Juries

Composition of the Juries

Each country sets up a jury, whose members are appointed by the national structure and approved by the European Europan Association.
The jury considers all the projects that comply with the competition rules. Its judgement is final. In the event of non-compliance with the rules, it has discretion whether or not to disqualify the entrant.
According to the country, the jury consists of 7 (or 9) independent members with no relation to a site proposed to the competition and is constituted as follows:

- 2 representatives of the public or private order;
- 4 (or 6 in case of a 9-member jury) representatives of the architectural and urban design (architects, landscapers, urban planners), among which at least 2 architects;
- 1 public figure.

At least 2 out of the 7 members must be foreigners –at least 3 in the case of a 9-member jury. The national structure also appoints at least 2 substitute jury members, representatives of the architectural and urban design. The jury members are identified when the competition is launched and their names are listed for each country on the Jurys section of the European website.

In a country with only 1 or 2 sites in the competition, the jury may consist of only 5 members, independent and not linked to a city participating in the competition: 1 representative of the public or private order, 3 representatives of the design, 1 personality. It must include at least one foreign member.

Jury members may consult city and site representatives, and involve them in the pre-selection with the jury, but these representatives do not have the right to a final vote under any circumstances.

Working Methods and Evaluation Criteria

National juries take place in the country of the sites on which the evaluated projects were designed. The second jury's meeting can take place in the city of the Forum of Cities and Juries, the day following the forum.
The jury’s decisions are final in compliance with the Europan rules. Before beginning to work the jury receives recommendations from the European Association.
The jury meets in 2 separate sessions at different times:

First round – At the beginning of this session, the jury appoints one of its members as chairman and agrees on its working method. Sites representatives can be integrated to this jury level and, in some countries, may participate to the selection of the shortlisted projects.
The jury then studies the projects that do not comply with the rules and decide whether or not to disqualify them.
It later on assesses the projects on their conceptual content and the degree of innovation according to the Europan 18 topic and shortlists around 25% maximum of the submitted projects or at least 3.

Second round – During the second round, the jury examines –on its own and independently– the shortlisted projects and points out the winners, runners-up and special mentions. The jury could assess the projects on basis of:
- The relevance of the answers given by the project to the questions raised by the theme “Re-Sourcing”;
- The ability of the project to connect territory scale (urban, suburban, rural…) to proximity scale of the places, by crossing landscape, urban and architecture;
- The relationship between the ideas of the project and the site’s context;
- The care with which natural local resources, climatic changes and risks and inhabited milieu are taken into account;
- the relevance of the program proposed on the mixity, inclusivity and evolutions of uses, in regard to the brief demands;
- The potentiality of integration into a complex urban process including actors;
The jury finally writes a report giving the reasons for the choice made in relation to the requirements of the competition and the concerned sites.

Each country's budget includes the equivalent of a Winner’s and a Runner-Up’s prize per site. Still, each entry is judged on its sole merits. The jury can therefore distribute prizes among entries up to its will or decide not to award all the prizes. In this case, the reasons shall be made public.
If disqualified after validation of participation a prize-winning project may be replaced by another project if the quality is satisfactory

Disclosure of Names

The projects assessed by the experts and juries are anonymous.
Once the decision of results is taken, the jury reveals the names of the winners, runners-up and special mentions. This operation is done through the European database, which automatically links the codes of the projects and composition of teams.

Results Announcement

After disclosure of the names of the winning teams and following any adjustments to rankings that may prove necessary, the national secretariats ratify the decisions and disclose the names of all the participants.
The European secretariat publishes the complete list of results online on November 17th, 2025.