Table of contents 1. Objective of the competition 2. Timelines 3. Prize Diversity Advantage Challenge First Edition 2014 --- Terms and Conditions 4. General conditions Eligibility 5. Judging criteria 6. Ownership/Use of the entries 7. Liability
The Diversity Advantage Challenge (hereinafter referred to as "the Challenge") is organised by the Council of Europe. The Directorate in charge of the Competition is the Directorate General of Democracy. The Challenge is co-funded by the Council of Europe and la Caixa Foundation (Spain). It is open to local authorities, enterprises, civil society organisations, media and other institutions worldwide. By submitting an entry, participants accept these terms and conditions and agree to comply with them. 1. Objective of the competition The Challenge aims at raising awareness of the benefits of diversity among the public and private decision-makers and to provide examples of how organisations, businesses and cities which have realised these benefits by creating innovative products, services, ideas and initiatives. The challenge will help understand better the conditions under which diversity generates innovation as well as the challenges and opportunities of the process. The Challenge will also include a strong mentoring component that will benefit not only the winners but also the contestants having submitted the best ideas. This mentoring component aims at turning the best ideas into tangible and sustainable projects. The award ceremony of the Challenge is expected to take place in March 2015. More specifically, the Challenge will support the best social innovation solutions to help diverse communities move towards intercultural integration and create new conditions for peace and prosperity. Further background and examples are available on the Intercultural Cities website. All types of ideas and solutions are welcome, even if they are not mature yet. As stated above, one of the objectives of the Challenge is to help the best ideas to reach the stage of prototyping and/or implementation. It is a contest for the best real-life stories of the successful involvement of people of different cultural (ethnic, religious, linguistic) backgrounds in the design of innovative products, services, policies, projects and initiatives. The stories should illustrate how it is possible to harness cultural diversity to the benefit of businesses, organisations and communities. The Challenge has been conceived in a way which does not limit it to the award of prizes. It offers many other benefits to the best contestants, in terms of free publicity given to their ideas, of mentoring and of connecting to a wide range of social innovation experts, organisations, investors and networks from various countries in Europe and beyond. Eventually an entry might not win the prize but draw interest from a third party and receive support from other sources. 2. Timelines Entries for the first phase of the Competition must be received on the Competition website by 31 October 2014, at 12:00:00 the latest (noon, Central European Time).
All entries will be assessed in November-December 2014. Around mid-january 2015, the 2 winners of the prizes (2 is the indicative maximum number) will be announced at the award ceremony. Following the ceremony, the Council of Europe will initiate the transfer of the prize money once the legal identification form and the bank identification form have been filled in, signed and returned with the necessary supporting documents to the Council of Europe. 3. Prize The Council of Europe plans to award one or more prizes to the best ideas according to the judging criteria set out below. The prize fund is a minimum of 10 000 4. General conditions Eligibility The Challenge is open to local authorities, enterprises, civil society organisations, media and other institutions worldwide. Ideas and proposals from all sources, sectors and all types of organisations including for-profit, non-for-profit, or private companies are welcome. The contestants are invited to share their stories by answering to the questionnaire and sending it to diversity.challenge@coe.int by 31 October 2014, at 12:00:00 the latest (noon, Central European Time). Entries received after this deadline will be considered ineligible and will be automatically rejected. Entries must be submitted in one of the official languages of the Council of Europe (English or French). Contestants must provide web links, photos, films and other illustrations and other evidence for the case. If selected as a finalist, contestants must prepare a 2-min. video to present the story for screening at the prize-giving ceremony in Strasbourg. They must be also willing to give a 3-min. acceptance speech during the CoE event (award ceremony) if selected as a winner. The winners must present their story either French or English (possibility for other languages such as Italian, German and Russian to be confirmed at a later stage) during the Council of Europe award ceremony. The contestants undertake to take all the necessary measures to prevent any risk of conflict of interests which could affect the impartial and objective performance of the Challenge. Such conflict of interests could arise in particular as a result of economic interest, political or national affinity or any other shared interest. Entries must not invade publicity rights or privacy of any person, or otherwise infringe upon any individual's personal or proprietary rights. Entries and supporting visual material must be suitable for publication in a public forum and must not contain nudity, profanity or threats of violence. Entries must not serve advertising purposes for products and services (commercial and non-commercial) of particular businesses or economic interests or be inappropriate in any other way.
5. Judging criteria The successful entries will be the ones that best meet the criteria outlined below. Judging criteria for the Challenge will be the following three: - degree of social innovation assessed as the innovativeness in a given context of the proposed idea; of the approach and solution to a socio-economic or cultural issue; of the proposed product, service, process, technology implied by this solution; or of the business, implementation, organisation or social models underpinning this solution social innovations can be understood as genuinely new ideas as much as new or improved ways to implement, combine, or adapt to a different context or target group existing solutions; - potential impact assessed as the potential of the idea to help diverse communities move towards intercultural integration and create new conditions for peace and prosperity in the multicultural society; - potential for sustainability and scale assessed as the likeliness that projects can be sustained and have significant, long-lasting and increasing impact and as their capacity to be inspirational for others in Europe e.g. to be applied/transferred/adapted to another area of the same country, to another or more countries, to another issue and to another population category. The following weights will apply to the judging criteria: - degree of innovation 50%; - potential impact 30%; - potential for sustainability and scale 20%. A Jury constituted by the Council of Europe will determine which submissions, in any, merit to be awarded a prize. The Council of Europe reserves the right to refuse any entry; to suspend or terminate the Challenge and to amend the present terms and conditions at any time without prior notice. The Council of Europe will inform the public of any such a change on the Competition website. Changes will take effect from the date they are posted on the Intercultural Cities website.
6. Ownership/Use of the entries Ownership of the idea and of its implementation results, including industrial and intellectual property rights, and of the reports and other documents relating to it, shall be vested in the contestant. Without prejudice to the previous paragraph, the contestants grant the Council of Europe the right to display, reproduce by any technical procedure, translate or communicate the idea and its results by any medium, including on Intercultural Cities website, provided it does not thereby breach its confidentiality obligations or existing industrial and intellectual property rights. Any communication or publication by Challenge winners, including at a conference or seminar, shall indicate that the organisation has received funding from the Council of Europe. By submitting an entry, contestants declare that they have obtained, or will obtain, all authorisations, consents and permissions necessary to submit their entry, carry out their proposal and comply with these terms and conditions and, to the best of their knowledge, that their entry will not infringe any intellectual property or other third party rights or breach any contractual obligation. The Council of Europe assumes no responsibility for disputes between persons claiming copyrights on any sort in relation to an entry submitted for the Challenge. Where industrial and intellectual property rights, including rights of third parties, exist prior to the Challenge ("pre-existing intellectual property rights"), contestants shall establish a list which shall specify all rights of ownership and use in the pre-existing intellectual property rights and may be asked to disclose it to the Council of Europe should they be proposed as winners at the latest prior to the commencement of implementation of their proposal. Prize winners shall ensure that they have all rights to use any pre-existing intellectual property rights in implementation of their proposal. 7. Liability Contestants shall have sole responsibility for complying with any legal obligations incumbent on them. The Council of Europe shall not be held liable for any damage caused or sustained by any of the participants, including any damage caused to third parties as a consequence of or during the implementation of the activities related to the Challenge. Consequently, the Council of Europe will not entertain any request for indemnity or reimbursement accompanying any such claim. Except in cases of force majeure, contestants shall make good any damage sustained by the Council of Europe as a result of the execution or faulty execution of their project.
Contestants shall bear sole liability vis-à-vis third parties, including for damage of any kind sustained by them while the project is being implemented.