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Discourse, debate, and analysis

Cambridge re:think essay competition 2024.

Competition Opens: 15th January, 2024

Essay Submission Deadline: 10th May, 2024 Result Announcement: 20th June, 2024 Award Ceremony and Dinner at the University of Cambridge: 30th July, 2024

We welcome talented high school students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Entry to the competition is free.

About the Competition

The spirit of the Re:think essay competition is to encourage critical thinking and exploration of a wide range of thought-provoking and often controversial topics. The competition covers a diverse array of subjects, from historical and present issues to speculative future scenarios. Participants are invited to engage deeply with these topics, critically analysing their various facets and implications. It promotes intellectual exploration and encourages participants to challenge established norms and beliefs, presenting opportunities to envision alternative futures, consider the consequences of new technologies, and reevaluate longstanding traditions. 

Ultimately, our aim is to create a platform for students and scholars to share their perspectives on pressing issues of the past and future, with the hope of broadening our collective understanding and generating innovative solutions to contemporary challenges. This year’s competition aims to underscore the importance of discourse, debate, and critical analysis in addressing complex societal issues in nine areas, including:

Religion and Politics

Political science and law, linguistics, environment, sociology and philosophy, business and investment, public health and sustainability, biotechonology.

Artificial Intelligence 

Neuroengineering

2024 essay prompts.

This year, the essay prompts are contributed by distinguished professors from Harvard, Brown, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT.

Essay Guidelines and Judging Criteria

Review general guidelines, format guidelines, eligibility, judging criteria.

Awards and Award Ceremony

Award winners will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony and Dinner hosted at the King’s College, University of Cambridge. The Dinner is free of charge for select award recipients.

Registration and Submission

Register a participant account today and submit your essay before the deadline.

Advisory Committee and Judging Panel

The Cambridge Re:think Essay Competition is guided by an esteemed Advisory Committee comprising distinguished academics and experts from elite universities worldwide. These committee members, drawn from prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT, bring diverse expertise in various disciplines.

They play a pivotal role in shaping the competition, contributing their insights to curate the themes and framework. Their collective knowledge and scholarly guidance ensure the competition’s relevance, academic rigour, and intellectual depth, setting the stage for aspiring minds to engage with thought-provoking topics and ideas.

We are honoured to invite the following distinguished professors to contribute to this year’s competition.

The judging panel of the competition comprises leading researchers and professors from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford, engaging in a strictly double blind review process.

Keynote Speeches by 10 Nobel Laureates

We are beyond excited to announce that multiple Nobel laureates have confirmed to attend and speak at this year’s ceremony on 30th July, 2024 .

They will each be delivering a keynote speech to the attendees. Some of them distinguished speakers will speak virtually, while others will attend and present in person and attend the Reception at Cambridge.

Why has religion remained a force in a secular world? 

Professor Commentary:

Arguably, the developed world has become more secular in the last century or so. The influence of Christianity, e.g. has diminished and people’s life worlds are less shaped by faith and allegiance to Churches. Conversely, arguments have persisted that hold that we live in a post-secular world. After all, religion – be it in terms of faith, transcendence, or meaning – may be seen as an alternative to a disenchanted world ruled by entirely profane criteria such as economic rationality, progressivism, or science. Is the revival of religion a pale reminder of a by-gone past or does it provide sources of hope for the future?

‘Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Jürgen Habermas (European Journal of Philosophy, 2006)

In this paper, philosopher Jürgen Habermas discusses the limits of church-state separation, emphasizing the significant contribution of religion to public discourse when translated into publicly accessible reasons.

‘Public Religions in the Modern World’ by José Casanova (University Of Chicago Press, 1994)

Sociologist José Casanova explores the global emergence of public religion, analyzing case studies from Catholicism and Protestantism in Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the USA, challenging traditional theories of secularization.

‘The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West (Edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Columbia University Press, 2011)

This collection features dialogues by prominent intellectuals on the role of religion in the public sphere, examining various approaches and their impacts on cultural, social, and political debates.

