General
The CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD AWARD recognises a tandem consisting of a media professional and a protagonist in five categories. The evaluation considers both the solution-oriented performance of the journalist as well as the constructive initiative of the protagonist (person/company/project/association/foundation/network) to improve social problems.
The CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD AWARD is presented in five categories, based on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations: Better Planet, Fundamental Survival, Innovative Infrastructure, Universal Empowerment, Economic Life.
The winner tandem of each category receive together a prize money of EUR 5,000.
Submission
Submissions may be entered by natural persons who have published German-language content (texts, images, audio, video, web or cross-media formats). When submitting, the source and the date of first publication must be specified, as well as the category for which the submission is being made.
During the submission phase, both media professionals and protagonists can submit award-worthy constructive works per form. Upon submission of the complete application documents, both the contributions of the media professional as well as the idea/initiative/solution of the protagonist will be included in the selection process of the CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD AWARD.
It is the media professional’s responsibility to name the protagonist within the submitted contribution that is to be included in the evaluation. The media professional must inform the respective person of this intention before submitting. If entries are submitted by the protagonist, they must also inform and name the media professional accordingly.
As social problems have global relevance, submissions that highlight ideas/initiatives/solutions from around the world will be accepted. The applications/submissions as well as all personal data of applicants will be treated confidentially. However, BurdaForward GmbH is entitled to publish the names of the award winners and the nominees of the categories in all media (print, online, and social media) with reference to the nominated/awarded entries.
The submitter grants BurdaForward the simple, temporary right to publish the submitted entry online or make it publicly accessible as a participating entry in connection with the presentation of the Constructive World Award, especially on the portal FOCUS Online (FOCUS Online entries are also distributed via the portals msn and Yahoo), no later than the date of next year’s award ceremony. If the submitter is not the (sole) author of the entry, they assure that they are entitled to grant this right.
The personal and company-related information indicated will only be used for nomination and win notifications as well as for the promotion and presentation of the award. The submitter ensures that no third-party rights will be violated if the contribution is published by BurdaForward.
Requirements for the contributions:
All submitted contributions must have been published in the media for the first time between 2021 and 2026.
All submitted contributions must adhere to provisions of the law and press law and must not be subject to judicial or extrajudicial legal disputes. The submitter must also ensure, that no third-party rights are violated by the contribution.
The contribution must be publicly available from the time of submission until the award ceremony and made accessible to the jury in the formats required for evaluation.
Mechanism
After the application phase has ended, all submissions are ranked by an AI trained for critical-constructive articles by the Aarhus Institute in Denmark. The CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD AWARD team defines the longlist of entries with the help of this ranking. The longlist is then presented to the panel for evaluation. The panel winnows and assesses the journalistic quality of the entries longlisted by means of a Likert scale questionnaire. Every member of the panel decides individually and confidentially how many points to assign in each evaluation criterion.
The resulting ranking of all entries by the panel determines the three nominated tandems in each category and defines the shortlist with a maximum of 15 tandems. The shortlist public.
The initiatives and protagonists on the shortlist are then evaluated and contextualised by an expert in the respective field.
In the next step, the shortlist is presented to the jury, together with the evaluation by the experts. The jury then winnows the entries and the expert evaluations in a joint meeting and discusses both on the basis of key questions. Afterwards, the jury decides on a winning tandem for each category. Only jury members taking part in the meeting are eligible to cast a vote.
The winners remain secret until the official award ceremony. The individual evaluations are not documented.
The panel
The panel is independent and consists of up to 25 members. Among them are always representatives with journalistic expertise. Experts chosen by BurdaForward who are not part of the BurdaForward GmbH may also be called up for the panel.
The Jury
The entire jury comprises up to 30 members maximum. These members are part of Hubert Burda Media (BurdaForward GmbH, Burda Verlag etc.) and people otherwise chosen by BurdaForward. The nominated entries are judged by a maximum of 15 jury members per category. The jury members are assigned to the categories depending on their expertise. The entrepreneurial and journalistic competence of the jury members is taken into account when categories are assigned. The work on the panel and jury is honorary. Necessary expenditures (for example travel costs) will be reimbursed. If a person submitting their entry or the protagonist (individual/company/project/club/foundation/network) violates any laws or the press codex during the creation and/or publication of their nominated or award-winning entry, the BurdaForward GmbH reserves the right to revoke the award, demand a return of the prize money, and claim indemnity.
Partiality
Members or the panel or the jury who are part of Hubert Burda Media shall exercise the greatest possible restraint during jury or panel discussions of entries submitted by employees of the Hubert Burda Media Group. This pertains especially to entries they themselves have worked on or have been responsible for in an editorial way. They are only to answer factual questions by other jury or panel members, but neither promote these entries, nor partake in the discussions. Points they were to award these entries are not included in the evaluation.
Event/Award ceremony
Data protection, audio and video recordings:
The BurdaForward GmbH states that visual and audio material in the form of photos or videos will be taken during the event by a person commissioned or accredited by Burda, for the purpose of documentation, public relations, and reporting on the event. Individual images or videos may be reproduced, distributed, and made publicly available for the purpose of public reporting on the event or advertising future events on the websites and social media accounts of the BurdaForward GmbH. Additionally, it is possible for the images to be sent out to a press mailing list.
The reading, saving, or disclosure of other participants’ personal data for purposes other than the intended use within the scope of event is forbidden. Users are to treat any information they come across on other users as well as any communication contents as confidential, so long as they were not made public by the authorised person themselves.
Data protection notice
The BurdaForward GmbH processes (also with help by service providers) the personal data provided by the participants on the basis of Article 6 1 b) of the GDPR as the controller, insofar and for as long as is necessary for the award procedure and ceremony or until the participants have otherwise consented. You can reach our data protection official at burdaforward@datenschutzanfrage.de. You have the right to information, rectification, erasure, or restriction of processing, to reject the processing, to data transfer, as well as the right to file a complaint with a supervisory authority.
Legal information & taxation of the prize money
Legal recourse against decisions and evaluations made by the panel or the jury is not possible. There is no entitlement to an award. If any of the forgoing regulations should be inadmissible for legal reasons, it shall be replaced by an admissible regulation that most closely corresponds to the inadmissible one. The other regulations remain unaffected by the nullity of individual regulations.
The tax on the prize money is, conditions permitting, to be paid by the award winners. Each winner is individually responsible for taxing the prize money in due manner. This also applies to participating employees of the Hubert Burda Media Group.
These statutes apply to the presenting of the CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD AWARD 2026.
Munich, October 2025