The Geneva Challenge is a project funded by Swiss Ambassador Jenö Staehelin and supported by the late Kofi Annan, who was the contest’s high-patron. This international competition for master students aims to stimulate interdisciplinary problem solving and analysis. Open to teams of three to five students from all academic programmes and from anywhere in the world, the theme for the 2020 contest is “The Challenges of Social Inclusion”.

While significant advances have been made in reducing extreme poverty around the world, more efforts are needed to tackle social inclusiveness. Overall, social inclusion matters concern a multitude of groups and have a strategic impact on the social cohesion, human development, productivity, economic growth and long-run development of countries and regions around the world. Therefore, a call for innovative and cross-cutting proposals accounting for the context and the multitude of potential actors involved is critical. 

"We are very excited that this year’s contest addresses the challenges of social inclusion" said Martina Viarengo, Chair of the Academic Steering Committee of the Geneva Challenge. "Many advanced and emerging economies around the world are experiencing increasing levels of inequalities. In this regard, social inclusion is a pressing issue, which is at the core of the current academic, political, and policy debates. The complexity and multidimensional nature of social exclusion call for an interdisciplinary response. We are looking forward to receiving the student teams’ project proposals".

For the Geneva Challenge 2019, 346 teams composed of 1,364 graduate students from 101 different countries registered to take part. Building on this success, we invite students and their teams from around the world to register before 23 March 2020. 

Five finalist teams, one per continent, will be invited (travel and accommodation expenses covered) to give an oral presentation of their projects before a panel of high-level experts at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. The winning project will be awarded CHF 10,000, the two teams in second place will receive CHF 5,000 and the two teams in third place, CHF 2,500.

Further information on The Geneva Challenge 2020.