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About the Climate Adaptation Innovation Awards

Five Climate Adaptation Innovation Awards are presented at the IFRC Climate Summit, recognising volunteer-led climate adaptation innovations from across the IFRC network. These Conditions of Participation cover the full selection process for all five awards, and set out in detail the rules of the public popularity contest , which is the only award that requires public participation.

The Climate Adaptation Innovation Awards are organised by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (together, “the organiser”). Awards operations and the Innovation Awards session are run by the IFRC Solferino Academy on the organiser’s behalf; references to “the organiser” throughout these Conditions include the IFRC Solferino Academy acting in this capacity.

The five awardees are selected from a wider pool, as follows:

• 100 applicants to IFRC Limitless 2, Phase 4 (advanced prototype submission).
• 600+ applicants to IFRC Limitless 3, Phase 2 (initial idea submission), tagged climate-related.
• 36 shortlisted by IFRC climate experts, against the 4 criteria in Section 2.
• 5 awardees selected among the 36: 2 best ideas + 2 best advanced prototypes (jury) + 1 most popular (public formula).

Four of the five awards ( two best ideas and two best advanced prototypes) are selected by a jury of senior leaders. The jury assesses the same 36 shortlisted innovations against the four criteria set out in Section 2 below, and chooses the two best ideas and the two best advanced prototypes.

The fifth award, the Most Popular IFRC Climate Adaptation Innovation, is a popularity contest: the public is invited to support and promote their favourite innovations among the 36 shortlisted, on YouTube, and the winner is decided by the formula set out in Section 6, based on each video’s engagement data. As the five awards are non-cumulative (Section 7), if the innovation ranked first by the formula has already received one of the four jury awards, the popularity award instead goes to the next-highest-ranked innovation that has not already received an award.

By watching, liking, commenting on, or sharing any of the videos described below, participants accept these Conditions of Participation in full.

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Eligible innovations

Only the 36 shortlisted innovation ideas and advanced prototypes are eligible for the Award of the Most Popular IFRC Climate Adaptation Innovation.:

They were shortlisted by climate experts from the IFRC and Climate Centre of the Red Cross Red Crescent, based on:

• Climate adaptation relevance = whether the innovation helps people or local systems cope with the effects of climate change.
• Local fit = whether the solution demonstrates a genuine fit to local conditions, resources, and culture.
• Scalability = the project’s capacity to grow, in users, volume, or scope.
• Impact = the size and value of the change it creates: expected impact for early ideas, proven impact for advanced prototypes.

Each eligible innovation is presented in a dedicated video, in its original language, published in the official video gallery. Viewers can follow along in another language by enabling YouTube’s automatic-translation subtitles. 

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Who can take part to the popularity contest

Taking part in the most popular project contest is open to anyone, worldwide, free of charge, with no purchase or entry fee required. All you have to do is watch, like, comment or share any of the videos of projects you really like. The more views, likes, shares and comments the video receives the more likely they are to win.

There is no limit to how many of the 36 videos a participant may engage with, and no limit on how many people may engage with a given video.

Participants are invited to:

• Watch the video(s) of their favourite innovation(s) until the end.
• Like the video(s).
• Leave a comment.
• Share the video(s) with others.

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Popularity contest engagement period

Engagement is counted only within the official engagement period:

• From Thursday, 3 September 2026, 00:01 PDT (09:01 CEST)

• Until Wednesday, 9 September 2026, 23:59 PDT (Thursday, 10 September 2026, 08:59 CEST). 

Note: YouTube Analytics uses Pacific Daylight Time for all daily reporting.

The engagement period begins when the launch email is sent to the Solferino Academy mailing list by Shaun Hazeldine on Wednesday, September 2 at 23:01 PDT (08:01 CEST). As email delivery can take up to an hour to reach recipients, the organiser cannot guarantee the exact start time to the minute.

Any views, likes, comments, or shares recorded before the start of the engagement period are excluded from the final tally; only engagement accrued during the engagement period counts toward a video’s score.

Because YouTube Analytics data can take 48 hours to fully settle, the organiser will extract the final tally a few days after the engagement period closes, once data for 9 September PDT time is complete. This delay does not extend the engagement period itself: participants should complete their engagement by the deadline above.

