ANSI Student Paper
Competition

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals serve as a call to action for all nations to promote health, safety, and prosperity while protecting the planet by the year 2030. At the center of UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 17 Sustainable Development Goals are intended to:

• support the end of poverty and hunger everywhere;
• combat inequalities within and among countries;
• build peaceful, just and inclusive societies;
• protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and
• ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.

The goals also support the UN’s commitment to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all, taking into account different levels of national development and capacities.

To highlight the power of standards as a tool in these worldwide efforts, the ANSI 2023 Student Paper Competition invites authors to choose one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and explore the ways in which standards play a role in achieving it, or could do so in the future. Papers should identify a relevant standard or multiple standards and discuss how it/they can contribute to strategies and solutions for reaching the targets set out in one of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Submission Information

The paper competition is open to students enrolled full- or part-time in associate, undergraduate, or graduate programs during the period of September 2022 to June 2023 in U.S. higher education institutions. All entries must be submitted by 11 p.m. Eastern on June 1, 2022, to Lisa Rajchel, lrajchel@ansi.org,

A cash prize of $2,000 will be given to the first place winner; a cash prize of $1,000 will be given to the second place winner. ANSI reserves the right to award no prizes based on the determination of the judges. All entries will receive a certificate from ANSI recognizing the submission of the paper. Winning papers will be published on ANSI.org and potentially in other media outlets.

Rules & Instructions

All entries must be submitted by 11 p.m. Eastern on June 1, 2022, to Lisa Rajchel, lrajchel@ansi.org, and must adhere to the following requirements:

• Be written and submitted by student(s) (associate, undergraduate, or graduate, in any discipline) enrolled full- or part-time during the period of September 2022 to May 2023 at an institute of higher education located in the United States or its territories
• Include a title and a list of names of all contributing authors, their contact details, and the affiliated institute of higher education
• Be prefaced with an abstract of no more than 400 words
• Be less than 2,000 words (not including requirements #2 and #3 above, notes, tables, charts, and a bibliography which may not exceed 3 pages)
• Be in English and suitable for publication (final editing assistance will be provided before publication of winning papers)
• Be submitted in electronic format, preferably Microsoft Word or other revisable format, in 12-point type size
• Be original and not previously published (copyright will remain with the author; winners grant publication rights to ANSI, as well as the right to release entries to other media)

For full submission criteria, access the ANSI 2023 Student Paper Competition flyer.

Resources for Research

ANSI has developed a list of suggested resources for research and references:

• Learn more about voluntary consensus standards and American National Standards
• Search a list of approved American National Standards
• Search the organizations accredited by ANSI to develop American National Standards
• Search for international standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
• Search for international electrotechnical standards from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
• Check out some user-friendly ANSI resources that show the breadth of standards’ impact
• Search ANSI’s online news archive or www.ansi.org for more information