The James Dyson Award is open for entries between March 6^th - July 17^th, offering winners a chance to secure a portion of a global prize fund. To date, the Award has supported over 400 young inventors with more than £1m.

The James Dyson Award, the international student design and engineering competition run by the James Dyson Foundation, today opens for entries, calling for novel inventions that tackle a pressing real-world problem. 

Open to all engineering and design students and recent graduates, the Award seeks ambitious designs that address a global issue, from cancer diagnosis to natural disasters. With global recognition offered to an International Winner and a Sustainability Winner, past winners include an off-road ambulance trailer to rescue the wounded from conflict zones, a paint made from recycled glass that vastly reduces the need for air conditioning, and a device to control bleeding from stab wounds.

Established in 2005, the competition has now supported over 400 young inventors with more than £1m in prize money, and more than two thirds of past global winners have pursued the commercialisation of their ideas. The International Winner and global Sustainability Winner will scoop £30,000 to support their next steps, while £5,000 is offered to each National Winner in the 30 markets where the Award is run.

Previous recipients of the Award have gone onto great success thanks to the global media exposure and injection of funds that the prize offers. Past International Winner Yusuf Muhammad entered his invention Automist in 2009, which is a device that tackles domestic fires with an ingenious water misting mechanism that uses 10 times less water than a traditional system. Today, Yusuf runs a successful company that has installed over 13,000 systems and is currently securing international certification ahead of a prospective US launch.

More recently, a group of design engineering students from Hongik University, South Korea, earned the James Dyson Award 2023 International prize with their invention The Golden Capsule, a hands-free intravenous (IV) device designed for disaster zones, that can be strapped to the patient and does not rely on gravity. Following their win, the team plans to move forward to make prototype improvements and conduct user tests in collaboration with medical experts, ahead of bringing their invention into mass production.

Entries can now be submitted through an online application form via the James Dyson Award website. The deadline to apply is midnight on July 17^th 2024.

Entrants should explain what their invention is, how it works, and their development process. The best entries solve a real problem, are clearly explained, show iterative development, provide evidence of prototyping and have supporting imagery and a video.

National winners and runners-up will be whittled down to a global Top 20 by a panel of expert Dyson engineers across different disciplines, and finally Sir James Dyson himself will pick the best.

The National Winners will be announced on September 11^th, the global Top 20 shortlist on October 16^th and Global Winners on November 13^th.

Further FAQs can be found on the James Dyson Award website.