Bring your vision of a data-empowered future to life through digital art

UCL Student Art Competition: Shaped by Data 

Bring your vision of a data-empowered future to life through digital art 

Join the UCL Grand Challenge for Data Empowered Societies (GC DES) in celebrating the UCL Bicentenary with a university‑wide digital art competition open to all registered students. 

What could a data‑empowered future look like? Your work might explore: 

• How data and technology can be used for social good 

• How data can helpfully reshape how we live, learn, and work 

• The future world you want to help build 

• Creative responses to global challenges through data and innovation 

A panel of judges will review all entries and shortlist selected submissions, which will feature in an online gallery and across UCL’s digital platforms at both the Bloomsbury and UCL East campuses.  

Works will be judged as a whole, but you may be inspired to link to one of our four themes in the challenge.  These themes are: 

Working and learning with data – how data, AI and digital systems are reshaping work, learning and organisational life, and how individuals and institutions adapt in ways that enhance human agency rather than erode it. 

Knowing and Deciding with Data - how data shapes knowledge production and decision-making across complex systems such as health, environment and urban infrastructure.  

Data and Social Change - how data intersects with inequality, power, trust and participation. 

Data Empowered Organisations -  how organisations, including universities, can use data responsibly and effectively.  
 

Competition Guidelines  

The winning images will be selected by a panel of judges on the basis of their artistic and technical merits and their fit to the competition theme.   

• Entries can comprise a digital artwork in any format, static or dynamic, interactive or passively consumed works welcome. 

• Entries should be suitable for display on standard, 4K, or 8K screens and should be submitted as a hyperlink to a web page making the content available.  

• The competition is open to all registered UCL students — undergraduate, postgraduate, UK-based or international.  

• Entrant names, as well as department, course and year of study, may be published alongside entries in the public domain. 

• Entries are limited to one per student. 

• All entries should be submitted with an online entry form. 

• Prizes for Overall Winner and Runner‑Up(s) will be awarded at a showcase event at London Data Week in early July (date tbc). 

• Entries must be original works and must not breach any copyright or other intellectual property laws. 

• As far as possible entries should meet the requirements set out by the  UCL Digital Accessibility Policy 

For any questions or further information about the competition please contact Katherine Welch (k.welch@ucl.ac.uk). 

Ready to reimagine the future? 

Bring your creativity, your curiosity, and your vision of a data‑empowered society — and help shape the next chapter of UCL’s story. 

All entries must be submitted by the closing date 12th June 2026 

Submit your entry here (MS form)