The Undergraduate Awards program was established in 2008 by two Trinity College Dublin graduates to celebrate undergraduate students who propose fresh arguments and new approaches to contemporary problems, and to provide them with a global platform from which to accelerate their ideas. To gain these benefits, students submit essays to an international competition each year, in one of approximately twenty categories.
Undergraduate Award winners in each category are brought to Dublin, Ireland for a three-day summit in the fall, where they participate in seminars, discussions, and networking events with each other. Each winner’s essay is also published in the annual Undergraduate Awards journal and placed in the libraries of all of Ireland’s (and Northern Ireland’s) academic institutions, to showcase excellence in undergraduate thought and written analysis.
The Undergraduate Awards are open to students in the final or penultimate year of their undergraduate programs in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the U.K.