The competition saw students from King’s College London and the University of Queensland (UQ) join together in teams of four to build a case on countries’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students were asked to present their argument in a video of no more than five minutes. The judging panel featured academics from King’s and UQ and a series of competition prizes were supported by a Faculty Education Award won by Dr Elisa Cavatorta from the Department of Political Economy at King’s.

Returning for a second year, the purpose of the competition is to support the development of transferable and employability skills by creating a cross-border opportunity to work together towards a common project on contemporary topics outside the usual curriculum. The organisers aimed to create an opportunity for students to develop their leadership skills, enrich their CVs and foster a sense of teamwork across the globe.

The results were announced in an awards ceremony held on 20 April.

Dr Cavatorta said: “Congratulations to everyone who took part. The judging panel was absolutely impressed by all the videos and the judges told me how enjoyable and insightful the submissions were. It was very hard for the judges to make a selection which is testament to how detailed and rigorous the teams were in tackling the task.”

THE TASK

Students were asked to use data and econometrics tools to consider the statement: ‘The differences between countries performances in handling the COVID-19 pandemic are best explained by a country’s characteristics before the pandemic rather than by a country’s responses to the pandemic.’

WATCH THE AWARD CEREMONY

THE WINNERS

First place: Abbey Anstey-Walsh (UQ), Yihan Ding (KCL), Guan Qiyang (KCL), Lachlan Hung (UQ)

Second place: Joao Pedro Sodre Freitas (KCL), Ian Chalfon (KCL), Xinghao Yao (UQ), Yingxi Shen (UQ).

Third place: Oleksandra Kolobova (KCL), Niclas Brede (KCL), Georgia Brown (UQ), James Zhang (UQ)

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Adam Costello (KCL), Vedant Sinha (KCL), Benjamin Stephens (UQ), Zixin Gao (UQ)

Erona Tasholli (KCL), Olivia Yunqing Wang (UQ), Oscar Pollack (UQ), Zacharias Sandvik (KCL)