Purpose of the Competition
To stimulate the innovative potential of young students, cultivate their sense of responsibility for the country, practical ability, ability to solve complex engineering problems, engineering literacy, and industrialization mindset, explore diversified evaluation models for excellent engineer students, and promote deep integration between universities and enterprises as well as industry and education, the National Institute of Excellent Engineers of Southeast University will hold the Second “Young Inventors” Innovation Competition.
The competition aims to promote learning through competition and replace part of traditional assessment with competition-based evaluation. It encourages students to focus on enterprise needs and industry frontiers, apply their knowledge to invent new products, improve existing products, or design application scenarios for new materials, new energy, and new equipment, thereby contributing wisdom to technological and industrial development.
01 Participants
The competition is open to all master’s and doctoral students of the National Institute of Excellent Engineers of Southeast University.
Participants are required to form cross-disciplinary teams. In principle, each team shall consist of 3 to 5 members. Each student may participate in only one project team. The team leader must be an Excellent Engineer graduate student who has already entered enterprise practice.
Participating teams may decide whether to have an advisor. If an advisor is needed, teams may invite a faculty member from Southeast University or an enterprise mentor.
02 Competition Requirements
1. Project Direction
Entries shall focus on key bottleneck technologies of national importance, development frontiers of various industries, and actual needs of enterprises. Projects may involve the invention of new products, improvement or modification of existing products, or application scenario design for new materials, new energy, and new equipment.
Projects that have already won awards in various innovation competitions or received research project funding are not eligible for this competition.
2. Forms of Entries
Entries may take the form of physical prototypes, software, design proposals, or other formats.
3. Requirements for Entries
Innovation:
Participants shall investigate the current situation at home and abroad. Entries shall be original and reflect novel design concepts or technical solutions.
Practicality:
Entries shall have certain practical value and application prospects.
Feasibility:
Entries shall take into account the feasibility of technical implementation and cost control.
4. Submission Materials
Registration form: including team information, project introduction, and other relevant information.
Project proposal: detailing the project background, innovation points, technical solution, application prospects, and other key contents.
Presentation materials: including PPT slides, videos, physical demonstrations, and other supporting materials.
5. Discipline and Regulations
The inventions, patented technologies, resources, and other elements involved in the participating projects must have clear and lawful intellectual property rights or property ownership.
In cases of plagiarism, misappropriation of others’ achievements, submission of false materials, or any other conduct that violates relevant laws and regulations or goes against the spirit of the competition, the team will be immediately disqualified from the competition, and any awards or related rights obtained will be revoked. The team shall bear all legal responsibilities arising therefrom.
All participating projects must submit an academic integrity commitment letter at the time of registration.
03 Competition Schedule
1. Registration Stage
May 6, 2026 – May 24, 2026
Students may form teams freely and submit the registration form to:
zg_xsb@pub.seu.edu.cn
2. Project Submission
May 25, 2026 – July 23, 2026
Teams shall submit the project proposal and presentation materials to:
zg_xsb@pub.seu.edu.cn
3. Preliminary Review
August 1, 2026 – August 7, 2026
4. Final Defense
September 2026, tentatively
04 Evaluation Method
1. Preliminary Round
The review committee will conduct a written review of the submitted entries and select outstanding works to enter the final round.
2. Final Round
The final round will be conducted in the form of on-site defense and demonstration. Participating teams shall present their works and answer questions from the judges.
The judges will conduct a comprehensive evaluation based on innovation, practicality, feasibility, teamwork, and other aspects.
05 Awards
Subject to the annual budget, the awards for this competition are as follows:
Entries will be ranked according to their final scores. The top 10 teams will each receive a prize of RMB 30,000. Teams ranked 11th to 30th will each receive a prize of RMB 20,000. Teams ranked 31st to 60th will each receive a prize of RMB 10,000.
All award-winning students will receive institute-level certificates. Outstanding participants may receive university-level certificates. Advisors of all award-winning teams will receive Outstanding Advisor certificates.
06 Organization
Organizer
National Institute of Excellent Engineers, Southeast University
Activity Support
The Institute of Excellent Engineers will provide support such as smart classrooms, meeting rooms, design guidance, computing power, and 3D printing equipment.
Partner enterprises will provide product requirements, enterprise equipment and facilities, industrialization guidance, and other support.
07 Contact Information
Tel: 025-52093612
Email:zg_xsb@pub.seu.edu.cn
Notes
The National Institute of Excellent Engineers of Southeast University reserves the right of final interpretation of this competition.
Participating teams are advised to closely follow the official website and WeChat official account of the Institute for the latest competition information.
