Curated.
Compressed.
Senior jury only.
A parallel track for twenty-four teams nominated by partner schools, alumni and former finalists. Invitational teams skip the open round, work to a tighter ten-week timetable, and present directly to the senior jury at the Global Final in New York.
Three routes.
- Returning finalist
- Any team that reached a regional jury day in the previous cycle is eligible to apply directly to the Invitational Track in the following year, subject to age eligibility.
- Partner-school nomination
- Each Edition Host university and a small list of named partner schools may nominate one team per cycle. Nominations close 1 May.
- Alumni council nomination
- The GQC Alumni Council nominates up to six teams per cycle from the GQC alumni network and the Early-Stage Feedback submissions pool.
A door, not a VIP lounge.
The Invitational Track is twenty-four teams. Partner schools, city hosts and alumni may each nominate; former Global Finalists may return once. Nominations open 2 March and close 22 May, the same hard date as the open round. A nomination is a two-page letter plus the team’s one-page brief, filed by a teacher or programme lead, not by a parent. The academic council reads for fit with the GQC standard, not for the prestige of the school.
Invitational teams skip the open shortlist and join a compressed Learning Experience in the autumn: four clinics, one written critique, then the Global Final in New York. They do not automatically win prizes. They are scored on the same rubric. Several Invitational teams each year finish behind open-round city winners; that is the point of one standard.
What good looks like in a nomination: a team that has already done something in the world (a pilot, a tool in use, a campaign that ran), a reason GQC is the right next scrutiny, and an honest account of prior competitions. What we return: a letter that only lists awards; a celebrity-mentor paragraph; a project that belongs in a science-fair category and has not been extended. GQC is not a qualifier for those programmes and does not treat their medals as a substitute for our evidence pack.