St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition for Graduate Students

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. The theme of the 53rd St. Gallen Symposium is : “Confronting Scarcity”

The ISC will verify your eligibility and check all submitted documents for completeness and readability. If the jury selects your essay in the top 100, you qualify as a Leader of Tomorrow for an expense-paid participation in the 53nd St. Gallen Symposium. The results will be announced via e-mail. The jury selects the three awardees based on the quality of the idea on paper. The award is endowed with a total prize money of CHF 20,000. In addition, there will be a chance for the very best competitors (including the awardees) to present their ideas on the big stage at the symposium. For this, the students will be asked to pitch their idea on video beforehand.

Programme Details

• Event: The St Gallen Symposium’s Essay Competition, Switzerland.
• Essay Question : Striving for more or thriving with less – What pressing scarcity do you see, and how do you suggest to tackle it?
• Number of Awards: 3 winners and 100 Leaders of Tomorrow (for the top 100 essays).
• Date: 2–3 May 2024.
• Target group: Open to all nationalities.

St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition Benefits

The St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition provides successful applicants with the followings:

1. Prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst winners.
2. Flights or train tickets and shuttle service from and to the airport are provided.
3. All Leaders of Tomorrow also receive a free ticket for the public transport in St Gallen during the week of the symposium.
4. Meet 300 of the world’s brightest young minds.
5. Present and debate your ideas with 600 senior leaders.
6. Be inspired by some of the world’s most impressive speakers.
7. Gain a unique and new perspective on this year’s topic.

St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition Eligibility

To be eligible for a St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition, an applicant must:

• Enrolled in a graduate or postgraduate program (master level or higher) in any field of study at a regular university
• Born in 1994 or later
• The maximum amount of words is 2,100 (excluding bibliography or graph descriptions and the like).
• Your name must not be mentioned anywhere in the contribution file.

Other opportunities

1. Top 15 Scholarships to Study in Europe;
2. Top 12 scholarships to study in Canada;
3. Top 10 Government Scholarships.

Application instructions

Interested applicants in this Europe opportunity must click on the apply button below, create an account and follow instructions to submit an application. In addition, make sure you can provide the following documents:

1. Copy of passport or other identification (in English for non-Roman languages).
2. Confirmation of matriculation/enrolment from your university which proves your enrollment in a graduate/postgraduate level programme as of 1 February 2024 (download sample document here).
3. Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself.

For your contribution to be valid, the following criteria must be met

• Form : Essay (max. 2,100 words, excl. abstract, bibliography, and footnotes)
• Language : English
• Deadline : 1 February 2024, 11:59 p.m. last time zone (UTC-12)
• Anonymity : Your name, e-mail address, university, or any identifying details must not be mentioned anywhere in the contribution file.
• Individuality : Individual work expected, no group work allowed. The essay must be written exclusively for this contest. The idea must be the author’s own.
• Citation : All sources must be cited and referred to the respective part in the essay. All contributions will be tested for plagiarism.
• Template : Click here to download the Template for the Global Essay Competition.

The deadline to submit applications is February 1, 2024. For more details on the St Gallen Symposium Essay Competition, please visit the official page. To be the first to see latest opportunities, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.