Competition Policies

1. Eligibility

I³ League is open to middle and high school students. Students may participate individually or as part of a team of up to 4 students working on a shared project. Students choose their own problem to investigate; there is no assigned prompt.

2. Teams

A project can be shared across a team, and the learning and certification always remain individual. Each student on a team completes their own curriculum, stage submissions, and Innovation Journal, and is evaluated on their own individual contribution and understanding, alongside the team's output.

3. Safety

Any project involving higher-risk elements (for example, human subjects, animals, health information, chemicals or biological materials, electricity or machinery, personally identifiable information, environmental sampling, drones, or AI systems) is automatically flagged for admin review during the Investigate stage. A flagged project can't move forward until that review is cleared. This exists to protect students and the people around their research, not to discourage ambitious projects.

4. Intellectual property & confidentiality

Every project is confidential. Projects stay private, visible only within the platform to the student, their team, and authorized reviewers, and kept out of any public gallery, marketing material, or public-facing judge view. Students retain ownership of their own work throughout.

5. Academic integrity & AI use

Students may use AI tools as part of their research and iteration process, but must disclose that use at every major submission. Undisclosed use of AI, or submitting work that isn't substantially the student's own, can result in a submission being rejected or a project losing eligibility to advance.

6. Qualification windows

To remain eligible to advance toward the National Finals, students must complete the required program work by one of two qualification windows each season: one closing April 30, 2027, and one closing July 30, 2027. Missing both windows doesn't affect a student's enrollment or curriculum access; it only means they don't advance that season.

7. Judging

Judging assignments, conflict-of-interest handling, and scoring rubrics for the National Finals are managed by I³ League and communicated separately to qualifying students ahead of the event. Details specific to judging are not part of this document.

8. Enforcement

I³ League may place a project under review, require corrections, or remove a student's eligibility to advance if these policies are violated. Questions about a specific situation can be sent to info@i3league.com.