Deadline: February 1, 2024
Applications are open for the St. Gallen Symposium Global Essay Competition 2024. Compete in the 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.
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.
Prize
- Win prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst the three winners.
Eligibility
- Be 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.
Selection Criteria
For your contribution to be valid, the following criteria must be met:
- Be in Essay form (max. 2,100 words, excl. abstract, bibliography, and footnotes)
- Your name, e-mail address, university, or any identifying details must not be mentioned anywhere in the contribution file.
- Individual work expected, no group work allowed. The essay must be written exclusively for this contest. The idea must be the author’s own.
- All sources must be cited and referred to the respective part in the essay. All contributions will be tested for plagiarism.
- Acceptable language is English.
Application
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 February 1, 2023 (download sample document here).
- Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself.
For more information, visit Global Essay Competition.
