International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition: A Complete Guide

The International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) is a premier global STEM contest for students interested in synthetic biology and biotechnology. iGEM stands out for its emphasis on rigorous research, interdisciplinary teamwork, and real-world problem solving, and success in the competition can strengthen a college application, as selective colleges value sustained extracurricular engagement and intellectual initiative.

This guide explains what iGEM is, how the competition works, key eligibility requirements and fees, judging and awards, and tips for applying and winning.

• What Is the iGEM Competition?
• iGEM Competition Awards and Prizes
• How to Qualify for the iGEM Competition
• How to Get into the iGEM Competition
• How to Win the iGEM Competition
• iGEM Competition Previous Winners
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Takeaways

What Is the iGEM Competition?

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is an annual, international synthetic biology contest where you design, build, test, and document an original biological engineering project that addresses a real-world problem. Projects commonly focus on health, infectious diseases, climate, agriculture, biomanufacturing, and foundational advances in synthetic biology.

Across a structured, year-long season, you complete required deliverables such as safety documentation, project attribution, judging forms, videos, software or parts documentation, and a public wiki, ensuring rigor, transparency, and responsible conduct.

The season culminates at the iGEM Grand Jamboree, where you present your work to expert judges and engage with a global audience of researchers, industry leaders, startup founders, investors, policymakers, journalists, and the public.

The 2025 Grand Jamboree (October 28–31, 2025, Paris Convention Centre) brought together 4,600+ participants, 400+ teams, and representatives from 50+ countries. For 2026, you can register starting January 2026, develop your project throughout the year, and present at the iGEM 2026 Grand Jamboree on November 13–16, 2026, again at the Paris Convention Centre.

iGEM Competition Awards and Prizes

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition uses a structured awards system that recognizes achievement through medals, project prizes, and special prizes, each evaluating different aspects of team performance.

Project Prizes

Project Prizes recognize the top-performing teams overall:

• Grand Prizes (BioBrick Trophies). Awarded to the highest-ranked team in each section: High School, Undergraduate, and Overgraduate. Finalists present live on the Grand Jamboree main stage.
• Village Awards. Awarded to the highest-scoring teams within thematic Villages (such as Diagnostics, Climate Crisis, Infectious Diseases, Agriculture, and Foundational Advance), comparing teams working on similar problem areas.

Special Prizes

Special Prizes are competitive awards that recognize excellence specific aspects of communication, engineering, collaboration, and societal impact.

Special Prizes are awarded separately for High School, Undergraduate, and Overgraduate teams based on ballot scores.

Medals

Medals are criteria-based. You earn a medal by meeting defined standards.

To meet a medal criterion, clearly document all work on the required Standard URLs and present it transparently across your Wiki, Registry pages, videos, Judging Form, and Judging Session.

How to Qualify for the iGEM Competition

To participate in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, you must meet eligibility requirements, submit all required documentation, and complete registration and payment on time.

Eligibility

You can compete in iGEM as part of one of the following team categories:

• High school teams. All student members must be enrolled in secondary school as of the eligibility cutoff date.
• Undergraduate teams. All student members are typically 23 years old or younger by the cutoff date.
• Overgraduate teams. At least one student member exceeds the undergraduate age limit.

iGEM is a team-based competition; individual participation is not permitted. Your team must be supervised by at least one approved Principal Investigator (PI). The PI is responsible for team registration, safety certification, and financial oversight.

For high school teams, the PI must be a principal, teacher, or academic coach employed by one of the participating schools.

Required documents

To remain eligible for evaluation, you must submit all required forms and project documentation through the iGEM platform:

• Participant Consent Forms for every team member
• Principal Consent Forms (required for high school teams, one per school represented)
• Safety Forms, including additional approvals if your project involves regulated organisms, parts, or activities
• Judging Form, which determines medal and prize evaluation
• Project Attributions Form, clearly documenting who completed each part of the work
• Team Wiki and Registry documentation, including parts, software, or hardware submissions if applicable

Incomplete, inaccurate, or late submissions can result in disqualification or loss of eligibility for medals and prizes.

