BICS | Board of Irish College Societies

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BICS Awards Rules

Eligibility and Submissions

  • Check with your college society officer as to your society’s eligibility to enter the BICS awards. If in doubt, email awards@bics.ie.
  • Your college must be a member of BICS. Your college must nominate you, and there can be only one nomination in each category from each member college.
  • You must meet all the award nomination criteria and comply with all deadlines.
  • It is very important that if you are representing more than one category that you inform BICS at the time of submitting your nomination, so that we can ensure that your interview times do not clash.
  • A group whose main activity is recognized by Student Sports Ireland as a sports club and/or is an Olympic Sport may not enter for an award at BICS.

Portfolios

If a portfolio is required for your category the nominee must provide just one portfolio, which includes all back up material. Portfolios will be required to be at the hotel for judging on Wednesday 1st April. If you are nominated in more than one category, you must have one portfolio for each category. You are welcome to submit a virtual portfolio and upload it at the time of submission

Awards Specific Rules

To be eligible to enter Best Society (Cultural/Academic/Social), Best Society (Charity/Civic) Best Academic, Best Society (Departmental) and Most Improved Society categories, your society must have been set up for a minimum of two years from March 11th (i.e. for the 2026 awards, set up before March 11th 2024).

A society may not be nominated for more than one of the following awards in the one year:

  • Best Society (Cultural or Social Field)
  • Best Society (Charity or Civic Field)
  • Best Society (Academic/Departmental)
  • Most Improved Society
  • Best New Society

To be eligible a new society must be in its first two academic years from March 11th (i.e. for the 2026 awards, set up after March 11th 2024). The exception is if you were nominated for and won “Best New Society” at BICS last year, you may not enter for Best New Society again, but may enter for Best Society (either Academic/Cultural/Social, Departmental, or Charity/Civic).

A society entering Most Improved Award must be in existence for a minimum of 2 years as of March 11th and be able to demonstrate their improvement from last year to this year.

Events must take place after 11th March 2025. (Note: must be after the deadline for your own college’s awards 2025 or at the latest April 8th 2025 (BICS Awards deadline 2025).

A Best Fresher is deemed a society member who is in their first year at their first HEI i.e. a student in the first year of a postgraduate course is not deemed a Fresher. It is up to each college to nominate an individual who adheres to this criterion.

A society that wins Best Departmental, Best Civic/Charity, Best Cultural/Social, Most Improved, two years in a row may not enter this category for the third year in a row. They can enter another category.

Best Intervarsity must have taken place after April 1st 2025. 2 entries per college are allowed for this award. If you are applying for this Award, you must have hosted or co-hosted the Intervarsity. The event must be organised by at least one society in a member college. In addition to the host college, at least 2 other Irish colleges must have participated at the Intervarsity (they do not all have to be members of BICS). The event must be open to all colleges on the island of Ireland (not all colleges must attend but there must be no restrictions imposed by the host college). The event may be open to non-students but in an audience capacity only.

Please check individual applications for rules specific to each category.