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How the popularity award winner is determined

At the close of the engagement period, each of the 36 videos receives a popularity score, calculated as:

Score = (Views + Comments + 3×Likes + 3×Shares) × (Average % Viewed ÷ 100)

Where, for the engagement period only:

• Views = the number of qualifying views of the video: views counted by YouTube’s own view-count system, which already filters out repeated, automated, or fraudulent views. The organiser applies no additional filtering beyond YouTube’s own count.
• Likes = the number of likes received.
• Comments = the number of qualifying comments received. Repeated comments from the same user, duplicate comments, and comments reasonably considered spam are excluded from the count — see Section 9.
• Shares = the number of shares of the video.
• Average % Viewed = the average percentage of the video watched by viewers, as a measure of engagement depth.

All figures are sourced exclusively from YouTube Studio Analytics, which constitutes the official and final record of engagement for the purposes of this award. The innovation whose video achieves the highest score wins the Award of the Most Popular IFRC Climate Adaptation Innovation.

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Awards are non-cumulative

No innovation can receive more than one of the five Climate Adaptation Innovation Awards. If the innovation with the highest popularity score under Section 6 has already been selected by the jury for one of the four other awards, the Award of the Most Popular IFRC Climate Adaptation Innovation is instead given to the next-highest-ranked innovation, per the same formula, that has not already received an award. This ensures recognition is spread across more innovators, rather than a single project receiving more than one award. Any tie in identifying this next-highest-ranked innovation is resolved under Section 8.

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Ties and final decision

In the event of a tie,  including when identifying the next-highest-ranked innovation under Section 7,  the organiser reserves the right to determine the winner, including by reference to additional engagement metrics available in YouTube Studio Analytics. All decisions relating to scoring and the outcome of the contest are final and not subject to appeal.

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Fair play

Participants must not attempt to influence the outcome of the contest through artificial or fraudulent means, including but not limited to:

• The use of bots, scripts, or automated tools.
• Fake, duplicate, or purchased accounts.
• Paid or incentivised engagement schemes.
• Repeated, duplicate, or otherwise spam-like comments intended to inflate a video’s score.

The organiser reserves the right to monitor engagement, to exclude any activity reasonably suspected to be fraudulent or artificial from the final tally, and to disqualify an innovation found in breach of this rule, at its sole discretion.

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Announcement of results and prize

The Award of the Most Popular IFRC Climate Adaptation Innovation will be revealed, alongside the four jury-selected awards, during the dedicated Innovation Awards session of the IFRC Climate Summit.

Prizes include project funding that varies by award. specific amounts will be announced at the Climate Adaptation Innovation awards session during the Climate Summit. Winners will be contacted after the Summit to arrange payment

Each awardee will pitch their project at the Summit when their award is revealed. Awardees will be contacted ahead of time for logistics purpose and, should they need support, will be helped by the IFRC Solferino Academy to prepare a 5-minute pitch. 

If an awardee is unable to attend the Summit, they will not be replaced: they still receive their prize, but will not deliver a pitch.

Session page: https://ifrcclimatesummit.solferinoacademy.com/en/sessions/ifrc_climate_innovation_awards/

Note: The session page is also available in Spanish, French, and Arabic — replace “/en/” in the link above with “/es/”, “/fr/”, or “/ar/” for the corresponding locale.

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YouTube platform and data privacy

Engagement takes place directly on YouTube and is governed by YouTube’s own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, in addition to these Conditions. Comments posted on videos are public and visible to other users of YouTube.

The organiser is not responsible for the content of public comments, and reserves the right to request the removal of content that breaches YouTube’s community guidelines or the IFRC’s own code of conduct.

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Amendments and cancellation

The organiser reserves the right to amend these Conditions of Participation, or to postpone, modify, or cancel the popularity contest, at any time, in particular in the event of technical difficulties or circumstances beyond its reasonable control. Any material change will be communicated via email to participants.

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Liability

The organiser cannot be held responsible for technical issues, including connectivity problems, platform downtime, or account issues, that may prevent or affect a participant’s ability to take part in the popularity contest.

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Contact

For any question about these Conditions of Participation, please contact solferino.academy@ifrc.org.