FCDO’s Annual Competition

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) organises a yearly essay competition for students in years 10 to 13 (in England and Wales, or equivalent in Scotland and Northern Ireland), interested in economics. This initiative, called Next Generation Economics, aims at encouraging students from all backgrounds to get interested in Economics. This year’s essay question was highly related to the Hub’s mission, asking what economic policies governments around the world should use to economically empower women and girls.

As we have identified that the leak in the diversity pipeline starts very early, even in high school, we have decided to discuss with the FCDO a partnership to increase participation and stakes in the competition. In particular, we are currently discussing with them how we can help attract more students from diverse backgrounds to apply to the competition by a combination of joint outreach, higher prize money (currently £250) and the opportunity to visit the Hub and discuss research on diversity with us for the winner. This partnership has been informally agreed on and we are currently working on a formal contract.

Check out the video below or discover our other actions.