iGEM High School Competition

Budget in the tens of thousands. From the 2026 season iGEM charges in euros: Stage I registration is €4,950-5,950 per team depending on how early you sign up, Stage II — which buys the right to be judged — adds €2,750, and each member attending in person needs a Jamboree ticket at €525-645. None of that covers reagents, strains, consumables, or flights and hotels in Europe. High school teams pay the same rates as university teams.

Every team affiliates with an institution and registers through a Primary PI. For the High School Competition, that PI must be a principal, teacher or academic coach employed by a school the members attend — students cannot submit the application themselves. There is no hard cap on team size, but iGEM recommends 8-15 students as manageable. Some Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) high schools already run an iGEM club; students at schools without one need to find a willing PI first and finish the full roster before the season's freeze.

Yes, with adjustments. iGEM recognises community lab teams, where the lab's director serves as Primary PI, and many teams negotiate bench space at a nearby university or biotech company. Another route is to pick a modelling, software or AI-oriented Village and run a dry-lab project. Only some Irvine Unified School District high schools currently have an iGEM club, so students without one can start from these workarounds while looking for a faculty PI early.

They are separate competitions judged separately, but the fee schedule is identical and both present at the same Grand Jamboree. The biggest practical difference is safety: high school teams may only work with organisms and parts on iGEM's current White List of well-characterised low-risk organisms, and anything else requires advance approval via a Check-In Form. Otherwise the workflow — choosing a Village, the wiki, the Judging Form, live judging sessions — matches the collegiate track.

For the 2026 season, yes — registration closed on 4 June 2026 and that season is now heading into its November Grand Jamboree. New teams should target the next season. iGEM normally opens registration early in the calendar year with early, regular and late tiers, and the gap between early and late is over a thousand euros, so signing up early matters. Watch the Registration and Calendar pages at competition.igem.org.

No. Any team that completes Stage I and Stage II is eligible for judging, and remote teams and remote members can still take part in online judging sessions and livestreams. Stage III Jamboree tickets are charged per person and only apply to those attending in person. However, to secure a booth and eligibility for a Live Stage Talk, the team must complete its Stage II payment and buy at least one Jamboree ticket before the Stage II deadline.

Medals are criteria-based, not ranked. iGEM publishes a checklist of medal criteria for bronze, silver and gold, and any team that meets them earns that medal — there is no quota, so in principle every team could win gold. The prerequisites are completing the Stage II payment and submitting the Judging Form on time. The genuinely competitive awards are the Village best-project nominations and special prizes such as Best Software Tool.

It is a year-long commitment: pick a project after spring registration, run experiments through the summer, then deliver a stack of required items in the autumn — the wiki, safety forms, a project video, the Judging Form — with the Wiki Freeze as the heaviest deadline of the season. Its admissions value comes from demonstrable ownership of a real project and teamwork, not from the medal, and that kind of research experience is generally read as direct evidence of research capability in University of California applications. A student who is only a name on the roster gets little for a large sum of money.