Praise for students as results of Borderless 2020 competition are revealed

17 April 2020

Praise for students as results of Borderless 2020 competition are revealed

The winners of this year's Econometric Digital Competition have been announced.

The competition brought together students from King's College London and the University of Queensland

A panel of seven judges deliberated over each application and agreed that the quality of all submissions was impressive. All submissions, the judges said, were outstanding, excellently well-crafted and inspiring.

The Borderless - Econometric Digital Competition 2020 competition saw students from King’s College London (KCL) and the University of Queensland (UQ) come together in groups of four to critically analyse a research article’s design and results, presenting their considerations in a short video to a panel of judges.

The purpose of the competition was to support the development of transferable and employability skills by creating a new, cross-border opportunity to work together towards a common project. With this initiative, the organisers aimed to create an opportunity for students to develop their leadership skills, for example to convey technical knowledge to the general public. They also wanted to foster a sense of teamwork spanning, literally, across the globe.

KCL organiser Elisa Cavatorta, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, said: “We would like to celebrate all the teams who participated. This was a set of really stunning and inspiring work. The judges said it was very hard to make a selection from a collection of very professional and well-crafted videos. I hope these videos will inspire others to learn quantitative methods, engage with scientific research and take on a challenge.”

Judge John Meadowcroft said: “In my view all of the videos were potentially prizeworthy. Well done to everybody, I was very impressed.”

And judge Karly Kuralbayeva also added: “With so many excellent projects, it was no easy feat for the panel to choose a winner from among the teams. I would also like to say thank you to the organisers, it’s a really great initiative and I hope it is able to continue.”

THE TASK

Students were tasked with interpreting the article Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect by Daryl. J. Bem (Cornell University) and critically analysing the article’s design, research methods and conclusions. They were required to use econometric concepts learnt in various quantitative methods and econometrics modules, and present their work in the format of a five-minute video.