Call for Applications: World Habitat Awards

Prize and Benefits

• Winning a World Habitat Award provides international visibility and acts as a mark of recognition that a housing solution is innovative, exceptional and exciting.
• In addition, the two Gold Award winning projects receive a prize fund of £10,000 each.
• Trophies are also presented to the two Gold Award winning projects at a special Awards Ceremony, and travel and accommodation costs are met for one representative of each project to attend.
• All award winners (Bronze, Silver and Gold) are invited to join the World Habitat Award Network, consisting of a group of former winners and finalists of the competition since 1986. Every year, the new winners join the Network and every year it grows from strength to strength. They organise online and in person meetings for Network members to learn about each other’s practice in the field of housing. Members can share information with the Network through a dedicated LinkedIn group and reach out to other members to explore synergies and collaborations.
• Gold Award winners also receive individualised support from World Habitat for a year, through the exChange Programme, to help develop their projects and programmes and promote their impact to wider audiences.

Who can enter the World Habitat Awards?

• Anyone representing or collaborating on an innovative project in the field of housing is welcome to enter: individuals, NGOs, public institutions, private initiatives, academia, United Nations programmes, etc.

Eligibility Criteria

• They want to hear about projects from around the world that:
  • focus on affordable and adequate housing;
  • have taken action to address the climate emergency;
  • are in progress or have been completed in the last ten years;
  • are taking steps to promote diversity, equality and inclusion; and
  • have been designed and/or delivered in close collaboration with the residents/local community

Selection Criteria

• Each entry to the World Habitat Awards goes through a thorough process. They need each entry to demonstrate a number of different factors.
  • Impact
    • What has your project achieved?
    • To what extent has your project improved lives and met the right to adequate housing, particularly for people with few choices?
    • Innovation
  • What makes your project different?
    • Is it working in a particularly challenging context, or using a new or little-used approach to housing?
  • Environmental Sustainability
    • Is your project compatible with Sustainable Development Goal 13 – action to combat climate change and its effects?
    • Does it positively impact on the environment and the wider society?
    • Is your organisation implementing measures to reduce its carbon footprint?
  • Viability and Transferability
    • Is your project capable of continuing over the long-term? Or have its impacts sustained after completion?
    • Can your idea or approach be used to solve similar challenges elsewhere?
    • Was it inspired by another project or idea – which you have developed for your own specific situation?
  • Significance
    • Are you tackling an issue which is particularly current, urgent or neglected?

For more information, visit World Habitat.