The Prize fund comes from the Abu Dhabi Government as a way to honour and continue the sustainability and humanitarian legacy of the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

Masdar, Abu Dhabi's renewable energy company, manages the Zayed Sustainability Prize. A dedicated team works on the Prize all year round.

 The Zayed Sustainability Prize awards 6 categories: Health, Food, Energy, Water, Climate Action and Global High Schools

• Ensuring access to essential and affordable healthcare

• Ensuring access to maternal and newborn healthcare

• Ending epidemics (AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis etc.)

• Preventing and treating water-borne, communicable and non-communicable diseases

• Reducing illness from pollution, hazardous chemicals and contamination

Organisations must also demonstrate a clear vision and long-term plan to further deploy their solution and scale up their impact, as well as inspiring others to follow suit by advancing sustainable and human development.

To be eligible for this category, organisations must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a non-profit organisation (NPO).

The Prize fund for this category is US $1,000,000.

For Health, Food, Energy and Water categories, the criteria are:

INNOVATION: 40%

Innovation refers to a novel solution or a transformation of an existing solution that solves a challenge or a need, generates value and brings significant positive impact.

A solution can be a technology, a service or a business model.

The innovation criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that their solution:

• has a unique value proposition;

• is disruptive or transformative;

• is technically and commercially viable; and

• is adopted by the market.

The Prize does not award early-stage start-ups, demonstration projects, prototypes or solutions that have not demonstrated any impact on the ground.

IMPACT: 30%

Impact refers to a positive change that addresses social, economic, technological and/or environmental challenge(s) and has proven to make the world a better place by improving the well-being of humanity.

The impact criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that:

• their solution already has had a positive impact on the quality of peoples' lives;

• they are resilient to potential social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges;

• they have good governance by employing skilled people and establishing fair policies; and

• they have a detailed plan of how the Prize money would be used to further increase their impact.

INSPIRATION: 30%

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, was a pioneering advocate of global sustainability and human development. Leading by example, he placed great value in the pursuit of socio- economic development that meets the needs of both current and future generations. Continued through the Prize, Sheikh Zayed’s legacy is a source of inspiration for the entire world.

The inspiration criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that their solution:

• reflects Sheikh Zayed’s core values – sustainability and human development that were central to his own approach and actions;

• can inspire and influence others to advance sustainable and human development; and

• can further inspire sustainable actions from the wider community by instigating behavioural changes.

INNOVATION: 40%

Innovation refers to a novel solution or a transformation of an existing solution that solves a challenge or a need, generates value and brings significant positive impact.

A solution can be an approach, technology, a service, or a product.

The innovation criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that their solution:

• has a unique value proposition;

• is disruptive or transformative;

• is technically and commercially viable; and

• is adopted by the market.

The Prize does not award early-stage start-ups, demonstration projects, prototypes or solutions that have not demonstrated any impact on the ground.

IMPACT: 30%

Impact refers to a positive change that addresses social, economic, technological and/or environmental challenge(s) and has proven to make the world a better place by improving the well-being of humanity.

The impact criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that:

• their solution is reducing climate risk and vulnerability;

• they are resilient to potential social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges;

• their solution has resulted in measurable positive impact on beneficiary communities;

• they have good governance by employing skilled people and establishing fair policies; and

• they have a detailed plan of how the Prize money would be used to further increase their impact.

INSPIRATION: 30%

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, was a pioneering advocate of global sustainability and human development. Leading by example, he placed great value in the pursuit of socio- economic development that meets the needs of both current and future generations. Continued through the Prize, Sheikh Zayed’s legacy is a source of inspiration for the entire world.

The inspiration criterion requires organisations to demonstrate that their solution:

• reflects Sheikh Zayed’s core values – sustainability and human development that were central to his own approach and actions;

• can inspire and influence others to advance sustainable and human development; and

• can further inspire sustainable actions from the wider community by instigating behavioural changes.

INNOVATION: 30%

Innovation refers to a creative idea, proposed by students, which solves a challenge or a need for the school and/or local community in the areas of health, food, energy and/or water.

The Innovation criterion requires schools to demonstrate that:

• the project is driven by students who work together to identify a challenge and create an innovative solution either by utilising existing technologies or by developing their own; and

• the students use project management techniques – planning, scheduling, and budgeting to implement the idea, and apply learnings at school to deliver the desired sustainability outcome.

IMPACT: 30%

Impact refers to a positive change, as a result of the proposed project, that improves the well-being of the school, students and/or local community.

The Impact criterion requires schools to demonstrate that:

• the project delivers measurable sustainability outcomes – in terms of access to sustainable energy, clean water, basic healthcare and/or nutritious food in your school or wider community; and

• the project delivers benefits for both current and future students. These benefits may include, but are not limited to, opportunities for education and/or improving technical skills in the area of sustainable development.

INSPIRATION: 40%

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, strongly believed that a country's greatest investment lies in building generations of knowledgeable youth. He was a firm believer of youth’s active role in the development process by sharing responsibilities to lay foundations for the success of the society. Continued through the Prize, Sheikh Zayed’s legacy is a source of inspiration for the young generation.

