The Global Undergraduate Awards is the world’s leading undergraduate awards programme which recognises top undergraduate work, shares this work with a global audience and connects students across cultures and disciplines.
Our values are innovation, collaboration, ambition, impartiality and inclusiveness. We believe in empowering students, helping them to recognise the potential their undergraduate work can have in making real change. We wish to connect the world's brightest students and graduates early in their career to give them the confidence to acknowledge and harness their talents to build a brighter future. Fundamentally, we celebrate the passion and excellence of undergraduate students in their chosen field, and help them to explore how that passion can be deployed in making the world a better place for all.
We are a non-profit organisation and have been under the patronage of the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, since 2012.
"The Global Undergraduate Awards celebrate original and creative thinking among students, and the need for such critical thinking has never been greater."
Our History
UA was founded in 2008 in Dublin, Ireland, where we are based to this day. The initiative was originally named the ‘Irish Undergraduate Awards’ and was open to students from Ireland’s seven universities. In 2012, UA expanded to accept submissions from every Third Level Institution on the Island of Ireland as well as the top twenty universities in Britain, USA and Canada. UA currently accepts submissions from students in any Institution of Higher Education in the world.
The Process
Every year, UA coordinates an awards programme for penultimate and final year undergraduate students, as well as students who have graduated within the programme year. Entrants can submit their work to one of our 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines.
This work is then anonymously assessed by a panel of international academics and industry leaders.
The best 10% of work is shortlisted as Highly Commended, and the top submission in each category is deemed the Global Winner.
The Global Undergraduate Awards is a labour of love and we are very proud of what we do. We hope that you will take the time to learn more about our work and about the top-class research recognised by The Global Undergraduate Awards.
"One thing that struck me about the essays was the breadth of knowledge and the discipline of structure…I don’t like to use the word brilliant, but they truly were brilliant. Once we were down to the last ten we were wondering how we could separate perfection from perfection"