by Nancy Burgess Christen, on behalf of the Judging Committee

As the iGEM Competition evolves each year, so does the way we do judging. What started as an intersession class at MIT in 2003 has now become a global competition in Paris with over 7500 participants. Every year, the Judging Committee reviews and updates the judging criteria based on the current needs of the Competition. For example, the last major changes occurred during the pandemic years and made it possible for all teams to participate whether they could access a laboratory or not.

Now that pandemic restrictions have eased and teams are back in the lab, the Judging Committee has reviewed the judging criteria and the feedback we received, and have defined a few goals for the 2023 Competition:

Optimize logistics - The judging accommodations implemented in 2020 are no longer needed as many pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Furthermore, we want to apply lessons learned from the first hybrid Grand Jamboree in 2022 to future Jamborees.
Reinforce iGEM’s core values - We want to encourage participants to showcase the values and skills that we believe make iGEM special, such as biological engineering, Human Practices, and a sharing philosophy.
Simplify the judging process - We looked for places to streamline requirements and expectations, thus refining the judging rubric. Ultimately, we hope to see teams excel in targeted areas versus spreading efforts and resources across many different aspects of their project.

A full list of changes to the competition are listed on the New in 2023 page on the iGEM website. Keep reading here to find out more about a few of the changes that relate to judging and how your team can benefit from them.

What major changes were made?

Teams must submit presentation videos

In 2022, at our first hybrid Jamboree, the judging session was the only designated time for remote teams and judges to meet up. To provide more time for discussion, we are reverting to the presentation video requirements of 2021. In 2023, all teams must submit their presentations as videos to be judged in advance of the Jamboree. This gives the teams and judges double the time (from 10 minutes to 20 minutes) to discuss the projects at the Jamboree.

Videos may also help overcome language barriers. Most iGEM participants speak the competition language, English, as a second language. With videos, all teams can perfect their language of the presentation and provide subtitles. Judges will have time to review the presentations at their own pace to enhance their understanding.

Furthermore, the videos of the finalists will be used for the grand prize votes. The judges will watch the video presentations provided by each finalist. This means that teams who are remote do not need to connect through Zoom or give a live presentation in the middle of the night if they become a finalist.

(And don’t worry - our seven finalists will still have the option of presenting live on the main stage if they choose. Grand Prize winners will be determined by judges watching the presentation videos, but every finalist will still get their time to present live or via video on iGEM’s biggest stage during the closing ceremony!)

Gold Medal Criteria are now aligned with Special Prizes

Since formal medal criteria were introduced in 2008, teams have been able to select which criteria to fulfill to achieve the gold medal. By 2022, teams had to impress the judges in at least three areas. These areas were chosen from a list of criteria distinct to the Medals, and were separate from the rubric for Special Prizes. Teams that wanted to compete for both Medals and Special Prizes had to parse the separate criteria and spread their resources accordingly.

Teams must now nominate themselves for three Special Prizes to apply for a Gold Medal.

In 2023, teams can still choose which three criteria to qualify for the Gold Medal. However, rather than selecting from a separate list of criteria, teams must now nominate themselves for three Special Prizes to apply for a Gold Medal. At least one of the three chosen Special Prizes must be from the General Biological Engineering category and at least one must be from the Specializations category. The teams may choose a third Special Prize from either category. (Full details and the complete category lists can be found on the Medals page of the competition website.)

To win a Gold Medal, teams do not need to win any Special Prizes, but they must convince the judges that they did impressive work towards all three selected Special Prizes. By aligning the Medals and Special Prizes criteria, we hope to reduce the number of requirements that teams must consider and satisfy. Teams that meet the Gold Medal criteria will demonstrate that they have both depth and breadth in Synthetic Biology and related fields.

Three-nomination Limit for Special Prizes

Starting in 2023, all teams may nominate themselves for a maximum of three Special Prizes.

If teams are seeking a Gold Medal, these three nominations will apply to the Gold Medal Criteria. Teams will not be able to nominate themselves for three prizes to meet Gold Medal criteria and then for three more Special Prizes. As you fill out the judging form at the end of the season, you will notice that you can only nominate yourselves for three Special Prizes total. Due to this new limit, we highly encourage teams to choose which Special Prizes they may seek very early in the season and adjust their work plans accordingly.

Please note that, outside of the three-nomination limit for Special Prizes, all teams are still eligible to become a finalist and to win any of these additional prizes:

Best in Village
Best Wiki
Best Presentation Video
iGEMer’s prize
Best Promotion Video
Chairman’s Award

Thorough referencing will be rewarded

Teams that thoroughly and clearly reference previous work will benefit from the new rubric changes. Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

The strongest projects are supported by a lot of existing work, and teams acknowledge that work by including references across their wikis and presentation videos. We have changed rubric questions in several places to better evaluate how teams reference the work of others. Teams that thoroughly and clearly reference previous work will benefit from these rubric changes. These teams will be more competitive for winning the Wiki Special Prize, Presentation Video Special Prize, and Village Award (formerly Track Prize); more importantly, they will be more competitive for becoming a finalist.

What has been removed from the rubric, and how does it affect my team?

Collaboration

Collaboration has always been an integral part of the competition, and still remains so. However, the Judging Committee felt that the medal requirements for collaborating and partnering with other teams clearly benefited some teams, but not necessarily others. Therefore, for 2023, we removed collaboration and partnership as medal requirements; teams will no longer be explicitly judged on their collaboration efforts.

That said, collaborations are still a great way to meet new people and grow your projects in creative ways, so we strongly encourage iGEM teams to continue to meet up and work together throughout the season. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to share ideas with and learn from other iGEMers! Be ready to tell the judges you know about the other projects that are similar to yours!

“How much did the team accomplish?”

The question, “How much did the team accomplish?” was formerly one of the ten questions in the General Project section of the rubric. By removing this question, teams no longer benefit from simply presenting a large volume of work. The remaining rubric aspects all evaluate the quality of the work presented. We hope to encourage teams to focus their efforts and demonstrate excellence in targeted areas, rather than spreading their resources thin across too many areas at once.

More resources for success

To help teams succeed, we publish as much as we can about the judging process. Consider consulting these links as you plan, execute and document your work:

Rubric page
Medals page
Judges Handbook (when it becomes available)
This blog post about telling your story to the Judges

As always, if you still have questions about the judging process or rubric, please reach out to us. You can find us on the 2023 Global Slack in the #competition-judging channel or via email at judging [at] iGEM [dot] org.

We are excited to see what our brilliant, hardworking iGEMers accomplish this year.

See you in Paris!