Terms and Conditions of Entry and Participation
Please read these Terms carefully before submitting your application. You will be asked to confirm your agreement when you submit the online form.
1. Agreement to these Terms
1.1 These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) govern applications to, and participation in, the PACT Foundation x QS ImpACT Youth Scholarship 2026 (“Scholarship”), organised by PACT Foundation (“PACT”) in partnership with QS ImpACT, a global initiative of QS ImpACT Charity (“QS ImpACT”) (together, the “Organisers”).
1.2 By ticking the consent boxes and submitting an application, you (“Applicant”) confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms.
1.3 Your parent or legal guardian must read these Terms and provide consent on your behalf through the Parental Consent Form which will be provided later to them upon selection.
1.4 Selected scholars (and, for minors, a parent or guardian) must sign a separate Scholar Agreement before any travel bookings are made. The Scholar Agreement incorporates these Terms and restates the obligations in Sections 6, 7, 12 and 14 in signature form.
2. Eligibility
2.1 The Scholarship is open to applicants who:
(a) are ordinarily resident in Goa;
(b) are enrolled at a recognised college or university in Goa;
(c) hold a valid passport, or have a passport application in process at the time of applying; and
(d) can communicate confidently in English.
2.2 Employees, office bearers and trustees of PACT and QS, and their immediate family members, are not eligible where directly involved in selection.
2.3 The Organisers may verify eligibility and request supporting documents at any time. Providing false or misleading information leads to disqualification at any stage, including after selection or travel.
3. Application and Selection Process
3.1 The Scholarship is awarded through a four-round process. Progression from one round to the next is at the Organisers’ sole discretion, and no candidate has a right to progress:
Round 1 – Submission of Entry. Complete the online application form, including the written Statement of Purpose.
Round 2 – Video Submission. Shortlisted candidates publish a Statement of Purpose video on social media.
Round 3 – Interview. Candidates who progress attend an interview with the selection panel.
Round 4 – Final Selection. The Organisers announce the selected scholars.
Round 1: Submission of Entry
3.2 Applications open on 26 July 2026 and close on 10 August 2026. Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.
3.3 One application per person. You must complete every required field of the online form. You may include optional links evidencing your leadership, volunteering, sustainability, entrepreneurial or community work.
3.4 Written Statement of Purpose. Your Round 1 entry must include a written Statement of Purpose of maximum 500 words, addressing the actions you have taken to advance sustainability or social impact in your community, why you wish to attend the QS ImpACT Youth Summit, and what you hope to achieve by attending. The Statement of Purpose must be written by you, in your own words, and is subject to the authenticity requirements in clauses 3.11 to 3.16.
3.5 Shortlisted candidates will be notified by email by 18 August 2026. Only shortlisted candidates proceed to Round 2. The Organisers do not provide feedback to candidates who are not shortlisted.
Round 2: Video Submission
3.6 If you are shortlisted, you must create and publish a Statement of Purpose video (the “Entry Video”) within [7] days of being notified, in accordance with the Video Submission Brief. The Entry Video is the primary basis on which candidates are assessed at this stage. Failure to publish within the deadline ends your application.
3.7 The Entry Video must:
(a) be 60–90 seconds, vertical (9:16), and your own original work;
(b) be published as a public post on a social media platform of your choice, including Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook;
(c) tag both PACT Foundation and QS ImpACT, and, on platforms that support it, be published using the Collaboration (“Collab”) feature with an invitation to the handles as collaborators;
(d) include the official campaign hashtag #PACTxQSI; and
(e) remain publicly accessible, with all tags, hashtag and collaboration intact, from publication until the conclusion of the selection process, and thereafter in accordance with clause 6.4.
3.8 You must submit the link to your published post in a form provided, and also upload the original video file (or provide a downloadable link). The Organisers retain this copy under the licence in Section 8, independently of any social media platform.
3.9 Deleting, archiving, editing or restricting access to the Entry Video, or removing the collaboration, tags or hashtag before results are announced, will be treated as withdrawal of your application.
3.10 Your content must not infringe any third party’s rights, must use only music and material you are permitted to use, and must not contain unlawful, offensive or misleading content. Anyone appearing in your video must have consented to appear (with parental consent for minors).
Authenticity and the Use of Artificial Intelligence
3.11 This section applies to everything you submit, at every round – including the written Statement of Purpose in Round 1, the Entry Video in Round 2, your interview responses in Round 3, and any supporting links, captions or evidence submitted at any stage.
3.12 Your entry must be genuinely you. Your Statement of Purpose must be written by you, in your own words. Your Entry Video must be filmed by or of you, feature your own face and your own unaltered voice. Both must describe impact you have personally created. We are selecting a young person to represent Goa and India in a room in London. What we read and see must be the person who boards the flight.