‘Rethinking Secularism’ by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Oxford University Press, 2011)

An interdisciplinary examination of secularism, this book challenges traditional views, highlighting the complex relationship between religion and secularism in contemporary global politics.

‘God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World’ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin, 2010)

Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue for the coexistence of religion and modernity, suggesting that religious beliefs can contribute to a more open, tolerant, and peaceful modern world.

‘Multiculturalism’ by Tariq Modood (Polity Press, 2013)

Sociologist Tariq Modood emphasizes the importance of multiculturalism in integrating diverse identities, particularly in post-immigration contexts, and its role in shaping democratic citizenship.

‘God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England’ by Matthew Engelke (University of California Press, 2013)

In this ethnographic study, Matthew Engelke explores how a group in England seeks to expand the role of religion in the public sphere, challenging perceptions of religion in post-secular England.

Gene therapy is a medical approach that treats or prevents disease by correcting the underlying genetic problem. Is gene therapy better than traditional medicines? What are the pros and cons of using gene therapy as a medicine? Is gene therapy justifiable?

Especially after Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, gene therapy is getting more and more interesting approach to cure. That’s why that could be interesting to think about. I believe that students will enjoy and learn a lot while they are investigating this topic.

The Hall at King’s College, Cambridge

The Hall was designed by William Wilkins in the 1820s and is considered one of the most magnificent halls of its era. The first High Table dinner in the Hall was held in February 1828, and ever since then, the splendid Hall has been where members of the college eat and where formal dinners have been held for centuries.

The Award Ceremony and Dinner will be held in the Hall in the evening of  30th July, 2024.

Stretching out down to the River Cam, the Back Lawn has one of the most iconic backdrop of King’s College Chapel. 

The early evening reception will be hosted on the Back Lawn with the iconic Chapel in the background (weather permitting). 

King’s College Chapel

With construction started in 1446 by Henry VI and took over a century to build, King’s College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and is a splendid example of late Gothic architecture. 

Attendees are also granted complimentary access to the King’s College Chapel before and during the event. 

Confirmed Nobel Laureates

Dr Thomas R. Cech

The nobel prize in chemistry 1989 , for the discovery of catalytic properties of rna.

Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but also that it can speed up the necessary reactions.

He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.

As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado

Sir Richard J. Roberts

The nobel prize in medicine 1993 .

F or the discovery of split genes

During 1969–1972, Sir Richard J. Roberts did postdoctoral research at Harvard University before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was hired by James Dewey Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a fellow Nobel laureate. In this period he also visited the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology for the first time, working alongside Fred Sanger. In 1977, he published his discovery of RNA splicing. In 1992, he moved to New England Biolabs. The following year, he shared a Nobel Prize with his former colleague at Cold Spring Harbor Phillip Allen Sharp.

His discovery of the alternative splicing of genes, in particular, has had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology. The realisation that individual genes could exist as separate, disconnected segments within longer strands of DNA first arose in his 1977 study of adenovirus, one of the viruses responsible for causing the common cold. Robert’s research in this field resulted in a fundamental shift in our understanding of genetics, and has led to the discovery of split genes in higher organisms, including human beings.

Dr Aaron Ciechanover

The nobel prize in chemistry 2004 .

F or the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

Aaron Ciechanover is one of Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science, earning his Nobel Prize in 2004 for his work in ubiquitination. He is honored for playing a central role in the history of Israel and in the history of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr Ciechanover is currently a Technion Distinguished Research Professor in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Russian Academy of Sciences and is a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he was a visiting Distinguished Chair Professor at NCKU, Taiwan. As part of Shenzhen’s 13th Five-Year Plan funding research in emerging technologies and opening “Nobel laureate research labs”, in 2018 he opened the Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus.

Dr Robert Lefkowitz

The nobel prize in chemistry 2012 .

F or the discovery of G protein-coupled receptors

Robert Joseph Lefkowitz is an American physician (internist and cardiologist) and biochemist. He is best known for his discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family G protein-coupled receptors, for which he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Brian Kobilka. He is currently an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University.

