With the aim of raising awareness among students who will lead the future of coin design, the Japan Mint is hosting the International Coin Design Competition (ICDC) 2026, inviting participation from students both in Japan and abroad. Any student who is registered at any school and was born on or after 31 August 1996 is qualified to enter and submission of a coin design (the obverse and reverse sides) is required. The best designs will be awarded with monetary prizes, plaques, certificates and more. The Grand Award is 100,000 yen.

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Wege Prize 2027 challenges transdisciplinary teams of university students to develop products or services that solve complex, “wicked” problems through the framework of the circular economy. The Wege Prize functions as both a product design competition and a global learning laboratory. The initiative aims to foster cross-functional collaboration by requiring teams to converge different academic disciplines, mirroring the complexity of solving real-world issues. The total prize pool for the Wege Prize is $65,000, of which $30,000 are reserved for the 1st Place award.

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The UIA-HYP CUP 2026 International Student Competition in Architectural Design is now open for registration. Now entering its 15th consecutive edition, the UIA-HYP CUP is the only UIA-endorsed international student architecture competition held annually in mainland China. Organized by the School of Architecture, Tianjin University; the School of Architecture, Inner Mongolia University of Technology; and Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine, the competition provides a global platform for architecture students to engage with contemporary architectural, urban, and environmental challenges. The competition operates under the overarching theme of Architecture in Transformation, while the specific topic is proposed each year by the Jury Chairman. The 2026 topic “Villagers: Urban, Suburban, Rural” invites students to explore new forms of community across different ways of living.

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The 22nd annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2027) has opened the call for submissions for its Student Design Competition (SDC), inviting student teams from around the world to present original human-robot interaction design work to an audience of researchers, practitioners, and judges. The competition, which will be held in Santa Clara, California, USA, during the conference from 8–12 March 2027, is themed “Robots in Public Spaces“. The goal of the SDC is to showcase design thinking in HRI: the quality of the interaction design, the clarity of the rationale behind design decisions, and serious engagement with the realities of deploying robots among people.

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The Stanford Center on Longevity invites university students from around the world to compete in the 2026-2027 Longevity Design Challenge, on the theme “Human-Centered Robotics for Longevity”. For its fourteenth year, the design theme, “Human-Centered Robotics for Longevity,” explores how robotics can support longer lives while strengthening, rather than replacing, the relationships and communities that make those lives worth living. Top winners receive cash prizes of $10,000 (1st place), $5,000 (2nd place), $2,000 (3rd place). Finalists receive a $1,000 cash prize and mentorship from industry experts and researchers.

Read more about Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge 2026-2027 on Contest Watchers.