The Generation €uro Students’ Award is a competition between schools on monetary policy, organised by the European Central Bank and the Eurosystem's national central banks. This initiative aims to raise awareness of secondary school students to the importance of euro area monetary policy and price stability. It was first held in the 2011-12 academic year.
In this competition, the participants have to suggest monetary policy decisions that the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) should take, depending on the situation of the euro area economy and the level of inflation. Monetary policy is the process used by the central banks to control money supply in the economy. It is based on different instruments to ensure stability, namely interest rates and acquisition of financial assets.
The competition is open to teams of students frequenting school in member countries of the euro area and some international and European euro area schools. The national central banks of the participating countries run the competition in their respective countries. Students who enter the competition have to be aged between 16 and 19 at the time of registration, and in their final years of secondary education. Students do not need to be studying specific subjects to take part. The team can include three to five students and one teacher. All team members must be from the same school, but more than one team per school can take part.
The finalists receive the following prizes:
The winning teams will be invited to an award ceremony with the President of the ECB and national central bank governors. The event will take place at the ECB’s headquarters in Frankfurt am Main on 19 and 20 May 2020. Flights and accommodation will be paid and each team will be accompanied by one teacher. During the two days there will be discussions with ECB experts, presentations and a sightseeing programme. Even if you do not win, taking part will be a valuable experience. All finalists will receive a certificate.
The first round, an online quiz, will run from 1 October to 11 December 2019. The best teams will be invited to the next stage of the competition.
The second round, an assignment, will take place between 12 December 2019 and 12 February 2020. After that, there will be a presentation, followed by a question and answer session, which takes place in March 2020.
Please keep in mind that the timetable could change.
It’s simple. First you need to form a team (three to five students and one teacher) and register. The registration period begins on 1 October 2019.
Once you have registered, you can get started. We suggest that first, you test your knowledge with the trial version of the online quiz and, when you feel ready, take the real online quiz. Remember that you can try the trial version of the quiz as often as you wish, but you can attempt the real quiz only once.
The best teams from the quiz round will qualify for the next round. They will be asked to submit an assignment. Your team can submit the assignment as an essay with a maximum of 2,000 words, or a video up to three minutes long. Be creative!
The teams with the best assignments will then be invited to take part in the final round – a presentation to a jury of experts from your national central bank. There will be a question and answer session afterwards.
One winning team will be chosen by each participating national central bank. All of these winning teams will be invited to the award event at the ECB, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
You can ask your teacher for help with the assignment and presentation. You can find the knowledge you need in the Teachers’ Guide and Lesson Plans (in Portuguese only).
Useful information is also available on the ECB’s website and on the national central bank’s website.
Videos of previous competitions are available at the playlist of the Generation €uro Students' Award on YouTube
Each participating country has their own contacts for this competition. The contact details are available in the “Contacts” section.
The Generation €uro Students’ Award is organised by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks for secondary school students in the euro area countries.
The competition is subject to the terms and conditions and the rules on this website. The competition is open to students aged between 16 and 19 at the time of registration on this website. The quiz is the first of the three rounds of the competition. It is only possible to register for the quiz once, and to join one team in the competition.
Participation is subject to acceptance of the terms and conditions, the privacy statement rules, and to the registration of the students’ names and email addresses. By entering these data, participants agree to the publication of the name of the winning team, as well as of the names and photographs of the team members, on the ECB’s and on the respective national central bank’s website and/or to the announcement of their names at public events.
The winning teams will probably be photographed and/or filmed at the national and/or European award event and the resulting photos/videos may be published on the internet, on social networks or in other media.
Players may choose to allow the ECB and the respective national central bank to contact them at a later date by email in order to inform them about future competitions and events.
The ECB and the national central banks are not responsible for incomplete, incorrectly submitted or delayed entries in the registration process.
At least the 15 highest-scoring and fastest teams to complete the quiz go into Round 2 (the assignment round). They will be contacted by email and invited to register for Round 2.
The winning teams from the second round of the competition will be contacted by email. The ECB or national central banks may announce their names and the names of their members on their website, on social networks or at public events, and publish the winning assignments.
The winning teams will receive a prize chosen by the respective national central bank. The national central banks reserve the right to change the final prize without prior notice.
Furthermore, all the winning teams will be awarded certificates at the European award event which will be held at the ECB in Frankfurt am Main, in Germany.
Jury decisions are final. Feedback may be given to teams participating in the final round. The assessment criteria used in both rounds are specified on this website and in the teacher’s booklet.
The ECB and the national central banks reserve the right to postpone, interrupt or cancel the competition partially or entirely. In this case, the ECB and the national central banks will not be held liable for any loss or damage that may arise therefrom.
The deadlines for the 2019-20 competition are as follows:
There will be an awards event for the winning teams at the ECB in Frankfurt am Main in Germany on 19 and 20 May 2020.
Please keep in mind that the timetable could change.
It’s simple. Just fill out the registration form made available by Banco de Portugal. The registration period begins on 1 October 2019. [Registrations are closed for 2019-2020]
The team can include three to five students and one teacher as mentor.
No. Participation is free.
Students must be aged between 16 and 19 at the time of registration.
Unfortunately you will be unable to enter, as the participation of a teacher is a prerequisite for the competition.
You can use the trial version of the quiz as often as you wish.
If your team is successful, an email will be sent following the quiz round of the competition inviting the team to participate in the second round.
At least the 15 highest-scoring and fastest teams to complete the first phase (the quiz) go into Round 2.
The teams will be contacted by email and invited to register for Round 2.
