The Netherlands – Asia Pacific Student Short-Video Competition for Climate and Sustainable Development in Cities

Cities around the world are responding to the urgent issue of climate change and the need for sustainable development for their people. Cities are actively engaged with international efforts for climate mitigation and adaptation and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and finding local solutions. Leaders of cities, neighborhood groups and citizens are coming together to realize new visions for their cities.

Organized by the University of Groningen, Wubbo Ockels School for Energy and Climate, together with our regional partners across the Asia Pacific.

Locations: House of Connections, Central Market Square, Groningen, The Netherlands and the Osaka Kansai World Expo 2025, Japan

Many students have been conducting very interesting research on climate and sustainable development as part of their studies. The idea of the student short video competition is to encourage students to build on their research and writing which they have conducted for their BA thesis, Master thesis, or PhD dissertation and to consider ways to reach out and communicate their ideas to reach a wider public audience. Students from any discipline may submit a video - from the social sciences, humanities, and science and engineering. They will ask themselves, What is the best way to communicate our research and science related to climate and sustainable development in a visually appealing way to reach the public?

We will encourage our partner universities to share some of the student videos within their own universities, for example, on TV monitors in public areas of the university, and through on-line portals of departments and faculties. Videos may also be shared on YouTube and other streaming channels.

We will also bring a team of judges together to select the top five videos submitted for the competition. These videos and others from among the submissions will be selected for viewing on TV monitors both locally and internationally, to join the local to the global, in the House of Connections and the Forum in Groningen, and at a venue in or near the Osaka Expo 2025 in Japan, to demonstrate the close links of the Netherlands and the Asia Pacific. The Osaka Expo is expected to have more than 30 million visitors over its six month run, with the theme ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives.’ We will focus showings during particular weeks at the Expo, where the organizers are planning theme weeks. For example, near the beginning of the Expo, May 15-26 the organizers have chosen the title ‘The Future of Community and Mobility Week,’ and the theme ‘What is a community, where we can live as we are? and the scope includes ‘smart cities, digital green cities, and disaster prevention and reconstruction.’ The final week of the expo October 2-12 has the title ‘SDGs and Beyond, Future Society.’

Format:

Short videos of 2.0 – 2.5 minutes may use a variety of creative formats, including:

Documentary film techniques, moving photography or stills
Animation, including Manga videos

The idea of the video is to focus on outreach to the public with visual images and creative story-telling. It is not about delivering a lecture or Powerpoint presentation. You may consider sharing the main findings of your research and the impact on cities and residents, and perhaps share actions residents may consider taking to involve their household, neighborhood, city, nation-state, or the broader international community.

Any video material must be of the student’s own creation, or if sampling is used, such video material or photographs must be in the public domain, not subject to copyright protection.

Awarded Prizes:

1^st Place Winner - 2000 Euros
2^nd Place Winner- 1000 Euros
Runners Up (3 in total) - 500 Euros each (1500 total)

Deadline:

Short videos to be uploaded by 20 January 2025 to the University of Groningen competition website, including a 250-300 word biography about the student/filmmaker and short overview of the scientific research which led to the creation of the video. A link to the upload platform will be added soon.

Eligibility:

Students from the University of Groningen and students from our partner universities across the Asia Pacific, including enrolled students and those up to three years following graduation). Students may also have additional students involved as co-authors of the work, from the same university or a nearby art or media academy.

Questions?

See the Frequently Asked Questions below. If you have any other question, please contact us via clim.sust.competition rug.nl.

FAQ

Attend selection

Q: Are participants who are chosen as one of the best short video, expected to attend the awarding event on location?

A: here is no expectation that winners will need to travel to the Netherlands. The videos themselves will be shown in Groningen and in Osaka, Japan.

Maximum number of members

Q: Is there a maximum number of members for each team?

A: This is a short-video competition for students, and the video needs to be based on the student's own research, submitted to the university as part of a PhD dissertation, master thesis, or bachelor program, including papers prepared as part of the degree program. In the paragraph accompanying the student submission, the title and submission date of the paper shall be included, the degree program, as well as the names of the supervisors of the research. We will also ask that the student submit the research paper which is the basis for the video. This is the scientific basis for the outreach by the student to the public.

The aim of this is for students to see as part of their degree study the importance of careful scientific research on climate and sustainable development in cities, and to explore innovative ways to reach out the public with their research results.

We have also said that the student may wish to work together with a student from a nearby arts or video academy to receive technical assistance on the production of the video. Thus we expect the maximum number of a team to be two students, the lead student who has conducted the scientific research, and perhaps another student from a nearby art or media academy assisting with the video production.

Whose research

Q: Does the video have to be based on research conducted exclusively by our team, or can we also use research conducted by our professors or other researchers?

No registration fee

Q: Is there any registration fee when upload a short videos in a website?

A: There is no registration fee to enter.

Registration timeline

Q: Is there a registration timeline?

A: Advanced registration will be encouraged in the fall.

Selection criteria

Q: What are the selection criteria?

A: Criteria for selection of the best videos:

Originality and creativity in reaching out to a broad public on issues of climate and sustainable development with great visual impact.
Video shall build on careful scientific research and writing synthesized and conducted by the lead student researcher.
Video may be locally grounded in a given country and city, but shall attempt to portray universal themes.

Checklist prior to submission

Prepare a title screen to appear in the first 5 seconds of your video.
-Name of Student Researcher, and perhaps a second name of a student assisting in the production of the video.
-University name, faculty, and department
-Year of graduation, or expected graduation date
-Title of Video
-Total Running Time (not including title screen).
Videos shall be either in English, or with English subtitles added.
Check to make sure that there any images you use are not under copyright.
Check to make sure any music used is royalty-fee.
The videos may be shown at public screenings. Because of this, we prefer videos in the format suitable for larger screen projecting ‘4K/h265.’ However, some students may have only their mobile phones available for video recording, or don’t have a video production software that allows output in various formats, so a variety of formats may work just fine.
Prepare a short 250 word biography about yourself as the student researcher, including the degree program being followed, and the title of the bachelor, master or PhD thesis or dissertation, or other academic paper, which is the basis for the video. An additional short 150 word biography shall be included if there is a second student assisting with the production of the video.

Judging of the videos shall be conducted among selected scholars at the University of Groningen, who have sole discretion in awarding prizes for the best videos selected.

University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Osaka University, Japan
University of Tokyo, Japan
Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Indonesia
NTU, Singapore
Macquarie University, Australia
Institute for Technology, Bandung (ITB), Indonesia
Thammasat University, Thailand
University of the Philippines, Diliman Campus, Philippines
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Fudan University, China
Tsinghua University, China
Seoul National University, S. Korea
Pusan National University, S. Korea

Last modified:

21 October 2024 3.16 p.m.