Deadline:16th March 2026, 9:00am UKT,
The CIC is a global competition inviting postgraduate students to tackle real-world climate investment challenges through the lenses of innovative financing mechanisms and climate analytics.
Participants develop and pitch rigorous, creative solutions that help mobilise capital, improve investment decision-making, or increase the effectiveness of climate-related investments across sectors, markets, and regions.
Prizes
- Innovative Financing Mechanisms – This prize looks for innovative financing mechanisms which can deploy capital at scale to tackle climate challenges.
From a novel blended finance mechanism to scale renewable energy investment, to a climate-focused outcome bond which balances returns with impact, and everything in between, this prize aims to support structures which unlock capital to support climate positive outcomes.
- Climate Analytics *New* – Their new prize track recognises that climate investment must be grounded in robust, data-driven insights. This prize looks for novel tools and risk metrics which can resolve challenges in climate-aware investment across public and private markets.
Whether it’s a novel greenwashing indicator, or an AI-enabled model to analyse nature risk at the asset-level, we welcome tools and metrics which work to improve investment decision-making for climate-aware investing.
Eligibility
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The CIC is open to postgraduate students worldwide.
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Teams consist of 2-6 members, with at least one member being a postgraduate student enrolled in an MSc, MBA, PhD programme, or equivalent.
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Teams can consist of members from the same university or a variety of universities.
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Solutions must be original to those in the team (i.e., you cannot pitch a solution which a company or platform has already developed).
Submit your application
One team member should submit the team’s Concept Note via the link below. Please use your university-affiliated email when submitting your team’s application.
For more information and application.