Students will have to prepare an assignment explaining their ideas on monetary policy. The assignment can take on various forms, so be creative! We are looking for strong visuals and narratives. Do not just copy information from other sources: originality will be rewarded. You can submit a written essay, with a maximum of 2,000 words, or a video of 3 minutes at most.
A jury, composed of specialists from the respective national central bank will select the five best assignments. The five teams of finalists are then invited to present their proposals to the jury.
The language of the competition organised by the national central banks is the country’s official language.
This is up to the teacher in charge. Of course, a lively discussion with other classmates about setting interest rates will always be interesting and contribute to the project.
Finalists’ presentations must be submitted in a format that is suitable for an oral presentation to a jury. Presentations must not exceed 15 minutes in length and all team members (except the teacher) should be equally involved.
The question and answer part of the presentation is as important as the actual presentation itself. The jury will test teams’ understanding and knowledge of monetary policy. Teams may also be asked about current events that may be having an effect on the economy.
The assignments and the presentations will be assessed by a jury composed of specialists from the respective national central bank.
No. Assignments will be anonymous and the jury will assess only on the basis of the same evaluation criteria.
The jury hopes that the work reflects a clear understanding of monetary policy and will assess the team’s familiarity with the concepts and ideas underlying monetary policy. It will also assess accurate use of expressions and terms related to monetary policy. The jury will be particularly receptive to projects that reflect teams’ creativity and their own research. The teams may be marked down if they exceed the 2,000-word target if they present an essay, or three minutes in the case of a video. Creativity will be rewarded.
The evaluation criteria will be:
They will take place at the respective national central bank. More information on the date of the presentation and technical requirements will be made available before the beginning of the presentation round.
All the winning teams will be invited to an award ceremony at the ECB which will take place with the President of the ECB and national central bank governors in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. They can also take part in debates on current affairs, and a sightseeing programme.
Competitors’ personal information will be handled in accordance with the privacy statement.
During the quiz and assignment rounds you can withdraw at any time without needing to take any action. However, once your team has been selected as a finalist and invited to the presentation round and you have accepted this invitation, your team leader should email your contact at the national central bank as soon as possible. The national central bank may then decide to invite another team to take part in the final presentation round.
Please get in touch with your contact at the national central bank (see below).
Contact us by email for any clarifications.
Our contacts are the following:
Banco de Portugal
Raquel G. Santos (geracaoeuro@bportugal.pt)
All personal data provided by participants will be processed in accordance with EU and Portuguese data protection laws, in particular Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and subsequent legislation implementing these legal instruments.
We process:
Banco de Portugal is the data controller and is responsible for processing the personal data provided in the registration form.
Personal data will be received by Banco de Portugal, the entity in charge of managing the competition, as well as by external service providers involved in the organisation of the competition, such as hotels and event agencies, and external service providers that host the Generation €uro website.
Personal data collected by the Generation €uro website will also be transferred to the European Central Bank and to euro area national central banks to enable them to manage, where necessary, the competition at national level. The central banks to which the personal data may be disclosed are: Nationale Bank van België/Banque Nationale de Belgique, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banc Ceannais na hÉireann/Central Bank of Ireland, Bank of Greece, Banco de España, Eesti Pank, Banque de France, Banca d’Italia, Central Bank of Cyprus, Latvijas Banka, Lietuvos bankas, Banque centrale du Luxembourg, Bank Centrali ta’ Malta/Central Bank of Malta, De Nederlandsche Bank, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Banka Slovenije, Národná banka Slovenska and Suomen Pankki – Finlands Bank. Any further processing of the personal data by the national central banks is subject to the guarantees provided in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Those who wish to enter the competition have to be over the age of 16 and must fill in the registration form on the Generation €uro website. All the participants’ data will be added to a database. All personal data are collected and processed for the purposes of managing the competition, accessing competition-related information, ranking the participants, awarding the prizes and contacting and providing the participants with relevant information. By entering their personal data, participants consent to the publication of the name of the winning team and its members on the websites of the ECB and/or national central banks and/or to their announcement at public events. It is also likely that photographs will be taken and short video recordings made of the winning teams on the national award days and at the final award event, and that these will be published by the ECB and/or national central banks on their websites, and/or by other EU institutions, and/or by ECB’s partners, as well as on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
By providing the personal data requested, participants consent to their processing. Participants can withdraw their consent at any time by contacting Banco de Portugal's Data Protection Officer (encarregado.protecao.dados@bportugal.pt). Future processing of their personal data will stop once they have withdrawn their consent, but prior processing will remain lawful
Personal data (such as name, surname, school name, address of the school, email address of the team leader and teacher) provided when registering on the Generation €uro website are kept by Banco de Portugal for three (3) years, counting from the day on which the personal data were submitted.
Personal data such as photos and videos taken during the competition will be kept by Banco de Portugal for five (5) years, counting from the day on which the personal data (including portraits, photographs or videos) were obtained.
Personal data on social media related to the competition will be kept for as long as the social media channels indicate in their privacy statements
Participants have the right to access and rectify their personal data, to restrict the processing of the data and, under certain conditions, to ask for data to be erased. Depending on the specifics of the data processing operation, participants may also have the right to data portability and to object to their data being processed.
Participants can exercise their rights or ask for clarifications regarding personal data by contacting Banco de Portugal's Data Protection Officer: encarregado.protecao.dados@bportugal.pt.
Participants have the right of recourse to the Portuguese Data Protection Authority (CNPD), as supervisory authority, regarding the processing of your personal data.