Contest fees

You must complete iGEM’s required fees, which are paid in euros (€) and structured across three stages:

• Program Fee – Stage I (Registration). €4,950–€5,950 per team (approximately $5,400–$6,500)
• Program Fee – Stage II (Finalization). €2,750 per team (approximately $3,000)
• Jamboree Tickets – Stage III. €525–€645 per person (in-person teams only) (approximately $570–$700 per attendee)

Note: Make sure you complete the Stage II (Finalization) payment by the deadline. If you miss this payment, your team will be automatically marked as withdrawn, lose access to the competition platform and wiki, and become ineligible for judging, medals, awards, and Jamboree participation.

Registration deadline

For the 2026 iGEM season, team registration opens in January 2026. Early registration deadlines typically fall in February, with higher fees applied to later registration periods.

To avoid delays or increased costs, you should plan fundraising, institutional approvals, and payment logistics well in advance.

How to Get into the iGEM Competition

Getting into the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition follows a structured process:

Step 1: Form a team and secure a Principal Investigator (PI).

You begin by assembling a student-led team and securing a Primary Principal Investigator (PI). The PI is required and holds formal responsibility for team registration, safety compliance, and fee payments.

Only the Primary PI can initiate registration. High school teams must be organized through a school, community lab, or approved organization, with a PI who is a teacher, principal, or academic coach. Most competitive teams include 8–15 students with complementary strengths across research, modeling, human practices, and documentation.

Make sure to start PI outreach early. Delays in PI approval or lab access are one of the most common reasons teams miss registration.

Step 2: Register the team.

Once your PI is confirmed, your team registers through the official iGEM platform. This step establishes your team’s eligibility and access to iGEM resources.

Registration requires submission of your team’s organizer type, institution details, initial roster information, and required consent forms. Registration for the 2026 season opens in January 2026, with earlier registration offering lower fees.

Ensure student ages and roles are accurate. —Errors can affect whether your team is placed in the correct competition section.

Step 3: Select a Village.

Each team selects a Village, which is a thematic category, such as Diagnostics, Infectious Diseases, Climate Crisis, Agriculture, Foundational Advance, or Software & AI. Your Village determines your peer comparison group for Village Awards and influences how judges frame your project’s impact.

Choose the Village that best reflects your project’s central contribution.

Step 4: Develop and execute the project.

Throughout the season, you design, build, test, and refine a synthetic biology project using the design–build–test–learn cycle. In parallel, you conduct Human Practices work to evaluate ethical, societal, and real-world implications.

All progress—successful or not—must be documented clearly on your Team Wiki and, when applicable, Registry Part Pages or software repositories.

Judges value iteration and learning. Well-documented failures often strengthen your evaluation more than unexamined success.

Step 5: Submit deliverables and attend judging.

To remain eligible for medals and prizes, you must submit all required deliverables before strict freeze deadlines. These include safety documentation, the Judging Form, project attributions, videos, and your finalized Team Wiki.

You will then participate in a judging session, either in person at the Grand Jamboree or remotely, where judges question your team directly about your work.

Make sure to review your Judging Form and all linked wiki pages as a team several days before the freeze as late corrections are not permitted.

How to Win the iGEM Competition

The strongest winning teams in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition succeed because they plan strategically, execute carefully, and document their work in a way that aligns closely with how judges evaluate projects.

Below are concrete, practical ways you can strengthen your chances.

1. Apply the Engineering Design Cycle more than once.

Judges expect to clearly see Design → Build → Test → Learn cycle, and the best teams repeat this cycle. Start by explaining why you chose a specific biological system or approach. After building it, test it with clear controls and measurable outputs. If results fall short, show what you learned and how you redesigned the system.

For example, if gene expression is weaker than expected, you might adjust promoter strength, codon usage, or chassis choice, and explain why. Iteration demonstrates real engineering thinking, which is essential for Silver and Gold Medals.

2. Use Human Practices to drive decisions.

Human Practices should actively shape your project. Talk to clinicians, industry experts, policymakers, or community stakeholders early. If feedback raises concerns—such as biosafety, accessibility, or environmental risk—document how you addressed them.

For instance, stakeholder input might lead you to redesign your delivery method, add containment strategies, or rethink your target users. Judges reward teams that show responsible innovation grounded in real-world context.

3. Demonstrate clear student ownership.

iGEM values student leadership. You should make it obvious that students designed experiments, analyzed data, wrote code, and made decisions. Use your Project Attributions Form to clearly assign responsibilities.

During judging sessions, every team member should understand the full project well enough to explain it. Judges often ask follow-up questions to confirm student ownership, and confident, consistent answers make a strong impression.

