Call for abstracts for student-led Best Idea 2021 Competition

See the call for abstracts here: www.cesaer.org...
Visit the Guide for applicants: www.cesaer.org...
Register for the online launch workshop on 15 October from 13:30 to 15:00: www.cesaer.org...
Are you, or do you know, a student or PhD candidate with a brilliant idea for how science and technology can help revolutionise our society’s efforts towards sustainability?
Then our Best Idea 2021 Competition is your opportunity to enter a team and benefit from unrivalled access and support from over 50 leading universities of science and technology across Europe, with the potential to win a cash prize of €20,000!
We are especially looking for concepts that have emerged (bottom-up) from student-led teams already collaborating around well identified scientific and societal needs and goals. Such a concept can originate from completely novel approaches to answer scientific questions or to respond to the need of specific stakeholders in society.
Diversity in teams, ideas and how you approach the competition is highly encouraged! To accommodate this, the competition is flexible and the evaluation and assessment will be carried out in two stages by an independent and diverse expert panel.
A Guide for Applicants containing all the information that you or your students need to apply can be found on this page. We encourage you to forward the details of the competition to students and PhD candidates at your institution.
Students are invited to register for the online information workshop which takes place on 15 October from 13:30 to 15:00, presenting the competition and providing an opportunity for potential entrants to ask questions to the organisers.
How to enter?
The students from our Members are encouraged to motivate inter-institutional, inter- and transdisciplinary and vertically integrated teams to enter this competition. The abstracts and the designed ideas will be evaluated along three dimensions:
Scientific excellence
Impact and outreach
Management and implementation
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 January 2021.
An independent Evaluation Panel will evaluate the abstracts and the successful teams will be invited to pursue their ideas under the guidance of the Workgroup Best Idea 2021 until summer 2021. During spring and summer 2021, the selected teams will be invited to contribute to a joint conference on this topic hosted by the Royal Academy of Engineering in London and to contribute to white papers on ´linking SSH and STEM´ and on ‘contribution to sustainability’.
By summer 2021, the selected teams must decide whether they wish to undergo a second assessment. The Evaluation Panel will assess the designed ideas, identify the excellent and mature ones and these teams will be invited to present their ideas to the CESAER Annual Meetings (CAM) in October 2021 in Lund (Sweden). A winner will be announced and obtain the prize Best Idea 2021 worth €20,000. Our association will provide support and guidance in showcasing these ideas.
The Competition Best Idea 2021 is a flagship event of CESAER as we celebrate the landmark of our association’s thirtieth anniversary year from October 2020 to October 2021.
In this video, Marc Zolver, Vice-President for International Affairs, CentraleSupelec, Université Paris-Saclay launches the call for abstracts and provides an overview of the competition.