Dr Lefkowitz made a remarkable contribution in the mid-1980s when he and his colleagues cloned the gene first for the β-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This led to the seminal discovery that all GPCRs (which include the β-adrenergic receptor) have a very similar molecular structure. The structure is defined by an amino acid sequence which weaves its way back and forth across the plasma membrane seven times. Today we know that about 1,000 receptors in the human body belong to this same family. The importance of this is that all of these receptors use the same basic mechanisms so that pharmaceutical researchers now understand how to effectively target the largest receptor family in the human body. Today, as many as 30 to 50 percent of all prescription drugs are designed to “fit” like keys into the similarly structured locks of Dr Lefkowitz’ receptors—everything from anti-histamines to ulcer drugs to beta blockers that help relieve hypertension, angina and coronary disease.

Dr Lefkowitz is among the most highly cited researchers in the fields of biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical medicine according to Thomson-ISI.

Dr Joachim Frank

The nobel prize in chemistry 2017 .

F or developing cryo-electron microscopy

Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate. He is regarded as the founder of single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. He also made significant contributions to structure and function of the ribosome from bacteria and eukaryotes.

In 1975, Dr Frank was offered a position of senior research scientist in the Division of Laboratories and Research (now Wadsworth Center), New York State Department of Health,where he started working on single-particle approaches in electron microscopy. In 1985 he was appointed associate and then (1986) full professor at the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University at Albany, State University of New York. In 1987 and 1994, he went on sabbaticals in Europe, one to work with Richard Henderson, Laboratory of Molecular Biology Medical Research Council in Cambridge and the other as a Humboldt Research Award winner with Kenneth C. Holmes, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1998, Dr Frank was appointed investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Since 2003 he was also lecturer at Columbia University, and he joined Columbia University in 2008 as professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of biological sciences.

Dr Barry C. Barish

The nobel prize in physics 2017 .

For the decisive contributions to the detection of gravitational waves

Dr Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

In 2017, Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”. He said, “I didn’t know if I would succeed. I was afraid I would fail, but because I tried, I had a breakthrough.”

In 2018, he joined the faculty at University of California, Riverside, becoming the university’s second Nobel Prize winner on the faculty.

In the fall of 2023, he joined Stony Brook University as the inaugural President’s Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics.

In 2023, Dr Barish was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Biden in a White House ceremony.

Dr Harvey J. Alter

The nobel prize in medicine 2020 .

For the discovery of Hepatitis C virus

Dr Harvey J. Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called “non-A, non-B hepatitis” caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice.

Dr Alter has received recognition for the research leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award conferred to civilians in United States government public health service, and the 2000 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Dr Ardem Patapoutian

The nobel prize in medicine 2021 .

For discovering how pressure is translated into nerve impulses

Dr Ardem Patapoutian is an Lebanese-American molecular biologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel Prize laureate of Armenian descent. He is known for his work in characterising the PIEZO1, PIEZO2, and TRPM8 receptors that detect pressure, menthol, and temperature. Dr Patapoutian is a neuroscience professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. In 2021, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I participate in the Re:think essay competition? 

The Re:think Essay competition is meant to serve as fertile ground for honing writing skills, fostering critical thinking, and refining communication abilities. Winning or participating in reputable contests can lead to recognition, awards, scholarships, or even publication opportunities, elevating your academic profile for college applications and future endeavours. Moreover, these competitions facilitate intellectual growth by encouraging exploration of diverse topics, while also providing networking opportunities and exposure to peers, educators, and professionals. Beyond accolades, they instil confidence, prepare for higher education demands, and often allow you to contribute meaningfully to societal conversations or causes, making an impact with your ideas.

Who is eligible to enter the Re:think essay competition?  

As long as you’re currently attending high school, regardless of your location or background, you’re eligible to participate. We welcome students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Is there any entry fee for the competition? 

There is no entry fee for the competition. Waiving the entry fee for our essay competition demonstrates CCIR’s dedication to equity. CCIR believes everyone should have an equal chance to participate and showcase their talents, regardless of financial circumstances. Removing this barrier ensures a diverse pool of participants and emphasises merit and creativity over economic capacity, fostering a fair and inclusive environment for all contributors.

