Competition Rules

The competition is open to all schools or organisations in charge of extra-curricular activities in the 27 Member States of the European Union. The competition encourages teams of 10 to 20 students between 14 and 20 years of age to submit entries resulting from a cross-curricular school activity (involving a number of school subjects). Each student team must be coordinated by two teachers.

Competition theme and entry format

The competition theme is “50 years together in diversity”. A competition entry should result from teamwork and should consist of two parts:

1. Part one: an essay of a maximum 500 words. The essay must be a collective work and answer the following question: In your opinion, what are the major challenges that the European Union will be faced with in the next 50 years? How can it deal with these challenges? An essay header (title) is required. The essay must be submitted in one of the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. The text of the essay must be uploaded on our website in one of the following file formats: doc, rtf or wps.
2. Part two: a visual composition such as a Power Point presentation, a video clip, a short movie, a photo-montage (a group of photos) or a poster. The composition should focus on the following theme: “Europe in our daily lives” and it should be in the mother tongue of the students. The visual composition file should not exceed 15 MB and should have one of the following formats: mov, wmv, avi, jpg, gif, ppt, pps.

Eligibility

All schools and organisations in charge of extra-curricular school activities can set up teams of 10 to 20 students to take part in the competition. There is no limit to the number of entries that may be sent by a school. The students must be aged between 14 to 20 years old.

Competition deadline

The competition deadline is 31 December 2007.

Evaluation

The competition entries will be judged in two stages: at national level and at European level. The evaluation at national level aims to shortlist the best 10 entries in each of the 27 countries. The evaluation at European level will be carried out by a panel of experts whose role is to choose the best entry from each country. Only one team per country will win.

Judging criteria

The entries will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

Essay

• Argument: a strong central idea that is related to the essay question;
• Organisation: a clear, logical organisation with well developed major points that are supported with concrete and specific evidence; clear introduction, middle and conclusions; effective transitions between ideas and appropriate language and expressing ideas freshly and vividly;
• Mechanics: free of mechanical, grammatical, and spelling errors.

Visual composition

• Topic relevance: relevance to topic (key message is visible and well expressed through visual compositional elements);
• Originality: original idea that conveys a message which is embedded into a balanced visual composition, its concept, style, layout and design;
• Visual impact: an attractive work showing quality of the design, care and effort to communicate a clear and relevant message.

Competition prizes

The competition prizes consist of a trip to Brussels to visit the Museum of Europe, in March 2008. The trip for all the 27 winning teams, including the travel and accommodation, will be covered by the Museum of Europe.

Legal and ethical issues

European Schoolnet and the Museum of Europe reserve the right to adapt the rules and awards at any time. Any notifications on possible changes will be published on the competition website and will apply from the publication date.

All participants must comply with European copyright laws. Entries may not contain statements, facts, information or quotation that may denigrate or harm any person or group of people.

Entries may not contain statements, facts, information or quotations that may encourage persecution of people on the grounds of race, nationality, sex, profession, opinion or other persuasion, nor may entries encourage crime or the breaking of laws.

Disqualification of entries

European Schoolnet or the Museum of Europe may decide to disqualify an entry if it has not been submitted in time, partly or as a whole; or if the entry breaks any of the rules under “Legal and ethical issues”.

Reproduction rights

All entries are the property of the Museum of Europe and European Schoolnet. Both organisations have the right to improve, edit, expand, modify and reproduce the entries from the date of submission.

General information

The competition is being managed by European Schoolnet on behalf of the Museum of Europe. Questions about the competition can be addressed to Petru Dumitru at the following email address: fiftyyears@eun.org