council.