The special category for “International Collaboration” is open to individuals or groups of students in countries running the YRE programme who decide to collaborate and exchange information with students in other countries. Together they may prepare one joint Article, Photo Story of 3-5 photos, or Video that will be submitted to the competition as a collaborative effort. Submissions must show significant collaboration between both/all partners countries.
Entries for International Collaboration will be submitted directly to the International Jury through the National Operator in one of the collaborating countries. If the submission wins, schools from both/all countries will be awarded.
Pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change are this year’s recommended themesfor International Collaboration. Participants are encouraged to link these issues to any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but an environmental lens is always required.
It is strongly recommended to learn about the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) through the UN website. The educational tool www.thegoals.org is also a great platform for students to learn about the SDGs. The platform provides courses on each goal. It is highly recommended to go through the course before creating the competition entry.
The submission must be in the form of an “Article”, a “Photo Story of 3-5 photos” or a “Video”, and be a collaborative work between two or more countries.
The International Collaboration category is open to youth aged 11-14, 15-18, 19-25 participating through their school/university. It is the participant's age on the day they submit their entry to the National Competition that must be given and defines which age category they enter. Because this is a project for a group of students, we require the group submit their entry in the age category of the oldest group member.
The participation and submission requirements as well as the assessment criteria of the International Collaboration category are the same as for the categories of article, photo story and video in the YRE International Competition.
The element of ”international collaboration” must always be clear and significant. This means that the entry must include relevant information/data/footage/photos from both/all countries.
We highly recommend that partners work together for at least 2-3 months through scheduled at min. 5-10 meetings that include discussion on the idea for the project, planning of tasks update on progress, discussion on learnings and findings, ideas for stakeholders interviews, discussion on possible solutions, etc.
Articles and videos should have an introduction that explains how the participants jointly collaborated on the topic.
Students may wish to make a comparison of a topic across different countries, but may also look at processes, e.g., cause-effect, start-end, production-consumption. For example, the production of something in one country may allow consumption in another, which produces waste in yet another.
We highly recommend that someone uninvolved in the article, video or photo story proofread the submission to ensure that there is a clear and comprehensive story being told.
Make the distance an advantage instead of a problem! Students have the opportunity to learn a lot by working with students from other countries and to create a unique entry.