Call for science-driven students to join BlueTech Competition

The BlueTech Competition is a dynamic challenge designed to ignite STEAM learning and inspire young minds to champion the blue economy. This is your chance to be at the forefront of sustainable innovation, transforming how we interact with our oceans, seas, and freshwater systems.

What’s the Challenge?

Students are invited to work in teams to design a prototype, model, or biotechnological product that monitors the EU waters and their ecosystems or that promotes the sustainable use of its resources.

Examples of topics to work on are marine robotics, renewable energy, solar vessels, aquaculture, and valorization of aquatic food products. The students should work in groups and communicate their results to the community, thus acquiring important transferable skills. Students can apply with a project that is already underway or completed.

Who Can Participate?

The competition is open to all basic, secondary, vocational, and maritime schools across the EU (public or private).

Each team, with a maximum of five students, must be gender diverse and will be supported by a teacher / tutor. Each tutor can support a maximum of 3 teams in the competition.

Teams should seek partnerships with universities, polytechnic institutes and/or companies for technical and scientific support.

Focus Areas

The work submitted must focus on one of the following thematic areas:

• Marine renewable energies (example: devices to harness wave and tidal energies);
• Marine robots with sensors to measure variables such as salinity, temperature, or pH;
• Innovative vessels (example: remote-controlled solar vehicles);
• Technologies and processes that help eliminate or mitigate marine pollution;
• Biotechnology (examples: pharmaceuticals, new food products, food production systems); or
• Approaches to preserve biodiversity and resources

How to Apply

The call for the 1st edition of the BlueTech Competition is now open until April 30th. Applications must be submitted electronically via our online form and include:

• Video Presentation (up to 3 minutes):
  Introduce your project, share your objectives, and outline team roles.
• Technical Presentation Document (max 2 A4 pages):
  Detail your project’s scientific goal, describe your prototype/model/product with images, and explain your planned partnerships.

Note: All submissions must be in English. Videos in your native language with English subtitles are accepted.

The deadline for applications is 30 April 2025. The results will be communicated on May 10, 2025

Evaluation

A panel of researchers and experienced secondary school teachers will assess your project based on scientific value and creativity, technical execution, educational value, teamwork, and dissemination to the community.      

For details on the competition, evaluations, and more, please refer to the Terms and conditions document. 

General publications 10 March 2025

Terms and conditions

What can you win

The best project will be awarded at the European Maritime Day in Cork, 21-23 May. The team should be represented by three students (maximum) and one teacher. All travel expenses will be covered by a competition sponsor, WavEC

The three best projects evaluated by the jury will be promoted on the competition webpage and awarded a visit to a local research center or science center and a one-on-one mentorship session with a professional in the blue tech or environmental sector.