Currently 11 active prizes and awards open to applicants in Worldwide, across AI, arts, film, journalism, research, tech and cross-disciplinary practice. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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The 15th annual First Look Project from Script Pipeline searches for higher-concept material across six categories: feature screenplays in Action and Sci-Fi, Comedy, Drama, and Horror and Thriller, plus hour and half-hour original TV pilots. Unlike Script Pipeline's Screenwriting and TV Writing contests, entries are judged on both writing ability and market potential, in addition to originality of concept; a script that still needs refining can win if the story could stand out in the current landscape, as the aim is a first look at the next buzzworthy specs before they hit the market. GUIDELINES: screenplays must be feature length; genres without a listed category go to the closest one (Fantasy, Western or Adventure under Action and Sci-Fi; Crime and Mystery under Thriller). TV pilots run roughly 30 to 60 pages, all genres accepted including animation and genre hybrids. The script must not be under an option or shopping agreement at the time of entry, and the same script cannot compete in multiple categories. CIRCULATION: Script Pipeline's industry relationships (Bellevue Productions, LBI Entertainment, Hungry Man, Alibi Management and others) have led to writers signed, specs sold and films produced. Regular deadline 30 September 2026; late deadline 15 October; extended deadline 30 October. Winners announced 15 December 2026.
NEXT ART AI is an open AI art competition run by the HOBAN Cultural Foundation, welcoming participants of all backgrounds regardless of career, nationality or age, and framed as a way to reflect on the future of AI art through new modes of expression and artistic experimentation. TWO CATEGORIES: AI IMAGE ART, for works in a single-image format at 150dpi or higher, submitted as JPG, JPEG, PNG or BMP up to 10MB; and AI VIDEO ART, open to a wide range of video formats including animation, motion graphics and live-action footage enhanced or transformed using AI, at 1080p or higher, under one minute, 30 or 60fps recommended, stereo 48kHz audio recommended, as mp4 (h.264) or mov. Video entries are submitted as a URL via YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox or OneDrive, or an alternative platform if those are restricted in your region; links that are inaccessible due to privacy settings may be excluded from judging. WHO CAN ENTER: individuals or teams of up to three including the representative, though you may not submit both as an individual and as part of a team. Team representatives create the account in their own name and all members submit a consent form for personal data. Applicants under 19 need a guardian's signed consent. One work may be submitted per category. RULES ON AI AND ASSETS: work must be original and created by the applicant or team, and must be image or video art created using generative AI platforms. Works that have previously won an award in another competition are not eligible. Free or paid external assets, game engines, AI frameworks, open-source tools and editing software may be used freely, but applicants must hold licences permitting commercial use for every element, and work infringing third-party rights is excluded. Even where external assets and editing software are used, the creative process must involve AI, whether AI-assisted direction, transformation, generation or other AI-based processes, and the choice of AI tools, the scope and method of their use, and the prompts themselves are all weighed in evaluating the creative use of AI. TIMELINE: applications open 1 September 2026 and close 30 September 2026 at 11:59pm KST, preliminary round early October, final round late October, announcement and ceremony early November, exhibition late November 2026. Organised and hosted by the HOBAN Cultural Foundation, sponsored by HOBAN Group, with Seoul Shinmun and EBN as media partners. Details and schedule are subject to change at the organiser's discretion.
Lost in Transcription: Advancing Speech Recognition for Underserved Linguistic Contexts is a machine learning competition on the Mozilla Data Collective platform (run with DrivenData, backed by Mozilla Foundation). Participants build automatic speech recognition (ASR) models for real-world bilingual, code-switched conversations across three independent tracks: Nahuatl x Spanish, Indonesian x Javanese, and North American Spanish x English (Spanglish); developers can also work with other languages if the datasets are available on or uploaded to the MDC platform, which offers ethically sourced multilingual, multicultural and multimodal datasets. PRIZES: USD 20,000 total; per track USD 4,000 for first place and USD 2,000 for second, judged by word error rate on a private leaderboard, plus a bonus award for the lowest average word error rate across all three tracks (same team members required). WHO IS ELIGIBLE: individuals and teams worldwide (students, tech clubs, universities, startup builders, labs, independent tinkerers); 18+ and legal resident of an eligible jurisdiction; one account per person; participants are responsible for complying with school or employer policies. DEADLINE: the platform lists final submissions closing 2 October 2026, midnight UTC (some announcements said 25 September, so check the platform for your track). Free to enter.