4. Document with judges in mind.

Judges only evaluate what they can easily find on Standard URL pages and Registry Part Pages. Strong teams guide judges directly to their best work using clear structure, labeled figures, and concise explanations.

Avoid burying key results deep in long pages. Instead, clearly explain what each experiment shows, why it matters, and how it supports your claims. Well-organized documentation can be the difference between a Silver and Gold Medal.

5. Choose awards early and build toward them.

If you want a Gold Medal or Special Prizes, you must plan for them from the beginning. Decide which prizes you are targeting—such as Measurement, Model, Education, or Entrepreneurship—and design your work accordingly.

If your team is pursuing the Best Measurement award, focus on reproducible protocols and calibration. If aiming for Best Entrepreneurship, develop a clear market need, feasibility analysis, and development roadmap. Even if you don’t win the prize, aligning your work improves your overall evaluation.

6. Prepare strategically for judging sessions.

Judging sessions are interactive discussions, not presentations. You should be able to explain your motivation, design choices, results, limitations, and next steps clearly and calmly.

Practice answering questions like: “What would you change if you had more time?” or “How does your data support this claim?” Teams that acknowledge limitations honestly and show thoughtful reflection score higher than teams that overclaim.

iGEM Competition Previous Winners

Below is the list of winners of the 2025 International Genetically Engineered (iGEM) competition:

Grand Prize winners (overall best teams)

These teams achieved the highest total scores in their divisions and received the BioBrick Trophy.

Village Award winners – collegiate (undergraduate & overgraduate)

Village Awards recognize the strongest projects within each thematic area.

Village Award Winners – high school (combined Villages)

Combined villages winners for high school are listed below as well.

Special Prize winners (selected major categories)

Special Prizes are awarded per division for standout achievement in specific areas.

Medal awardees (criterion-based awards)

Since medals are criterion-based, teams compete against standards and not each other. Here are the medal awardees for 2025:

• 257 teams earned Gold Medals
• 107 teams earned Silver Medals
• 22 teams earned Bronze Medals

Gold Medal teams included globally recognized universities and schools such as MIT, Stanford, Yale, Cornell, EPFL, McGill, and many leading high schools across Asia, Europe, and North America.

Across the 2025 iGEM results, a small set of teams appeared repeatedly across all awards. It includes McGill University, EPFL, Heidelberg, Brno Czech Republic, and GreatBay-SCIE, reflecting the global competitiveness of iGEM.

Overall, teams that combined rigorous design-build-test cycles with focused prize strategy were the most consistently rewarded across iGEM’s competitive categories.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What does iGEM stands for?

iGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machine and is a global synthetic biology competition where student teams design, build, test, and present original biological engineering projects aimed at real-world problems. Teams work through a year-long research cycle and are evaluated by expert judges on engineering, responsibility, and impact.

2. Is iGEM prestigious?

Yes. iGEM is widely recognized by top universities, research labs, and biotech companies as one of the most rigorous student-led STEM competitions in the world. Earning medals, Village Awards, or Special Prizes reflects research-level work rather than classroom exercises.

3. Does iGEM help with college admissions?

Yes—when positioned correctly. At AdmissionSight, we see iGEM as a high-impact extracurricular because it demonstrates sustained commitment, independent research, teamwork, and leadership. Strong outcomes such as Gold Medals, Village Awards, or finalist recognition can meaningfully strengthen applications to selective STEM programs.

4. How competitive is the iGEM competition?

While all teams can earn medals by meeting criteria, the iGEM competition is highly competitive at the top. Grand Prizes, Village Awards, and Special Prizes are awarded to only a small fraction of teams from a global field, making top placements a clear signal of exceptional performance.

Takeaways

• The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is one of the most respected global STEM contests, offering students the chance to conduct research-driven synthetic biology work on an international stage.
• iGEM evaluates technical results and rewards ethical decision-making, clear communication, teamwork, and demonstrated real-world impact.
• Medals and Special Prizes are awarded based on clearly defined criteria, so success depends on careful planning, disciplined execution, and precise documentation.
• Success in iGEM depends on sustained effort across the entire season, including rigorous research, iterative engineering, responsible Human Practices, and precise documentation on required judging pages.
• If you want expert guidance on how to position iGEM strategically within a competitive college application, our Academic and Extracurricular Profile Evaluation can help you clearly frame your achievements and plan your extracurricular path with intent.