Sustainability Project Prize

Does your project or dissertation link to sustainability? If so, you could be eligible to enter our Sustainability Prize competition.

The sustainability prize is open to all students (including recent alumni) who have completed or are nearing the completion of a dissertation or project that meets the criteria.

There are three possibilities to win, which are:

• Overall Best Scoring
• Highly Commended
• Most Creative

All three awards will receive a Green Heron digital badge, a certificate, the option to present at ARU’s Engage Conference, and the space to be featured in our media outlets. An overall winner will be selected and given the opportunity to further develop their project and ideas with the support of the GSI. All finalists will have their achievements promoted at an on-campus showcase event, and we will support all finalists beyond their submissions to encourage, promote and develop sustainability efforts.

Eligibility and criteria

To be eligible for entry into the competition, your dissertation or project must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Contribute to furthering knowledge and/or understanding of a topic which addresses social, environmental or economic sustainability challenges
• Have a direct link to an aspect of sustainability which is developed in the research and/or as part of the accompanying reflection
• Related dissertations and projects must focus on sustainability-related topics, linking to either “sustainability” and/or “social responsibility”, or the SDGs explicitly
• A focus or reflection on key sustainability strategies such as circular economy, future thinking or back casting, etc
• Creative work that aims to engage its audience to reflect or inform on the topic of sustainability

View full details of the prize and conditions in our guide.

Variety of submission options

The award is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students across all faculties and all campuses. The competition will run over two stages; first students will submit an entry, in February. If your project is not complete at this stage (awaiting results or part of incomplete dissertation, etc), a current overview of the project will be fine. These should be submitted as an email attachment or electronic link to [email protected].

We welcome submissions from a range of media, reflecting and explaining how you feel your dissertation/ project links to sustainability, including:

• Up to 500-word reflective document
• Up to 10 slide presentation 
• An audio podcast recording lasting up to 5-minutes. This could take the form of an interview or edited highlights from a discussion, for example
• Up to 5-minute video, which can be animation or blog style etc
• Creative artwork, including a 200-400 of reflective writing explaining the inspiration for the work and links to sustainability
• An A1 scientific poster

(All entries to include a separate document with list of relevant references.)

If you are successful, you will be invited to elaborate on the initial proposals/ work and include an overview of the project and its findings or your completed creative pieces. This will be displayed on campus.

Submission deadlines

• First submission: 28 February 2026
• Final submission: 4 April 2026

For any enquiries, please contact [email protected] or the [email protected]

Previous winners

(Note these were aligned to different to criteria and submission options)