Young Excellence Challenge Award

Applicants can be endorsed by a Centro de Estudios Garrigues student (enrolled in the 2022/23 academic year), who will also be the team leader of the participating research team. Nevertheless, if an applicant doesn’t know any current students, Centro de Estudios Garrigues can group applicants together and assign them a team leader. Each team will consist of a minimum of two and a maximum of four students from the same or different universities. The team leader will advise them on how to carry out their work. The team will also have the support of a tutor — appointed by Centro de Estudios Garrigues from among the members of its research committee — who will supervise the paper submitted by the team.

Students who have already been awarded prizes in previous editions are not eligible to participate, unless they meet the requirements to be a team leader.

Object

The object of the award is to produce an original and never before published legal research paper on the impact of technological development on the legal profession, as well as its future implications, focusing on the various areas of specialisation of the master’s degrees offered at Centro de Estudios Garrigues. In other words, the research will focus on issues related to artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data analysis, smart contracts, fintech, internet of things, blockchain, etc., and their impact on the various legal professions/sectors. The paper must be between fifteen and twenty pages in length (excluding bibliographical references) and conform to Centro de Estudios Garrigues’ style guidelines.

Registration and tutor assignment

Each team member must register individually filling in the application form available on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues website, at https://www.centrogarrigues.com no later than 28 April 2023. The team leader must also send an email to Marta Sola (marta.sola@centrogarrigues.com) with a list of their team members before this deadline. After the duly filled-in applications for registration and the list of team members are received, an email will be sent to all team members confirming their registration. This email will also include the assignment of an academic tutor who will advise the team on the methodological aspects of their research.

Submission of proposals (outline and description of objectives)

All registered teams must send Marta Sola an outline of their research proposal and a description of its objectives by 29 May 2023.

Submission of the final version of the paper

The research paper must be submitted by email to Marta Sola no later than 7 p.m. (CET) on 23 June 2023 and in accordance with the following guidelines:

• The subject line must read ‘Young Excellence Challenge Award’.
• The body of the email must include the title of the paper and identity of the team members.
• The paper, in PDF format and electronically signed by the team leader, must be included in attachment. This document must include the title of the paper and identity of the team members.
• Once this email has been received and it has been confirmed that the attached files can be opened without issue, an acknowledgement of receipt will be emailed back to the applicant. Without this confirmation, the paper will not be considered to have been submitted.

The jury will be composed of the director, academic director, and research committee members of Centro de Estudios Garrigues. Each submission will be evaluated by all members of the jury, with the exception of the mentor of the team responsible for that submission. Among other criteria, the jury will take into account the scientific rigour, quality, originality, independence, and impact of the research paper.

The jury’s decision will be final. Any prize may be declared void if the jury considers that the submissions fail to meet the minimum criteria for the prize to be awarded.

The following prizes will be awarded:

• First prize: All members of the winning team will receive a scholarship of 50 per cent tuition to study a full-time master’s degree at Centro de Estudios Garrigues.
• Second prize: All members of the runner-up team will receive a scholarship of 25 per cent tuition to study a full-time master’s degree at Centro de Estudios Garrigues.

Every participant will receive a certificate of participation in the competition.

The scholarships are only available for certain full-time master’s degrees at Centro de Estudios Garrigues during the 2023/24 academic year. Prize-winners must provide proof, at the time of their admission to the master’s degree of their choice, that they meet these academic and excellence requirements:

• holding a recognised undergraduate degree that gives access to the chosen master’s degree;
• having an average grade of 7 (out of 10) or higher in the academic transcript of the undergraduate degree giving them access to the master’s degree.

The jury will reach a decision no later than 7 July 2023. The winners will be announced on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues website and its official social media.

The prizes will be awarded at an event held at Centro de Estudios Garrigues, on a date that will be announced with sufficient advance notice.

Transfer of intellectual property rights to Centro de Estudios Garrigues

• All prize-winning participants (i.e. winners of the first and second prizes) agree to transfer all intellectual property rights over their submissions exclusively to Centro de Estudios Garrigues, without any type of geographical limitation, for the entire legal term of the rights, including the right to transfer or license them to third parties (such transfers may be total or partial, exclusive or not, with or without compensation) and to make use of them via any channels, media, and/or formats.
• The transfer includes, but is not limited to, rights to reproduce, distribute, disseminate to the public (including making them available to the public interactively and on demand), and modify the submissions (including the right to create derivative works) in any form and in any format, including hardback, trade paper, paperback, digital (e.g. on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues blog), periodicals, reviews, promotional editions, print on demand, or any other that Centro de Estudios Garrigues considers necessary to maximise the dissemination of the works.
• Under no circumstances will the publication of the submissions entitle the authors to any kind of economic rights.
• The transfer of rights regulated herein refers to the economic rights over the prize-winning submissions, but does not extend to any moral rights that may apply, which Centro de Estudios Garrigues will undertake to observe and respect.
• Should Centro de Estudios Garrigues fail to publish the prize-winning submissions within a period of one (1) year from the date of notification of prizes, it will forfeit the exclusivity agreed herein and the prize-winning participants may, whether or not in partnership with Centro de Estudios Garrigues and/or third parties authorised by it, publish the prize-winning submissions.

Guarantees

• All prize-winning participants agree to be liable to Centro de Estudios Garrigues as to the lawful exercise of the rights transferred by virtue of this document, affirming that they have not entered into and will not enter into any agreements or obligations of any kind and that the prize-winning works do not infringe and will not infringe on any third-party rights.
• The prize-winning participants exonerate Centro de Estudios Garrigues from any liability and undertake to indemnify it against any judicial and/or extrajudicial claims arising from the non-fulfilment of the guarantees provided herein.
• Moreover, the prize-winning participants undertake to sign any additional documents that may be requested by Centro de Estudios Garrigues to validate or confirm this transfer of rights.

The personal data of participants in the award will be processed in accordance with the information provided in the registration forms and other specific documents containing information or consent to process the data in connection with the award. Participants must expressly authorise Centro de Estudios Garrigues to use their names and image for the sole purpose of promoting the award and publishing the submissions.

Submission of a paper to this competition constitutes full and unconditional acceptance of these terms and conditions.