Subscribe for Competition Updates

If you are interested to receive latest information and updates of this year’s competition, please sign up here.

Essay Competition: Win a 100% Scholarship With Immerse Education

Take part in the Immerse Education Essay Competition for your chance to win a full or partial scholarship to our university and career preparation programmes

12th September 2024: Submission Deadline

Competition Open

full scholarships Awarded each year

entries each year

Share Your Success

Scholarship Award Certificate PDFs For Winners

What is the Essay Competition?

The Immerse Education Essay Competition provides the opportunity for students aged 13-18 to submit essay responses to a question of their choice relating to a subject of interest. There are over twenty questions to choose from which can be found in our full Essay Competition Guide. 10 winners will receive a 100% scholarship to study with us at a world-leading university of their choosing. Outstanding runners-up also receive partial scholarships.

23rd February 2024

Competition opens

12th September 2024

Competition closes

17th October 2024

Results announced

January, July & August 2025

Programme dates

Who Can Apply?

• The Immerse Education Essay Competition is open to students worldwide of all nationalities. You must be aged between 13-18 during your chosen programme.

10 winners will receive a 100% scholarship. Take a look at previous essay competition winners.

Runners Up will be awarded partial scholarships of up to 50% to study their chosen subject with Immerse. The number of runners-up will be determined by the number of entries received and the quality of the work submitted. The next category of entrants who are not runner-ups receive partial scholarships worth up to 20%.

Our Guest Judges

Programmes our scholarship can be redeemed against, reviews and winners, what do our alumni say.

I loved the little conversations we had when a question about the topic turned into explanations of the ethical, personal and economic issues that surround medicine. Overall, I found my lessons very beneficial. I know so much more about medicine and its different subsets, but also about what a career in medicine really looks like.

Immerse alumni, and scholarship winner

I could see that the essay competition was an incredible opportunity for international students to win a scholarship purely based on merit. More importantly, after doing some more research, I realised that the process for choosing winners was incredibly fair, that everyone would get an equal chance regardless of their socio-economic background, race, nationality, gender, etc.

100% Scholarship Winner

I enrolled because I wanted to expand my knowledge of physics and meet other people with the same interests as myself. Both of which I was successful in doing! My favourite aspect of the programme was the small class sizes – this helped both the tutor and students with learning and understanding the subject.

Immerse was very fun as well as useful. You were able to experience what it would be like if you studied here for university. The most beneficial part of the course was being able to see what International Relations is like, and it helped me decide what I want to study in the future.

My school invited everyone to participate, and the further I read about Immerse Education, the more motivated I was to enter the competition. Not only did I have the chance to study a subject I love, I would also be able to expand on my essay skills since writing has always been a passion of mine.

I really wanted to go to medicine summer school this year, and so I literally was searching for summer school opportunities and Immerse is one that came up. Through this, I found out about the essay competition and I decided to submit an answer. Immerse was very helpful whilst I was writing my essay, especially with things like the referencing guide.

I’m 16, so I’ve never written an academic essay before, so it was really important that I actually knew what I was doing in the first place and it definitely helped me with that. The programme so far has been very enriching. It’s helped me understand more about medicine and made me realise that this is what I want to do in life. Meeting new friends, tutors, and the mentors, they’re all amazing. My favourite things on the programme have been the evening activities, like murder mystery night. I am so happy to be able to have seen people that are like minded, and competitive as well. I really think that the tutors and the mentors have all been very supportive of me.

Academic Insights, Medicine

Hear From a Previous Scholarship Winner

The Immerse Education Essay Competition is open to entries from young people aged 13-18 interested in all subjects, from Architecture to Medicine, Creative Writing to Film Studies. However, students aged 18 should only submit an essay if they will still be 18 when the programmes the scholarships are valid for begin.

To confirm, if participants are successful, they should be aged between 13 and 18 at the start of their programme.

This current round of the essay competition is valid for 2025 Immerse Education programmes.

