Led by UCL Careers and forming part of the wider UCL200 programme, the competition asked students to explore how the world of work has changed since the university’s founding in 1826, and to imagine how it might evolve by 2226. Participants were encouraged to consider past, present, and future perspectives, using UCL’s history as a lens to examine broader shifts in labour, education, society and the environment.
Students formed interdisciplinary teams bringing together different academic backgrounds and perspectives. This emphasis on collaboration reflected UCL’s long-standing culture of interdisciplinary learning. Teams were asked to develop bold ideas about the future of work and to present their findings through engaging presentations, with a visual element.
How the competition was structured
The competition ran in two stages. In the first stage, students submitted proposals outlining their ideas, methods, and intended outputs. It was a highly competitive process, with a strong selection of applications. Successful teams then progressed to a second stage, developing their projects over several months ahead of final presentations in March 2026.
Throughout the competition, students connected with industry professionals working in fields related to their projects. These meetings, many with members of UCL’s alumni community, gave the teams perspectives into how different sectors are thinking about the future of work and helped them refine their ideas in response to real-world perspectives. This exchange between academic thinking and professional practice became an important part of the process.
The outcomes of the competition
What emerged was an ambitious and diverse set of projects, each offering a different view of how work is changing through technological, social, and environmental forces.
Some projects focused on evolving professions.
The Cyborg Doctor: How Biomedical Engineering is Redefining Medicine and the Human Workforce (1826–2226) traced how medical practice has changed over two centuries. It showed how advances in biomedical engineering may shift the role of doctors from direct operators to supervisors of complex AI systems, raising questions about the balance between human judgement and machine intelligence.
Another team looked at the transition from education to employment. Grad Scope explored the role of internships and graduate schemes in shaping student pathways, alongside the impact of emerging technologies and degree inflation. It highlighted how expectations for graduates are shifting, and how entry into the labour market is becoming more complex.
Several teams addressed global challenges we are facing today. Past Pandemics, Future Frontiers: UCL’s Journey in Epidemiology examined UCL’s role in responding to recent health crises and considered how future pandemics might reshape scientific work and public health systems.
In another context, Team Futuristas – Inclusive Work by Design explored accessibility in the workplace, focusing on how social and technological change may expand opportunities for disabled people and reshape ideas of employability.
The Global Futures team explored how different visions of work might emerge and compared trends in the Global North vs the Global South. Their project considered how technology, environmental limits, and cultural context could produce both shared global trends and more uneven pathways across societies.
The first-prize-winning Planetary Repair Project, developed by Anupa Singh and Reka Veres, looked at how environmental skills and impact could be recognised in the world of work in 2226. Moving beyond traditional CVs, it proposed tools such as “Planetary Repair Profiles” and “SDG Passports” to capture contributions to sustainability and community-led work.
The competition results
The final presentations brought all six teams together in front of a panel of judges: Lucy Briggs, Programme Director for the Bicentennial, Danielle Tran, the Deputy Director of HEDS (UCL Higher Education Development & Support Institute), and Darcy Lan, Postgraduate Sabbatical Officer at UCL Students’ Union. Each team delivered a 15-minute presentation showcasing their research and ideas.
The judges were very impressed by the consistently high standard of all the presentations, making the final decisions particularly challenging. Alongside the main prizes awarded to the Planetary Repair Project (1st Prize), Team Futuristas (2nd Prize), and Grad Scope (3rd Prize), special recognition was given to Past Pandemics, Future Frontiers for Most Engaging Presentation, Indianna Foster’s Cyborg Doctor for Most Future-Focused Project, and the Global Futures team for Best Research.
Marking UCL’s bicentenary invites us not only to reflect on where we have come from, but to actively imagine the future we want to help shape. This competition captured that spirit brilliantly - bringing together creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to explore how work might evolve over the next two centuries.
My fellow judges and I were greatly impressed by the students’ ideas, which were thoughtful, ambitious and grounded in real-world challenges, and it was wonderful to see them come together across disciplines as part of this UCL200 activity.
Beyond the awards, the competition highlighted the value of giving students space to work together on the challenges of the future. It showed how looking to both the past and the future can help us better understand work as something that continues to change and evolve through ideas, innovation, and collaboration.
Written by Aleksandra Terzova, Internships and Vacancies Officer (UCL Careers)
Insights from Team Futuristas
Hear from UCL 200 competition prize winners as they reflect on the future of work and what they learned from taking part.
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