The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) is launching the fourth edition of the Space4Youth Essay Competition, targeting students and young professionals to highlight practices and experiences on the use of space for water resources management and aquatic ecosystem preservation.
UNOOSA is the only United Nations Office dedicated to outer space activities and works to strengthen international cooperation in space activities and use space science and technology to achieve sustainable development. SGAC, in support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications, is a global non-governmental, non-profit organisation and network representing university students and young space professionals to the United Nations, space agencies, industry, and academia.
In view of the Midterm Review of the Decade of Action for Water, which will take place at UN Headquarters in New York in March 2023, co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands, this year’s UNOOSA Space4Youth Competition will have the theme: “Youth4Water – Space as a tool to accelerate change in sustainable water resources management, hydrology and the protection of aquatic ecosystems.”
The competition developed under the UNOOSA Space4Youth and Space4Water projects aims at highlighting promising practices and experiences in terms of experimentation, application, evaluation and dissemination of techniques, methods and innovative approaches that use space to address water-related environmental or water management issues.
Participants will submit an essay on the theme but can choose their topic within that theme. Participants will focus on how space can be used to tackle water challenges by underlining concrete, realistic and original examples of how space science, technology and its applications can inform and, or support the delivery of actions and commitments for water management problems and adaptation of policies at local, national, regional and, or international levels.
Submission guidelines
The competition is structured in 2 phases:
- Applicants submit an abstract of no more than 100 words and fill in the online application form.
- If the abstract is positively evaluated, the applicant will be allowed to submit an essay of no more than 1,000 words based on the previously submitted abstract.
Eligibility criteria
- The competition is open to all students and young professionals from any Member State of the United Nations.
- All participants shall be between 18 to 35 years inclusive (up to the day of their 36th birthday) on 1 February 2022.
- The competition is open to individuals – no team submission is allowed.
- Competition organisers and judges are not eligible for the competition.
The United Nations encourages all qualified applicants to apply, regardless of gender, disability, sexual orientation, or cultural or religious background.
How to apply
- To apply, please register through the Space for Youth Competition Form.
- Once registered, please send the abstract to space4youth@un.org by 24 November 2022.
- The results of the abstract selection will be communicated to successful candidates by 14 December 2022.
- The deadline for successful candidates to submit their essays is 15 January 2023.
- The results of the competition will be announced by the end of January
Kindly go through the competition’s instruction document for more details.
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