The European Patent Office (EPO) has launched a collaborative art competition for primary schools on the topic of sustainability, technology and innovation. The competition is open to any primary school located in any EPO member state, extension state or validation state. It is part of an exciting programme of activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the European Patent Convention.
Being creative and thinking about new solutions to problems are precious skills that need to be nurtured among young children. They are also key skills that every inventor needs to come up with new inventions and contribute to building a more sustainable world.
The EPO's collaborative art competition is an opportunity to raise children's awareness of sustainability in a playful way and let them express, in a group with the help of a teacher, their dreams about the world in which they want to live. In this way they can creatively explore innovative solutions to achieve a better quality of life on Earth. Teachers may wish to check out the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for further inspiration.
The outcome of this collaborative creative process should be an artwork. It can be a drawing, a painting, a sculpture in which children express their innovative ideas for achieving e.g. less pollution, more green spaces, improved health and nutrition, equal opportunities for all. Whatever the children consider to be most important.
To participate in the competition, the schools must use our submission form to submit:
At the end of the form, please remember to tick the boxes concerning: rules; guidelines; and data protection.
Please send your question(s) to 50years@epo.org and be sure to enter “Kids collaborative art competition” in the subject field.
You can submit any kind of artwork: For example, the artwork can be a drawing, a painting or sculpture, installation, etc. The only requirement is that your submission should be a photograph of the artwork or digital art (JPEG file (.jpg) in a high-resolution format: min. 2 000 pixels wide and 300 dpi). To protect the privacy of the children involved, please ensure that the children’s faces, names or any clearly identifying features are not in any way visible in the submission.
The participation of the children in the EPO Kids' collaborative art competition is voluntary. This webpage provides all the information teachers need to be able to inform children and parents about the competition and how it functions. We recommend that teachers inform the children and their parents from the outset about their plans to enter the competition. If any information is missing, teachers should contact the EPO by email at 50years@epo.org.
Please note that the original artwork remains the intellectual property of the creators: the children themselves. The EPO will attribute authorship of the entry to the participant(s), referring to the name of the school and the teacher(s) responsible. However, by submitting an entry to the competition, you give permission to the EPO to use the artwork for all the steps involved in the competition and for communication and promotion purposes around the competition.
As the teacher represents the group of children, it is his/her responsibility to obtain the consent of the children and their parents to submit their artwork in the EPO Kid's collaborative art competition.
For further details, please see the section on Intellectual Property in the Terms and Conditions, which you can find in full at the end of the submission form.
We’d love to learn about the creative process. Some examples of what you may wish to tell us:
Yes, as long as each artwork was created by a different group of school children.
Please note that only one artwork per school will be eligible for the three prizes.
The prize money should be spent on an educational initiative either for the school or the participating children (a museum excursion, art materials, technology materials, etc.). Your description of what you intend to do with the prize is requested in the submission form but will not be taken into consideration when assessing the artwork.
Please submit a single JPEG of each artwork. If appropriate, you can create a composite picture of each artwork (e.g., several angles of a sculpture). If the jury deems it necessary, you might be requested to submit extra pictures.
No, there is only a minimum requirement of five children per group. Apart from that, you are free to work with a small group of children, a class or a couple of classes, or the whole school, or any configuration that works for you.