3.13 Prohibited use. The following lead to immediate disqualification:
(a) a written Statement of Purpose, or any part of it, generated, drafted, rewritten or substantially composed by generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grammarly’s generative features and any comparable service;
(b) an Entry Video generated or substantially created by artificial intelligence, including synthetic avatars, AI-generated presenters, digitally created or altered faces, and cloned or synthetic voice-over;
(c) face swaps, deepfakes, lip-sync generation, or any manipulation that alters what you appear to say or do;
(d) AI-generated or otherwise fabricated footage, photographs, testimonials or documentary evidence submitted as proof of your impact;
(e) any other written answer, caption or supporting text produced by generative AI and presented as your own words; and
(f) the use of AI assistance during the Round 3 interview, including reading from AI-generated notes or using real-time prompting tools.
3.14 Permitted use. We are not against technology. We are against substitution. You may use a spell-checker, a grammar checker and a dictionary or thesaurus, and you may use translation tools to render into English words you first wrote yourself in Konkani, Marathi, Hindi or another language. For your video, you may use ordinary production tools, including trimming and editing, colour correction, filters, stabilisation, noise reduction, licensed background music, and auto-generated captions or subtitles. You may also use AI to help you plan, structure or rehearse what you wish to say, provided the words you finally write and speak are your own.
3.15 Declaration and verification. You must declare any use of AI tools in the field provided in the application form. An honest declaration of permitted use will not count against you; an undeclared or false declaration will. The Organisers may, at any stage, request the original unedited camera file with intact metadata, set a short supervised or same-day writing or speaking task, or ask you to discuss your Statement of Purpose in the interview. Failure to comply within [3] working days of a request leads to disqualification.
3.16 Consequences at any stage. If AI-generated content or fabricated evidence is discovered after selection, after travel, or after the Summit, the Organisers may withdraw the award, revoke the certificate, digital badge and alumni status, recover the scholarship costs incurred under Section 12, and, where appropriate, inform the applicant’s school, college or university. The Organisers’ assessment of authenticity is final.
4. Rounds 3 and 4: Interview and Final Selection
4.1 Round 3: Interview. Candidates who progress from Round 2 will be invited to an interview with the selection panel, held in person in Goa or online. Interviews may be scheduled at short notice, and candidates are expected to make reasonable efforts to attend at the time offered. The panel may include representatives of PACT Foundation, QS ImpACT and/or external invitees.
4.2 The interview may include questions on the content of your Statement of Purpose and Entry Video, and a short live task.
4.3 Round 4: Final Selection. Selected scholars will be announced by late September and notified by email. All awards are conditional on Section 5.
4.4 Candidates are assessed at every round on the criteria in the Video Submission Brief: impact created and initiative, leadership potential, vision and motivation, communication and storytelling, and commitment to positive change.
4.5 View counts, likes and follower numbers are not selection criteria. Neither is production quality. We assess your story and your impact, not your reach or your editing. A sincere video filmed on a phone will always outrank a polished one that is not truly yours.
4.6 All selection decisions are at the Organisers’ sole discretion and are final. No correspondence will be entered into.
4.7 The Organisers reserve the right not to award all, or any, scholarships in a given year, to vary the number of candidates progressing at each round, and to make any award conditional.
5. Scholarship Benefits and Conditions of Award
5.1 Each selected scholar receives: a return economy flight between Goa and London; shared accommodation for the official Summit period; the standard UK visitor visa application fee; meals as specified in the itinerary; return airport transfers in London; and a complimentary pass to the QS ImpACT Youth Summit 2026 (6–7 December, London).
5.2 The Scholarship does not include: passport application costs; personal expenses; baggage beyond the standard allowance; additional nights or travel outside the official itinerary; mobile roaming or SIM costs; or anything not expressly listed in clause 5.1.
5.3 Scholars must disclose relevant medical, accessibility and dietary needs in advance so that safe arrangements can be made.
5.4 Benefits are personal, non-transferable and have no cash alternative.
5.5 The award is conditional on the scholar:
(a) signing the Scholar Agreement within 7 days of the offer;
(b) providing the Parental Consent Form;
(c) being granted a UK visa; and
(d) completing pre-departure requirements, including the onboarding and media briefing session.
If a visa is refused or not issued in time, the award lapses and the Organisers are not liable, though they may, at their discretion, defer the scholar to a future cohort.
6. Social Media Collaboration Obligations
6.1 Selected scholars act as ambassadors for the Scholarship and agree to the following minimum content plan (the “Content Plan”):
(a) Selection announcement – within 7 days of results, publish an announcement post as an Instagram Collab with PACT Foundation and QS ImpACT and using hashtag #PACTxQSI;
(b) Pre-departure – at least one post or reel in the 14 days before travel;
(c) During the Summit – at least two stories or posts on each Summit day, tagging both official handles;
(d) Post-Summit recap – one recap reel or post within 14 days of returning to India, sharing key learnings; and
(e) Testimonial – one short written testimonial for PACT’s website and reporting within 30 days of returning.
6.2 Every post under the Content Plan must tag PACT Foundation and QS ImpACT, include #PACTxQSI and, where the platform supports it, be published using the collaboration feature.
6.3 Scholars must accept collaboration and repost invitations sent from the Organisers’ official handles in relation to Scholarship content.
6.4 Content retention. The Entry Video and all Content Plan posts must remain published, public and intact – including all tags, hashtags and collaborations – for a minimum of 24 months from the date of posting. During this period, scholars must not delete, archive, hide, restrict, edit to remove tags, or remove the collaboration from any such post. For the avoidance of doubt, this obligation continues after the Summit has concluded.
6.5 If a scholar deactivates an account or changes handles during the retention period, they must notify PACT within 7 days and restore or republish the content where reasonably practicable.
6.6 A scholar may request early removal of specific content in writing for genuine personal safety or wellbeing reasons. PACT will consider such requests sympathetically and will not unreasonably refuse.
6.7 The licence in Section 8 survives any removal of content, and the Organisers may continue to use their retained copies.
7. Scholar Ambassador Commitments
7.1 Scholars serve as “PACT x QS ImpACT Scholar Ambassadors” and agree, with reasonable notice and subject to academic commitments for 12 months from the award, to:
(a) participate in up to three PACT events, webinars or school outreach sessions (in person in Goa or online);
(b) support the launch and mentoring of the next cohort, for example through a Q&A session or application guidance; and
(c) respond to reasonable media and interview requests connected to the Scholarship.
7.2 Scheduling is agreed mutually, and studies always take priority.
8. Content Licence and Intellectual Property
8.1 You retain ownership of the content you create.
8.2 You grant PACT Foundation and QS ImpACT a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable and perpetual licence to use, reproduce, edit, adapt, translate, publish and communicate your Statement of Purpose, your Entry Video, your Content Plan posts, the uploaded video file, and photographs and footage taken of you during the programme, in any media, for selection, promotion, fundraising, reporting and archival purposes, without further approval or payment.
8.3 To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree not to assert moral rights against reasonable editorial use, such as trimming, subtitling or reformatting.
8.4 The Organisers may photograph and film scholars during the Summit, travel and related events, and use that material under clause 8.2.
9. Name, Image and Publicity
9.1 You consent to the Organisers using your name, likeness, voice, city, institution and story in publicity connected to the Scholarship, including press releases, social media, websites, presentations and donor or partner reporting.
9.2 No payment is due for such use.
10. Privacy and Data Protection
10.1 Personal data provided in the application and thereafter (including date of birth, contact details, passport details and accessibility or dietary information) is processed to administer the Scholarship, in accordance with PACT’s Privacy Policy and applicable law, including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
10.2 Data may be shared with QS Quacquarelli Symonds, travel agents, airlines, accommodation providers, insurers and UK visa authorities, only as necessary to deliver the programme, including transfers outside India for those purposes.
10.3 Accessibility, dietary and medical information is used only to make safe and suitable arrangements.
10.4 Questions and requests regarding personal data may be sent to [email protected].
11. Code of Conduct
11.1 Scholars represent PACT Foundation, QS ImpACT, Goa and India. Scholars must behave respectfully and lawfully at all times; follow the official itinerary and the instructions of PACT coordinators and chaperones; attend all Summit sessions and scheduled activities; and comply with airline, venue and UK legal and visa requirements.
11.2 The following are treated as serious misconduct: use of illegal drugs; consumption of alcohol where under the applicable legal age or during official programme activities; harassment, discrimination or abusive behaviour; and conduct that endangers any person or brings the Scholarship or the Organisers into disrepute.
11.3 In cases of serious misconduct, the Organisers may remove a scholar from the programme, arrange their return travel at the scholar’s (or parent’s or guardian’s) cost, and apply the consequences in Section 12.
12. Withdrawal, Breach and Consequences
12.1 If you need to withdraw after selection, notify PACT Foundation immediately at [email protected]. Where bookings have already been made, the Organisers may recover non-refundable costs incurred (such as flights, visa fees and accommodation), except where withdrawal is due to a documented medical or family emergency or visa refusal.
12.2 Each of the following is a material breach of these Terms:
(a) failing to travel without a valid reason after bookings are made;
(b) serious misconduct under Section 11;
(c) providing false or misleading information;
(d) failing to complete the Content Plan in Section 6;
(e) breaching the content retention obligations in clause 6.4, including removing collaborations or tags after the Summit;
(f) submitting AI-generated, synthetically altered or fabricated content contrary to clauses 3.11 to 3.16, or failing to comply with a verification request; or
(g) extending, varying or deviating from the official travel arrangements contrary to Section 14.
12.3 Where a breach can be remedied (for example, restoring a removed tag or publishing an overdue post), PACT will first give written notice and 7 days to remedy.
12.4 For unremedied or serious breaches, the Organisers may, proportionately and at their discretion:
(a) withhold or revoke the scholar’s certificate, digital badge and “PACT x QS ImpACT Scholar” title;
(b) remove the scholar from the alumni network and from future PACT and QS opportunities, events and references; and
(c) in cases under 12.2(a), (b), (c) or (g), recover the scholarship costs actually incurred.
13. Recognition
13.1 Certificate of Participation. Every candidate who completes Round 2 in accordance with these Terms receives a PACT Foundation x QS ImpACT Certificate of Participation, whether or not they progress to Round 3 or are finally selected. Certificates will be issued within [30] days of the final selection announcement.
13.2 A Certificate of Participation will be withheld or revoked where the candidate breached the authenticity requirements in clauses 3.11 to 3.16, withdrew their Entry Video before the conclusion of the selection process, or otherwise breached these Terms.
13.3 The scholar certificate, digital badge and “PACT x QS ImpACT Scholar” alumni status are separate from, and additional to, the Certificate of Participation, and are conferred on selected scholars after they complete the post-Summit deliverables in clauses 6.1(d) and 6.1(e).
13.4 Alumni status includes invitations to PACT events, networking opportunities and priority consideration for future PACT and QS initiatives, and continues subject to compliance with these Terms.
14. Travel, Health and Documents
14.1 Scholars must be fit to travel, disclose relevant medical needs in advance, provide accurate passport and visa documents promptly, and attend visa appointments as required.
14.2 Scholars must travel on the official itinerary and remain with the group during official activities. Arrangements for scholars under 18 are set out in the Parental Consent Form.
14.3 No extension of travel. Scholars must travel on the flights booked by the Organisers, on the dates set, and must return to Goa on the scheduled return flight at the conclusion of the official itinerary. Scholars may not:
(a) extend their stay in the United Kingdom beyond the official itinerary;
(b) change, rebook, defer or cancel any flight, or alter the routing or return date;
(c) travel onward to any other city or country before returning to Goa; or
(d) arrive in the United Kingdom in advance of the group.
This applies whether or not the scholar is willing to bear the additional cost, and whether or not the request is made before or after travel.
14.4 Requests to vary travel arrangements will not be granted. The Scholarship is awarded on the basis of sponsored, chaperoned group travel, and PACT Foundation and QS ImpACT bear responsibility to the scholar’s family, to the visa authorities and to future applicants from Goa for the safe and complete return of every scholar.
14.5 Scholars must comply strictly with the conditions of their UK visa, including its expiry date. Any overstay, absconding, or attempt to remain in the United Kingdom is a material breach and is the sole responsibility of the scholar. The Organisers will report any such matter to the relevant Indian and United Kingdom authorities, and to the scholar’s institution, as required.
14.6 A scholar who fails to return with the group is liable for all costs incurred by the Organisers as a result, including rebooking, search, welfare and legal costs, and forfeits all recognition under Section 13.
14.7 In genuinely exceptional circumstances – such as documented medical emergency or the cancellation of a flight – the Organisers may vary the return arrangements at their own discretion. No scholar may make such arrangements independently.
15. Changes, Cancellation and Force Majeure
15.1 The Organisers may change Summit dates, venue, format or itinerary, and may modify, suspend or cancel the programme where required by events beyond their reasonable control, including visa or travel disruption, public health measures, or safety and security concerns.
15.2 In such cases the Organisers are not liable for any resulting loss, but will use reasonable efforts to offer an alternative, such as deferral to a future cohort.
16. Liability
16.1 Nothing in these Terms limits any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.
16.2 Subject to that, the Organisers are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, and their total liability in connection with the Scholarship is limited to the value of the scholarship benefits provided.
17. General
17.1 These Terms, together with the Scholar Agreement, the Parental Consent Form (where applicable) and the Video Submission Brief, form the entire agreement.
17.2 If any clause is found unenforceable, the remainder continues in effect. A failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver.
17.3 PACT may update these Terms for future application cycles; the version published at the time of your application applies to you.
17.4 These Terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts at Goa have exclusive jurisdiction.