[17.11.16]

The Undergraduate Awards (UA) gathered 150 of the world’s top undergraduate students in Dublin for the 2016 UA Global Summit in Dublin, including Safiyeh Heidarzadeh from Queen’s University Belfast.

Cited as the ultimate champion of high-potential undergraduates, and often referred to as a “junior Nobel Prize”, The Undergraduate Awards is the world’s largest international academic awards programme, recognising excellent research and original work across the sciences, humanities, business and creative arts.

The Undergraduate Awards received a record number of submissions in the 2016 programme, totaling a massive 5,514 papers from undergraduates in 244 institutions and 121 nationalities. In each category, the Global Winner is the highest-performing paper overall and also within each category the Regional Winner is the highest performing Highly Commended paper from their region. Highly Commended Entrants are those who were ranked in the top 10% of submissions in each category.

In total, 58 different universities and 37 different nationalities were represented at the UA Global Summit this year. Ryerson University, Canada; Stanford University, USA; University of Johannesburg, South Africa and the University of Helsinki, Finland were among the institutions represented at the event.

The students received their medals and certificates at the UA Global Summit and were addressed by keynote speaker Dr. Mae Jemison, NASA Astronaut. Pertinent to last week, Dr. Jemison addressed the students saying “Yikes. What have we been doing? We look at what's been happening in the world, and people say things will just turn out... Good things just don't happen, things don't always turn out, they require work. As our future industry-leaders and CEOs, we are counting on you.”

Safiyeh Heidarzadeh from Queen’s University Belfast won the regional winner in the business category -  Ireland

Speaking about this year’s Winners and Highly Commended Entrants, CEO of The Undergraduate Awards Louise Hodgson said “This is a huge achievement for Queen’s University and Safiyeh. UA received the highest number of submissions to date with only the best papers making it through the judging process -  the competition was extremely tough and the Judges were astounded at the high quality of undergraduate research in the programme this year. Congratulations to this year’s successful entrants”.

The UA Global Summit took place last week (November 8^th-11^th) in Dublin across several beautiful venues including Farmleigh House, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and City Hall, Dublin. 

 

About The Undergraduate Awards
The Undergraduate Awards is the world's largest international academic awards programme, recognising innovation and excellence at undergraduate level. Cited as the ultimate champion for high-potential undergraduates, UA identifies leading creative thinkers through their undergraduate coursework and provides top performing students with the support, network and opportunities they require to raise their profiles and further their career paths.

 

For more information, contact:
Lara Coyle
Communications Manager, The Undergraduate Awards
+353​ (0) 1 4415882