Judging/Medals

Please note that the information on this page is information migrated from 2014.igem.org.
iGEM HQ is currently working on updating this information for the iGEM 2015 competition.
When that process has been completed, this notice will be removed.

The following is a list of Awards given by the iGEM Judges and some general information about how Award decisions are made. For examples of award-winning work, see the 2014 Jamboree Results.

iGEM Medals

All teams must convince the judges they have achieved each of the medal criteria. Simply ticking a box does not guarantee you will awarded a medal. For New Track teams, please see medal criteria specific to your track below for more details on what you need to accomplish to be awarded a medal.

All teams can earn medals. Teams must nominate themselves using the Judging Form. Please see our Judging Form info page for more information. Please note the deadline for judging forms will be the same as the wiki freeze, the 17th of October. Please see the Calendar of events for more information on iGEM deadlines.

The three levels of medals, from lowest to highest are Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Requirements for each medal are:

Bronze.
Your team must convince the judges you have achieved the following 6 goals:

  1. Team registration.
  2. Complete Judging form.
  3. Team Wiki.
  4. Present a poster and a talk at the iGEM Jamboree. See our new 2015 poster guidelines for more information.
  5. The description of each project must clearly attribute work done by the students and distinguish it from work done by others, including host labs, advisors, instructors, sponsors, professional website designers, artists, and commercial services. Please see the iGEM 2011 Imperial College Acknowledgements page for an example.
  6. Document at least one new standard BioBrick Part or Device used in your project/central to your project and submit this part to the iGEM Registry (submissions must adhere to the iGEM Registry guidelines). Please note you must submit this new part to the iGEM Parts Registry. Please see the Registry help page on adding new parts. A new application and/or outstanding documentation (quantitative data showing the Part’s/ Device’s function) of a previously existing BioBrick part also counts. Please see the Registry help page on how to document your contributions. To fulfill this criteria, you will also need to submit the part with its original part name to the Registry, following the submission guidelines.

Silver:
In addition to the Bronze Medal requirements, your team must convince the judges you have achieved the following 4 goals:

  1. Experimentally validate that at least one new BioBrick Part or Device of your own design and construction works as expected.
  2. Document the characterization of this part in the “Main Page” section of that Part’s/Device’s Registry entry.
  3. Submit this new part to the iGEM Parts Registry (submissions must adhere to the iGEM Registry guidelines).
  4. iGEM projects involve important questions beyond the bench, for example relating to (but not limited to) ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security, or intellectual property rights. Articulate at least one question encountered by your team, and describe how your team considered the(se) question(s) within your project. Include attributions to all experts and stakeholders consulted.

Gold:
In addition to the Bronze and Silver Medal requirements, your team must convince the judges you have achieved one or more of the following goals:

  1. Improve the function OR characterization of an existing BioBrick Part or Device (created by another team or your own institution in a previous year), enter this information in the Registry. Please see the Registry help page on how to document a contribution to an existing part.
    The growth of the Registry depends on having a broad base of reliable parts. This is why the improvement of an existing part is just as important as the creation and documentation of a new part. An "improvement" is anything that improves the functionality and ease-of-use of a part, so that it is more likely to be used by the community. "Characterization" is a measurement of a functional parameter of a part, preferably in absolute units, that can precisely and repeatably be performed in other labs.
  2. Help any registered iGEM team from another school or institution by, for example, characterizing a part, debugging a construct, or modeling or simulating their system.
  3. iGEM projects involve important questions beyond the bench, for example relating to (but not limited to) ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security, or intellectual property rights. Describe an approach that your team used to address at least one of these questions. Evaluate your approach, including whether it allowed you to answer your question(s), how it influenced the team’s scientific project, and how it might be adapted for others to use (within and beyond iGEM). We encourage thoughtful and creative approaches, and those that draw on past Policy & Practice (formerly Human Practices) activities.

New Tracks

Art and Design

Coming soon!

Community Labs

Coming soon!

Hardware

Coming soon!

High School

Coming soon!

Measurement

Coming soon!

Software

Coming soon!

Please send us any comments or suggestions for awards and judging by email to the judging committee at judging AT igem DOT org.