★ ALERT!
This page is used by the judges to evaluate your team for the medal criterion or award listed below.
Delete this box in order to be evaluated for this medal criterion and/or award. See more information at Instructions for Pages for awards.
Human Practices
At iGEM we believe societal considerations should be upfront and integrated throughout the design and execution of synthetic biology projects. “Human Practices” refers to iGEM teams’ efforts to actively consider how the world affects their work and their work affects the world. Through your Human Practices activities, your team should demonstrate how you have thought carefully and creatively about whether your project is responsible and good for the world. We invite you to explore issues relating (but not limited) to the ethics, safety, security, and sustainability of your project, and to show how this exploration feeds back into your project purpose, design, and execution.
Please note you can compete for the Silver Medal criterion #3, Gold Medal criterion #1 and the Best Integrated Human Practices prize with this page.
For more information, please see the Human Practices Hub.
On this page, your team should document all of your Human Practices work and activities. You should write about the Human Practices topics you considered in your project, document any activities you conducted to explore these topics (such as engaging with experts and stakeholders), describe why you took a particular approach (including referencing any work you built upon), and explain if and how you integrated takeaways from your Human Practices work back into your project purpose, design and/or execution.
Silver Medal Criterion #3
Explain how you have determined your work is responsible and good for the world.
Gold Medal Criterion #1
Demonstrate how your team responded to your human practices reflections, research, and/or engagement. You should show how your activities impacted your project purpose, design and/or execution.
Please see the 2021 Medals Page for more information.
Best Integrated Human Practices Special Prize
To compete for the Best Integrated Human Practices prize, please describe your work on this page and also fill out the description on the judging form.
How does your project affect society and how does society influence the direction of your project? How might ethical considerations and stakeholder input guide your project purpose and design and the experiments you conduct in the lab? How does this feedback enter into the process of your work all through the iGEM competition? Document a thoughtful and creative approach to exploring these questions and how your project evolved in the process to compete for this award!
Inspiration
You can look at what other teams did to get some inspiration!
Here are a few examples: