ULI Hines Student Competition

Registrations for the 2024 ULI Hines Competition are open and close on November 17, 2023.

Complete the registration form at uli.org/hines2024 by November 17, 2023 to register a team. Create a free ULI account in order to register. Read the instructions below and view a Sample Registration Form.

Please note that the deadline to register is November 17, however  we ask that you start and complete your registration as early as possible! The application includes requesting various approvals depending on your status in school, as well as approval from your department or program head.

ULI invites teams from accredited educational institutions worldwide to participate in the 2024 competition. Students in Europe can also compete in the ULI Hines Student Competition – Europe. Students in Asia can also compete in the ULI Hines Student Competition – Asia Pacific.

For details about team composition requirements, visit the How to Form a Team section on this page.

2024 Competition

Competition Jan. 8 – 22, 2024
Finalists Announced By February 22, 2024
Finalist Site Visit March 15, 2024
Finalist Presentations and Winner Announced Thursday, April 4, 2024

Overview

The ULI Hines Student Competition—entering its 22nd year in 2024—offers graduate students the opportunity to form their own multidisciplinary teams and engage in a challenging exercise in responsible land use. Teams of five students pursuing degrees in at least three different disciplines have two weeks to devise a development program for a real, large-scale site in a North American city. Teams provide graphic boards and narratives of their proposals including designs and market-feasible financial data.

This is an ideas competition; there is no expectation that anyone will apply the submitted schemes to the site. The winning team receives $50,000 and the finalist teams each receive $10,000. All participating finalist students typically attend the all-expenses-paid final presentation in the host city where the jury selects the winning project.

The competition is part of the Institute’s ongoing effort to raise interest among young people in creating better communities, improving development patterns, and increasing awareness of the need for multidisciplinary solutions to development and design challenges.

Longtime ULI leader Gerald D. Hines, founder of the Hines real estate organization, created the competition with a generous endowment after he received the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development in 2002.

Through 2023, at least 11,135 students on over 2,227 teams have participated in the competition since its first year in 2003, including 84 teams (420 students) who have made it to the finalist round. More than 1,000 real estate and design professionals have served as advisers to these teams. In 2023, 84 teams submitted entries from 39 schools. In 2003, the competition’s first year, 49 teams submitted entries from 22 schools.

The competition is open to students around the world. Students in Europe may also wish to participate in the ULI Hines Student Competition – Europe and students in the Asia Pacific region may wish to participate in the ULI Hines Student Competition – Asia Pacific.