The Inspiration criterion requires schools to demonstrate that:

• the project reflects Sheikh Zayed’s core values – sustainability and human development that were central to his own approach and actions;

• the project can be sustained in the long term;

• the project inspires students to become the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders capable of addressing sustainability challenges; and

• the project further inspires responsible actions from the wider community and other schools.

Previous winners can be found here in the Winners’ section of the website.

All submissions go through our three-tiered evaluation process.

First stage: Due diligence is conducted on all submissions to ensure that they meet the evaluation criteria of the Zayed Sustainability Prize.

Second stage: The Selection Committee reviews every entry, and the final entries are sent to the Jury for final evaluation.

Third stage: The Jury meets in person to deliberate on the finalists and select the winner in each category. Final decisions are unanimous. The winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize will be announced at our annual Awards Ceremony.

Interested applicants should submit using the online submissions’ portal. This can also be accessed through the homepage of the Zayed Sustainability Prize website.

There are no fees to be paid as part of the submissions process.

No. All submissions for the Zayed Sustainability Prize must only be made through our Submission’s portal.

The Prize accepts entries in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese (Mandarin).

The Zayed Sustainability Prize will open on 27 January 2025 and will remain open until 23 June 2025. Submissions will not be accepted outside of the submission period.

To ensure all entrants have the same opportunity and timeframe, the submissions period is not extendable, under any circumstances.

The online portal allows entrants to save the progress of their submission details and return to add or complete the entry at a later time. Applicants must remember to save their progress and can update and change the content as many times as needed, up until confident it is ready for submission. Simply log in using the credentials you used to set up your account.

Please note that once the submission deadline has passed, no further additions or changes will be allowed.

To edit your application after submission but before the deadline, please email a request to techsupport@zayedsustainabilityprize.com. The technical support team will reopen your application for editing within 48 hours, as long as the request is made before the deadline.

All entries received during the submission period receive a receipt acknowledgement.

If your submission does not meet our eligibility requirements, it will not be further evaluated.

Unfortunately, the Prize team is unable to offer any feedback due to the volume of submissions.

Organisations or high schools may resubmit entries for the Prize. Previous winners of the Prize cannot apply for the Prize again (in any category).

Each applicant or entity may enter in one Prize category only.

The maximum file size is 25 MB per attachment. Applicants may upload files in ‘Other Information’ section of the application.

Yes. Video links are accepted.

Only video links from YouTube and Vimeo are accepted, but due to the size (MB) of actual videos, no attachments will be accepted.

If the research organisation fits the eligibility criteria (Innovation, Impact and Inspiration) then it can be considered for any of the categories apart from Global High Schools.

No. All materials relevant to your submission must be submitted through the Submissions Portal.

The response boxes in the form accept only plain text. Therefore, candidates will be unable to include graphs and charts in these response boxes. However, there will be a separate attachment section for you to upload.

Supporting documents such as graphs and charts. Please describe each attachment as an “Appendix” (i.e. Appendix A – Graphs and Charts). You may upload them as Word, PDF or JPG files.

The answer section only accepts plain text or a plain URL (e.g. http://wikipedia.com). Please avoid using charts, tables or hyperlinks. Should this information be critical to your submission, please include these items in a word document and attach it in the “Attachments” section of the submission form.

Please feel free to contact us at techsupport@zayedsustainabilityprize.com for any assistance.

Yes. Financial information will need to be included. All applicants can be assured that all such information will be handled in the strictest of confidence and will only ever be disclosed to the relevant panel of judges, as required.

Yes. You can nominate an SME or NPO by emailing info@zayedsustainabilityprize.com.

For the Global High Schools category, we ask schools to submit proposals for funding consideration to implement sustainability projects in their schools and/or community.

The Global High Schools award aims to inspire innovation among youth in both developed and developing nations. It is open to educational institutions serving high school students aged 11 to 19.

All entrants will receive a notification email upon submission.

If you have not submitted your application, you will also receive a reminder email to complete your submission, as we approach the deadline.

Yes. You can download a copy of your submission by logging into the Submissions Portal.

Yes. You will be notified by email by the Prize administration team. You will also receive an email should you not make it on the shortlist.

Please note that a public announcement of the finalist candidates can only be made following the meeting of the Jury of the Prize.

No. In order to ensure that every year we recognise innovative, impactful and inspirational solutions, former winners (of any category) are not permitted to resubmit another entry.

The Zayed Sustainability Prize has incorporated a non-disclosure policy on announcing shortlisted candidates before the final stage of the evaluation and the Jury Meeting is concluded.

At this time, should you or your entity be listed as one of our finalists, you are free to publicise this as well.

The judges will not visit or communicate directly with the candidates as part of their assessment. For this reason, it is imperative that all information critical to your submission be included in the entry form.

All finalists will be invited to attend the Ceremony, with flights and accommodation costs provided.

The winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize are asked to sign a contract with Masdar detailing the relationship between the Prize and its winners.

The Prize fund should go towards the sustainability programme or solution described in the submission. Alternatively, dedicating the fund to new sustainability ideas is also possible, subject to details provided and agreed on, in advance, to the Prize administration.

For the Global High Schools category, the funds are to be used to implement the proposed project and satisfy the obligations (including any timing requirements) as set out in the proposal.

The winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize will be announced at our annual Awards Ceremony.