Terms & conditions
By entering the competition, entrants agree to these terms and conditions. Failure to comply with these terms and conditions may result in disqualification. Our contact email is competitions@rgs.org but you should fully read the terms and conditions before emailing us with questions.
Entries must be in English and submitted using the online form, with the required accompanying information. There is a limit of one entry per student. The competition is open to sixth form geography students aged 16-18 who are registered to study A Level geography or equivalent in Year 12 or 13 on the closing date. UK students must be studying Geography A Level, IB Geography or Higher Geography. Students must be studying geography as a separate subject (or geography as part of social studies in the US, for example) in the two KS5 equivalent ‘end of school’ year groups. Students can enter in the UK and from overseas. Employees and immediate family members of employees of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (RGS-IBG, thereafter 'the Society') or The Financial Times Limited (FT), employees of FT’s associated companies, professional advisers, advertising and promotional agencies or anyone else professionally associated with this competition are not eligible to enter.
Entries will be judged by a panel of judges including representatives from the FT and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). Details of the judging panel will be available on request after the results have been announced. The judging panel will judge all valid entries submitted against the following criteria to select the ‘Winner’ and ‘Highly Commended’ entrants.
The judging criteria will include:
- A clear essay or ArcGIS that is well-evidenced and reaches a clear conclusion
- Submissions that do not exceed 1,000 words (excluding the title and references) – submissions over 1,000 words will not be considered. The word count must be provided in the document.
- Referenced sources of information and data, including the FT
- Submissions which are the entrant’s own work and relevant to the question and guidance
The winner will receive a £50 Amazon voucher, which might be delivered directly from Amazon by email, with the entrant’s email being entered into the Amazon system. The Amazon voucher for the winner will be in GBP, unless it is possible to provide an Amazon voucher in local currency for a similar value. The winner’s entry will be published on the Society’s website and maybe on FT.com. Publication on FT.com is at the sole discretion of the FT and some reformatting, along with minor changes, may be made prior to publication, in consultation with the winner. The winning entry may also be published in Routes Journal (highly commended entries can be submitted by the entrants to Routes for consideration Submitting to Routes; the winning entry will be submitted by the Society to Routes for consideration). The winner’s prize is subject to Amazon Gift Card terms and conditions. The judging panel's decisions are final, and binding, and no correspondence will be entered into.
Entries must be received by Friday 31 October 2025 at 17:00 GMT. No late entries will be accepted. We will not be able to help with submission upload questions or issues on the deadline date. The results should be announced by Friday 9 January 2026. The winner and highly commended entrants will be informed before the results are shown on our website at www.rgs.org/competitions. Please do not contact the Society asking when the results will be available. There will be an awards celebration at the Society for the winner and highly commended entrants, with guests (provisional date and time: afternoon on Tuesday 3 March 2026). If the winner cannot be contacted from the details supplied within five business days of notification, a replacement winner may be chosen at the Society’s discretion and will then be notified. The original entry that was chosen will then be forfeited. The winner is responsible for providing valid contact details. The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) will not be liable for any failure, delay or inability to contact the winner.
The winner and highly commended entrants may be required to return an eligibility form stating their age, year of study and compliance with the geography study requirements. There is no fee to enter the competition and no purchase is necessary to enter. No responsibility for late, incomplete, corrupt or lost entries will be accepted. StoryMap submissions must be available as an open access link. They will not be judged if we cannot access them without asking for login details.
The Society and FT reserve the right to, at their absolute discretion, cancel, suspend, or vary the competition, or any part of it (including these terms and conditions), or vary the prize as required by the circumstances. The Society and FT reserve the right to disqualify any individual who has not complied with the letter or spirit of these terms and conditions. Any failure by the Society or FT to enforce any provision in these terms and conditions shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. AI checks may be used to determine whether the work is the student’s own and presented ‘in the spirit of the competition’. Students applying to university are given the following guidance by UCAS about the use of AI for personal statements. A guide to using AI and ChatGPT with your personal statement | UCAS. Students may follow the same guidance when entering this competition. For example, they must not use an AI system to generate all or a large part of the text submitted as their own. However, they can use AI to help generate ideas and make a start, structure then argument, and then check the final submission. Teachers can also consult DfE guidance Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education - GOV.UK. There are age limits associated with the use of AI tools.
Entrants warrant that their entries are not offensive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, indecent, harassing or threatening or otherwise unlawful, and are unique, have not been plagiarised and do not infringe the intellectual property rights or any other rights of a third party. By entering the competition, entrants agree to hold the Society and FT harmless for any liability, damages or claims for injury or loss to any person or property, relating to, directly or indirectly, participation in this competition, or claims based on publicity rights, third party intellectual property rights, defamation or invasion of privacy.
Entrants retain ownership over their entries. By submitting an entry, entrants grant to each of FT and the Society a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, royalty-free licence to display, publish, transmit, copy, edit and use the entry in any media, in whole or in part, in any way they see fit, including, but not limited to, for publishing on the Society's website, in Routes journal and on FT.com, without compensation to the entrant. Rights to edit copy where the publishers deem necessary is reserved although entrants will be fully credited.
Exclusion of liability
FT and the Society are not responsible for (i) any incorrect or inaccurate information used in connection with the competition; or (ii) failures or errors which may occur in the administration of the competition. To the fullest extent permitted by law, FT and the Society exclude liability and entrants agree to release and hold harmless the Society and FT for any damage, loss, liability or injury to person or property or for any claim arising as a result of your entry into the competition (save in the case of death or personal injury caused by the negligence of the Society or FT). Any personal data which may be submitted in an entry will be processed by the Society in accordance with any applicable data protection legislation and the Society's privacy statement. Correspondence about the competition, including contact details for competition entrants, may be shared between the FT and the Society for the purposes of managing the judging process, answering any questions received or for any other relevant administrative purpose. The winner’s contact details may also be shared with the FT if the winning essay is being reformatted for publication on FT.com, for the purposes of reviewing draft publication before it is finalised. A representative from the FT may make direct email contact with the winner, using the email provided to the Society. Please see the FT privacy policy for more details. This should be viewed alongside their cookie policy. The winner and highly commended entrants might have the chance to participate in an online FT Live event, if a relevant event is launched nearer the time, but there is no guarantee of this. If that is possible, participation will be bound by the following FT Live terms and conditions. Participation will involve registration on the FT Live site using the entrant’s email address and details.
