IYPA 2022

We would love to hear your
philosophical thoughts!

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Irish Young Philosopher Awards for 2022. This year is marked by hope, optimism and thoughtfulness as we recover from the extra-ordinary circumstances encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this year’s IYPA awards, we ask students from Ireland and Northern Ireland to create a project on a philosophical question that they find important or fascinating. It can be a timeless philosophical question, or it can be a question that reflects on contemporary issues and problems. The best entries will be awarded a prize and they will be published on the UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life website or the IYPA website.

All second level students and 5th and 6th class primary level students on the island of Ireland are eligible to apply. Individuals, groups, and classes may submit an entry. Please make sure you include the names of all participants in your class or group, and your contact details at the top of your work. See instructions below.

All entries should be submitted by 28 March 2022. Entries should be emailed to the IYPA email address: youngphilosopherawards@ucd.ie.

• Decide whether you want to work as an individual or a group (this may be a class).
• Each person may only submit or be a participant in one entry.
• Choose a philosophical issue that you find interesting and important.
• Create a specific philosophical question which will be the focus of your project.
• Discuss your question with your family, friends, and teachers.
• Find information about your topic in books, on-line articles, and magazines.
• Examine the different views on the question that you have raised and keep notes.
• Create a project in response to the question or issue you think is most important. Your project can be in the format of a blog post, essay, letter, short story, dialogue, comic, podcast, or film.
• If writing a blog or a written project you may include images to accompany your work. The length of written projects should be a maximum 1500 words.
• Films or podcasts should be no more than 8 minutes in length.
• Let us know when you are using another person’s ideas or words and make sure that you provide a list of references with all of your sources.

• Philosophical questions are juicy questions that create a lot of discussion and give us lots to think about.
• Philosophical questions often have more than one answer.
• Philosophical questions prompt us to reflect on different and conflicting answers or views.
• Philosophical questions deal with universal and abstract, or big ideas, which however are relevant to our everyday lives.
• Quite often philosophical questions focus on social, political or ethical issues that have a direct relation to problems that we face collectively.

When you find yourselves asking such questions, then you can be certain that you have entered the philosopher’s zone! We encourage all students to reflect, discuss and raise your own philosophical question on a topic that interests you. After all, part of being a good philosopher is to raise questions that nobody else has raised.

All entries should be submitted by 28 March 2022.

Entries should be emailed to the IYPA email address: youngphilosopherawards@ucd.ie

When you submit your entry, you must include the following information on your work or typed in the email you send:

• Name (or the names of all members of your group or your class name)
• School
• Year Level
• Email Contact
• Teacher or Parent Name and Contact Details

For all queries contact IYPA at: youngphilosopherawards@ucd.ie