The H&M Foundation backs ten changemakers each year with a EUR 200,000 grant to accelerate early-stage innovation toward a net-zero textile industry; since 2015 the award has distributed a combined EUR 10 million to 56 innovations. The foundation's FAQ states applicants can be an individual, a small team or an organisation, with no registered-company requirement, and ideas can still be at research, lab or concept stage. Neither the Foundation, its partners nor H&M Group take any equity or IP rights, so this is a genuine grant, not an investment vehicle. CATEGORIES: sustainable materials, responsible production, mindful consumption, and wildcards. WHAT YOU GET: EUR 200,000 plus a yearlong Changemaker Programme with industry knowledge, tools and connections. HOW TO APPLY: the 2027 cycle is nomination-based; The Mills Fabrica is an official nominator accepting open proposals from 1 September to 2 October 2026 via its website. DEADLINE: 2 October 2026 for the Mills Fabrica proposal window.
The 10th edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize is open for registration until 15 October 2026. Established in 2016, the prize rewards works combining technical excellence, artistic quality and innovation in craft. WHAT YOU GET: the winner receives EUR 50,000, and shortlisted works are shown in an exhibition in Europe in spring 2027. DISCIPLINES: textiles are explicitly listed among the eligible craft disciplines, alongside ceramics, woodwork, metalwork and other applied arts, which makes the prize a home for e-textile and material-innovation work with a craft dimension. ELIGIBILITY: entries must be original one-of-a-kind works made entirely or partly by hand, created within the last five years, and not previously awarded a prize; applicants must be professionals at least 18 years old, and individuals and collectives of all nationalities may apply. DEADLINE: registration closes 15 October 2026 at 23:59 CET.
The AI Philosophy Competition, organised by philosophers Zachary Goodsell and Elliott Thornley and funded by Forethought Research, aims to gauge the philosophical capabilities of AI in a way transparent to the philosophical community. Entrants submit up to three original essays on any philosophical topic; essays must be primarily AI-generated, with some human guidance allowed, and each entry must include a methodology report explaining how the essay was produced. Essays are capped at 6,000 words each and may not be previously published or under review elsewhere; entrants consent to online publication and may choose anonymity. Judging is blind to methodology and authorship and evaluates the quality and originality of the philosophical content (style is not graded); the judging committee includes David Chalmers, John Hawthorne, Herman Cappelen, Cian Dorr and other academic philosophers. PRIZES: USD 3,000 / 2,000 / 1,000 for the top three essays, plus a USD 5,000 creative methodology pool. Finalists announced early December 2026, results end of January 2027. DEADLINE: 31 October 2026.
A bias bounty from Zindi, Humane Intelligence, Radiant Earth, and the Heising-Simons Foundation: measure coverage gaps in Overture Maps across US Census tracts by comparing it against Census TIGER/Line Roads, Microsoft US Building Footprints, USGS National Map critical facilities, and Census County Business Patterns. Submissions are automatically evaluated with a Bias Score assessing equity metrics across demographic and climate-vulnerability strata, surfacing whose neighbourhoods open map data underserves. PRIZES: 1st USD 4,500, 2nd USD 2,500, 3rd USD 1,500, Best Bias Discovery USD 1,000, Best Documentation USD 500 (USD 10,000 total), plus 10,000 Zindi points. ELIGIBILITY: open to all, teams of up to 4. HOW TO ENTER: create a Zindi account, download the sample submission files, compute coverage-gap scores per tract GEOID, and upload a CSV; 10 submissions per day, 300 total. Free to enter. DEADLINE: 31 October 2026.