Immerse provides a full essay-writing guide which is sent to your email address once you register your interest in the competition. This guide includes a full list of essay questions, our essay specification, top tips for writing an academic essay, referencing guidance, our terms and conditions and guidance on plagiarism! Registering interest also ensures that you’re on track to submitting your essay on time, through a series of helpful reminder prompts. To support further you can register for our  webinars , which offer top tips and guidance with essay writing from our experts. You are also welcome to explore our  creative writing resources .

Funded scholarship to study abroad:  Our essay competition offers students like you the chance to win a full or partial scholarship to one of our Online Programmes or residential programmes in locations such as Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, London and more.

Ongoing support from Immerse while you write:  Full support from our team as you write your essay, with free guides and top tips to help you along the way. Sign up to receive our full Essay competition Guide and free tips and tricks as you write. You can also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok to get more useful essay writing tips.

Demonstrate what you know:  The competition is a chance for you to demonstrate your content knowledge by answering advanced university-style questions.

Build your skills and knowledge:  The opportunity to apply and advance your essay writing skills. You will likely learn something new in the process!

Develop your self-discipline:  A chance to strengthen your self-discipline as you commit to a challenging project and complete it from start to finish.

If you win a scholarship via the Essay Competition 2024/2025 you can use it toward any residential course in any of our locations. Use your scholarship to enrol on one of our renowned online programmes* or enriching in-person/residential summer school programmes in cultural melting pots such as Cambridge, Oxford, London or Sydney and more. * Essay competition schorlaships cannot be redeemed against online Intensive programmes.

No, there is no entry fee and you do not need to have already enrolled onto any of our programmes to take part in the essay competition.

The deadline for all essay entries for the last round of the competition is 4th January 2024. The next deadline will most likely be on 12th September 2024.

Register to receive free Essay Competition guidance

The Immerse Education Essay Competition provides the opportunity for students aged 13-18 to submit essay responses to a pre-set question relating to their chosen subject. Register interest to receive your guide with the comprehensive list of questions including:

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• – Top Tips for Writing an Academic Essay
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Article Contents

Brain 2023 essay competition.

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Masud Husain, Brain 2023 essay competition, Brain , Volume 146, Issue 7, July 2023, Page 2657, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awad160

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The response to our inaugural essay competition last year was remarkable. The impressive quality of submissions and diversity of subjects considered by the authors—who included researchers, clinicians, patients, carers, as well as people who have no immediate link to neurology—was extraordinary. The thoughtful and sometimes moving nature of those essays have encouraged us to launch a new competition this year.

We seek writing that stimulates, provokes and makes our readers reflect. We emphasize that essays for Brain are NOT scientific articles. Nor are they academic pieces, but rather writing that provides a broader perspective on life for the general reader. Essays do NOT have to focus on neurological topics or the brain but they should make our readers reflect. They can be opinionated, entertaining or amusing, but most importantly, they should be enlightening, illuminating some aspect of the human condition, and written well.

The best submissions will be published in our Essay section, highlighted on Brain’s website and social media, and made freely available to all readers. Last year’s winning essay was published in the January 2023 issue of Brain, while the two runners-up had their submissions published in February and March of the journal.

What are we looking for in an essay? Aldous Huxley famously began the Preface to his Collected Essays (1960) with: ‘What is true of the novel is only a little less true for the essay. For, like the novel, the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything’. According to Huxley, essays often focus either on the personal or autobiographical; or the objective or factual; or the abstract and universal. ‘Most essayists are at home and at their best in the neighbourhood of only one.’ However, he concluded: ‘The most richly satisfying essays are those which make the best not of one, not of two, but of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist. Freely, effortlessly, thought and feeling move … from the personal to the universal, from the abstract back to the concrete, from the objective datum to the inner experience’.

We want an essay to be a coherent, carefully crafted piece of writing that aspires to achieve all these elements, providing an absorbing experience that stays with our readers long after they have enjoyed the text.

If you’re interested to submit an essay, or know someone who does, please read the following carefully :

This competition is open to anyone who would like to write an essay.

