Tag Archives: fiction

GLOBAL PRIZE FOR INNOVATION IN WATER

Application Deadline: September 30, 2026

LOCATION: Saudi Arabia

The Global Prize for Innovation in Water (GPIW) is an international initiative established by the Saudi Water Authority (SWA) to identify, recognize, and accelerate breakthrough innovations addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing the global water sector. The prize aims to honor participants and support pioneers from around the globe.

ELIGIBILITY:

The GPIW is designed to be open, inclusive, and accessible to a broad range of applicants working to advance innovation in the water sector. Applications are welcomed from, among others:

Early-stage startups and venture-backed scale-ups;

Multinational corporations and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs);

Universities, public or private research institutes, and laboratories; – Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups;

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), municipal water utilities, and utility consortia; – Individual innovators, research teams, and project teams.

Applicants must ensure that their submission is aligned with at least one Prize track and category and complies with all eligibility requirements set out in these Guidelines.

To preserve the integrity, independence, and impartiality of the Prize, employees, representatives, and members of the GPIW management and delivery teams are not eligible to submit applications. This exclusion includes personnel directly involved in the design, administration, evaluation, governance, or delivery of the Prize within the Saudi Water Authority and The European House – Ambrosetti (TEHA Group).

All applications must be submitted in English and must contain complete, accurate, and truthful information. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that they possess all necessary rights, permissions, and authorizations related to the submitted innovation, project, initiative, or nomination. Participation in the GPIW must not infringe any third-party rights, including intellectual property rights, confidentiality obligations, contractual restrictions, or applicable laws and regulations. The GPIW reserves the right to exclude or disqualify any application that is incomplete, misleading, inconsistent with the eligibility requirements, submitted by an ineligible party, or otherwise incompatible with the principles of fairness, transparency, and independence of the Prize.

Applications to the GPIW are submitted online through the official application portal. The application is organized into 8 sections and can be completed at your own pace: your progress can be saved as a draft, allowing you to leave the form and return at any time before the submission deadline. Applications are only considered once formally submitted; saving a draft does not constitute submission.

For more information, visit: https://gpiw.net/auth/terms-conditions

BENEFIT:

The GPIW offers a financial prize purse, dedicated recognitions, and selected piloting support to advance the development, validation, and market adoption of high-potential water innovations. Awards are distributed as follows:

Grand Prizes—USD 100,000 per winner: Two winners in total, one winner from Track A (TRL 1-3) and one winner from Track B (TRL 4-7)

Impact Medals—USD 50,000 per winner: Twelve winners in total, six winners from Track A (TRL 1-3) and six winners from Track B (TRL 4-7)

Special Mentions—non-monetary recognition: Up to 6 winners in total under Track C (TRL 8–9), with up to two recognitions in each category.

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APILA FIRST IMPRESSION AWARD

Application Deadline: 14 February 2027

LOCATION: Spain

The publishing house Apila Ediciones, in collaboration with the School of Design of Aragón and with the support of the Zaragoza City Council, announces Apila’s First Impression Award 2027, the fourteenth edition of an International Illustrated Children’s Book competition aimed at strengthening graphic and literary creation by supporting illustrators who have not yet published any books.

ELIGIBILITY:

All illustrators who wish to participate, of any nationality, over 18 years old, may enter this award without any limitation on the number of projects. A necessary condition for participation is not having any published children’s book with an ISBN until June 30, 2026. However, those who have one or more self-published books with an ISBN may participate, provided that these books were not published through a publishing house or editorial services company. In cases where the project is a collaboration (text by one person and illustrations by another), the condition of not having any published books applies exclusively to the illustrator. Additionally, the rights to the submitted works must be free of commitments to third parties.

The works submitted, written in Spanish or English, may be original or adaptations of stories free of copyright.

Prohibition on the Use of Artificial Intelligence for Illustrations The use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools (such as Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, or similar) is strictly prohibited for the creation, editing, or completion of the illustrations submitted for this project/contest.

All entries must be original and unpublished works, created entirely through the effort, technique, and talent of a human author. The detection of AI usage at any stage of the creative process will be grounds for immediate disqualification.

The award will be granted to one project only.

The projects may have any format but may not exceed 40 pages (20 double pages), including legal pages (credits page and title page) and flyleaves. The cover: the front cover, spine, and back cover are not included in the 40 pages of the book.

To avoid mail delivery, contestants must submit one file per project in PDF format (maximum 15 MB) by filling out the registration form at: https://www.apilaediciones.com/premio-apila-primera-impresion/

BENEFIT:

The award will consist of the signing of a professional contract with Apila Ediciones for the publication of the selected work, which will include the payment to the author(s) of €4,000, equivalent to 10% of the value of the first print run of the book, as well as the dissemination and international distribution of the book. In the event that the rights of the project are shared between writer and illustrator, the percentage of 10% will be divided between them according to the prior agreement reached by both. The winning author or authors shall, in said contract, transfer the rights of the book to Apila for publication and for the international management of those rights for a period of twelve years.

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