Built on the solid foundations of 100 years of the Student Design Awards, RSA Spark has been designed to achieve even greater impact.
RSA Spark welcomes students from across the globe to grow and apply their agency, skills and creativity to real-world briefs that do more good for people, places and the planet.
RSA Spark is free to enter and open to currently enrolled and recently graduated students aged 18 and above from all disciplines and wherever you are located around the world.
Educators and their students are invited to download our new RSA Spark Briefing Pack to get started. The pack includes all the information you need to participate. Our industry partners set each brief to address a real-world issue: economic, social or environmental.
Working individually or in teams, students are invited to apply their creativity to shape and test the best possible idea in response to the brief. When they are ready, they can submit their ideas to RSA Spark. Submissions open 20 May and close 30 June 2025.
When you're hearing things on the news to do with climate change its always something that you can just turn off and move on with your day but, RSA Spark really made me stop and think about how I can do my bit to help the environment, and it gave me a better understanding of how, as an individual, I can help.
This year we have four exciting new briefs for students to discover. These are:
Students taking part will benefit from learning workshops, feedback from our expert panel, digital badges to evidence their participation, and the chance to be shortlisted for our annual showcase event and The RSA Spark Entrepreneurs programme.
Our briefs have been designed to challenge and inspire students to connect creative learning with future career purpose. Through taking part in RSA Spark, students have an opportunity to grow 10 capabilities for life that are important when innovating in ways that positively impact people, places and planet.
Each brief is designed as a five-stage creative process and so we’ve provided five online learning workshops for each stage to guide submissions.
The workshops are optional to attend and not a prerequisite for participating in RSA Spark. You can join or playback our interactive workshops if you want to strengthen your skills in these areas and earn an RSA Spark digital badge.
To celebrate the best of the submissions this academic year, we will be shortlisting 10 ideas for each brief and inviting them to take part in our exclusive showcase event in September.
The showcase will be live at RSA House for a month, as well as online for a year.
In addition, the £500 Anjool Malde Innovator Prize will be given to the entry that best demonstrates an outstanding idea with market potential from a UK entrant/student.
Finally, eight standout participants with enterprising ideas will have the opportunity to secure a place and seed funding on our new RSA Spark entrepreneurs’ programme.
This award includes a £1,000 seed grant, a four-month long online peer-learning journey (April to September 2026), direct mentorship from a seasoned entrepreneur, an Innovator Digital Badge, and a one-year RSA Fellowship.
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