Essays have a limit of 2000 words. Please provide a word count at the end of the text.

Essays do not have an abstract but must have an introductory paragraph (∼100 words) to set the scene or summarize the contents for the reader.

Ideally, they don’t have subheadings but could have breaks within the text to divide up sections.

To reiterate, Essays are NOT scientific articles or academic texts. They do not have to cover neurological topics. They are supposed to stimulate, provoke and make our readers reflect.

If necessary, you can add up to 10 references, but Essays don’t have to have any references.

Please consider adding up to two images, ideally without copyright, to accompany your text.

Submit your text to the Brain pre-submission email address: [email protected]

Please DO NOT put your name, affiliation or any other information that can identify you anywhere on the text. Submissions will be judged by a panel that is blind to who you are or where you come from.

Only one submission per author is allowed.

All the information you need is provided here—if you read the text carefully. Please don’t send in further questions about the competition.

Deadline for submission: 15 October 2023.

We’re very much looking forward to reading your essays.

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Think Essay Prize

The Royal Institute of Philosophy is pleased to announce the inaugural essay competition for Think .

The winner will be published in an issue of Think , the shortlisted candidates will win a year’s free subscription to  Think , and other prizes will be awarded to all those who make the longlist.

About the prize 

We look forward to receiving your essay submission and hope you are enjoying the programmes and activities that the Royal Institute of Philosophy delivers.

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UCL reaches University Challenge final in bid to win first-ever title

8 April 2024

UCL will compete in the final of University Challenge this evening for the third time in its history as the team of four students looks to overcome Imperial College London to secure a first-ever competition victory.

The prestigious academic quiz show is in its 53rd series, with UCL reaching the final twice before in 2004-05 and 2012-13, falling just short on both occasions. Quizmaster Amol Rajan will present the programme tonight at 20:30 on BBC Two, having taken over from Jeremy Paxman who in 2023 bowed out from a 29-year stint as host.

UCL’s team consists of four talented individuals : team captain Tayana Sawh (fourth-year Medicine), James Hall (second-year Law), Ali Izzatdust (History MA), and Jacob Finlay (Master’s in Public Administration MPA). 

Each member brings a unique skillset and knowledge base that has helped them prevail over the likes of Manchester University, who beat UCL in the 2012-13 final, Hertford College of Oxford, and both Trinity and King’s College at Cambridge. This year, the team earned a spot in the final via the shortest route possible, boasting an average game score of 195 points.

In the quarter-final showdown with Trinity, UCL pulled off a remarkable comeback to clinch a 15-point victory despite trailing -10 to 95 at the halfway point. Amol Rajan described UCL’s performance as “one of the most impressive ever seen on the show”.

The semi-final against Manchester also proved to be a tense affair with both teams tied on 155 in the closing stages, but a UCL team inspired by Ali Izzatdust’s knowledge of mythical Greek figures featured in George Handel operas managed to open up a 45-point lead by the time the gong was struck.

This year’s final is a hotly contested London derby between UCL and its neighbour Imperial, which has the joint highest number of competition wins with four, alongside Manchester and Oxford’s Magdalen College. A win tonight would give Imperial the title of the most successful team in the programme’s history, for a year at least. 

Speaking to UCL student journalist Caroline Coyer last week , Jacob Finlay offered insight into how the UCL team dynamic works: "When you watch us, especially during our discussions, you'll notice our unique dynamic. Often, if Ali speaks up, it's because he's confident in his answer, and we'll all let Tayana take heed, understanding the strength of our team lies in recognising when to listen and when to contribute.

“Sometimes, we're all guessing, acknowledging that none of us has all the answers. Our approach isn't about ego; it's about collaboration.”

Team captain Tayana Sawh added: “Our community's support means everything to us. It's incredibly motivating to know that we have the backing of our peers!”

UCL students can watch the final live at the Institute Bar at the IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, which is hosting a watch-along party. Coverage begins at 20:30.

• BBC Two University Challenge - The Final
• (1) UCL's 2023-24 team at the top of the article: BBC