Apply by October 4 if your five-person team is structurally eligible
Wege Prize 2027 team applications are due Sunday, October 4, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. EST. The competition is organized by the Wege Center for Sustainable Design at Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design with support from The Wege Foundation. It is open to undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students worldwide.
| Item | Published detail |
|---|---|
| Application deadline | October 4, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. EST |
| Team size | Exactly 5 students |
| Team mix | 3+ current academic disciplines; 2+ institutions of higher education |
| Individual eligibility | Currently enrolled undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate students worldwide |
| Enrollment | Full-time or equivalent for the competition; students graduating before May 2027 must remain enrolled through at least December 6, 2026 |
| Entry fee | None |
| Phase 2 | October 19–December 6, 2026; 90 accepted teams compete for 30 advancement spots |
| Phase 3 | January 4–February 21, 2027; 30 teams compete for 15 semifinalist spots |
| Phase 4 | March 15–May 16, 2027; 15 semifinalists compete for 5 finalist spots |
| Final presentation | May 21, 2027 in Grand Rapids, Michigan |
| Prize pool | $65,000 total: $30,000 / $20,000 / $10,000 plus two $2,500 finalist awards |
| Program type | Student design competition and learning program; not employment |
The unusual part is the team structure. Wege requires exactly five members, at least three different current academic disciplines and at least two institutions of higher education. Separate schools within one larger university can count as different institutions under the published rule. Individual entries are not allowed.
Do not wait for a finished business or polished prototype. Phase 1 asks the team to define a wicked problem, map the system around it, choose a scope, propose a product or service, explain how circular design changes the approach, identify likely impact and describe what the team needs to learn next.
The real application bottleneck is the roster, not prior experience
Use one decision rule: can you assemble the required team and explain one credible problem-solution hypothesis by October 4? If yes, apply. If your group has only four people, only two disciplines or only one qualifying institution, the application is not structurally ready no matter how strong the idea is.
The rules do not require a prior internship, a previous competition win or an incorporated company. A team can apply as students rather than as a business entity. The application does require every member’s enrollment and degree information plus a team response to eight prompts covering the problem, system, scope, proposed solution, innovation, impact, outside perspectives and next steps.
Choose teammates for contribution, not résumé decoration. The competition later asks for user and stakeholder research, prototyping or testing, financial viability, material flows, visual communication and live presentation. A mixed team is useful when the disciplines create different ways to attack those jobs, not when the majors merely satisfy the count.
What you build gets more concrete at every phase
Accepted teams receive judge feedback on the Phase 1 application, then build a six-page Project Overview for Phase 2. That document covers the problem, intervention point, proposed circular solution, existing alternatives, intended users, progress from testing or stakeholder work, financial viability, expected impact and barriers. Judges return another round of feedback before semifinal selection.
Semifinalists revise the overview to eight pages, add deeper financial and material-flow analysis and submit a three-to-five-minute project update video. They can also use an optional January early-review window for feedback on the written and visual communication. Finalists revise the eight-page overview again, submit another update video and build the slideshow for the live awards event.
That iterative record is the useful recruiting signal. A student can later point to the problem definition, research, prototype, financial model, system map, revision after judge feedback and the piece they personally owned. Registration by itself is weak evidence; completed work and an actual advancement stage are stronger.
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Prize money is conditional; finalist travel support is specific
Wege lists $65,000 in total cash prizes: $30,000 for first place, $20,000 for second, $10,000 for third and $2,500 for each of the two other finalist teams. For a non-business entry, the cash award is split equally among the five team members. Prize money is an award for placement, not wages for participating.
The five finalist teams present at the Wege Prize Awards on May 21, 2027 in Grand Rapids. Each team designates one live presenter. Wege says each finalist team can receive up to $3,000 in travel-expense reimbursement plus downtown hotel accommodation for the presenter and at least one other team member. Other team members may attend, but the published support is not an unlimited team travel budget.
The submitted solution and materials remain the team’s intellectual property. The organizer receives rights to use submitted materials and participant profile information for non-commercial display, promotion and assessment with creator credit. If your project already belongs to a lab, sponsor or startup, settle internal ownership and disclosure rules before submitting.
Apply for the project opportunity, not for an implied internship
Wege Prize is worth pursuing when your team wants months of structured pressure to turn an early circular-design idea into a defensible project. The combination of fixed deadlines and repeated judge feedback adds something a self-directed project usually lacks. The program does not publish an internship interview, job conversion or employer fast-track.
If your team is eligible, spend the remaining application time on one strong problem definition and a plausible entry point instead of pretending the concept is finished. Make each member responsible for evidence behind part of the application, then reconcile the eight responses into one argument. If accepted, preserve the submitted version and every major revision so you can show how the project changed.
Keep internship recruiting separate. Use Wege to create evidence for sustainability, product, engineering, research or commercialization roles, then apply to those roles on their own timelines. If your team cannot meet the roster rules by October 4, build a smaller project now and revisit a later competition instead of forcing an ineligible submission.