
Wege Prize returns for 2025 to ignite game-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college and university students worldwide to collaborate in teams across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries to redesign products and systems for a more circular economy.
For this competition, each team must collaboratively design and propose a product, service, system, or other solution to a problem of their choosing that can help a linear economic model transition to a circular economic model.
Eligibility
The Wege Prize 2025 competition invites college/university students from around the world to apply as transdisciplinary teams of five, representing different academic disciplines, institutions, and degree levels.
Judging Criteria
- Circular – helping accelerate the transition to a circular economy and a shift towards renewables. Not just recycling/upcycling, but designing out waste entirely
- Innovative – providing unique value and exploring untapped potential
- Viable – demonstrating marketability, profitability, and financial sustainability
- Scalable – effectively contribute to expanding the circular economy at a global level
- Systemic – accounting for the way in which parts of a system both influence each other and work as a whole
- Not solely reliant on behavioral change – if behavioral change is needed for your solution to work, how will you help drive it?
- Human centred – includes demonstrated research and consideration of the user and any affected communities in all aspects of the design
Prize
- First Place: $30,000 (USD)
- Second Place: $20,000 (USD)
- Third Place: $10,000 (USD)
- Finalist Awards (2): $2,500 (USD)