The ARC Prize Foundation runs its 2026 competition for progress toward artificial general intelligence, with a USD 2,000,000 total prize pool across three tracks: the main Kaggle competition on the ARC-AGI-2 static reasoning benchmark, a track on ARC-AGI-3 interactive agent reasoning (second milestone 30 September 2026), and a paper prize for research that advances understanding of ARC-AGI performance. Milestone prizes run USD 25,000 / 10,000 / 2,500. Open to individuals and teams worldwide, entirely online via Kaggle. Winning entries must be open-sourced under permissive licenses to collect prizes. Main submission deadline 2 November 2026, paper track 8 November 2026; results announced 4 December 2026.
The European Media Art Festival (EMAF) in Osnabrueck invites submissions for its 2027 edition in three sections: Film (experimental films of all lengths and any theme), Installation (installative, interactive, spatial or sculptural media art works) and Expanded (performances, live events or workshops). WHAT YOU GET: all films selected for the International Selection are equal winners of the EMAF Award with EUR 400 prize money each; films in the Features section (over 60 minutes) receive a EUR 250 screening fee; curated programmes pay EUR 80-250 depending on length; installations and expanded projects receive a EUR 500 fee with production costs paid by the festival. Selected artists are invited to the festival with free accreditation, three hotel nights (potentially longer if setting up is required) and a contribution to travel costs. RULES: maximum 2 works per artist; only works completed in 2026 or 2027 are eligible; no premiere status required; works entered at previous editions will not be reconsidered. Films up to 60 minutes are viewed for the International Selection, films over 60 minutes for Features. Installation entries should relate to the 2027 festival theme of the archive (as an instrument of knowledge production, a site of critical intervention and a space for alternative visions of the future); Installation and Expanded entries must include a comprehensive description, tech rider, cost calculation and visual materials. Non-English-language works must have English subtitles for the selection screening. Submit digitally via the EMAF registration portal (no DVDs or physical media). Selection decisions are emailed from mid-March 2027. DEADLINE: the call closes as soon as 2,200 entries have been received, or at the latest on 15 December 2026, so submit early. No entry fee.
WOW is the world's largest wearable-art competition, culminating in a staged show in Wellington, New Zealand, with the 2027 awards night on 17 September 2027. The Kinetic and Avant-garde sections regularly attract technology-driven wearables, making this a natural target for e-textile, robotic and sensor-driven garment work. WHAT YOU GET: a prize pool exceeding NZD 200,000 across 25 awards; in the published 2026 schedule the Supreme WOW Award paid NZD 30,000, the runner-up NZD 15,000 and each section winner NZD 8,000 (the 2027 schedule was not yet posted at the time of listing). KEY DATES: the 2027 section themes are published and entries open in November 2026; international designers must lodge an intention to enter by 11 February 2027 and submit their entry by 25 February 2027 (New Zealand designers: 31 March and 14 April 2027); finished garments ship to New Zealand with a final delivery cut-off of 2 June 2027. ELIGIBILITY: designers worldwide, entering under their own names rather than as a business; teams of up to three allowed; entrants must be 18 or over. There is no entry fee.
Applications for the 2027 Bertha Artivism Awards are open (confirmed 23 September 2026). The awards fund up to USD 20,000 for a one-year activist-art project made in collaboration with a social justice organization, campaign or movement, and the cohort also receives peer exchange and support from the Bertha Foundation network. Open worldwide to artists and collectives across disciplines. IMPORTANT: no closing date is published on the award page, and the cohort starts January 2027, so apply early rather than waiting; the call has historically opened around August and closed in the autumn. TO APPLY: submit the application form linked from the Artivism Awards page at berthafoundation.org.