About the Justin Urquhart Stewart (JUS) competition
The JUS Competition 2025 is open from the 28th February 2025!
FOUR lucky winners will each receive a £500 cash prize (awarded in October 2025) and all shortlisted submissions will get the opportunity to attend an exclusive day trip to London visiting top investment/finance companies in the city.
Take a look below at some of the pictures from the day trip to London!
You can also earn 10 points as part of the Talent Development Programme (TDP) activities (link here with more information): https://www.sbsaob.soton.ac.uk/talent-development-programme/
The aim of this competition is to help you to link what you learn in lectures to wider current events and to encourage the use of the Financial Times both as a study tool and a means of staying informed of crucial current affairs and their impact on the business world.
Check out the video below of Justin Urquhart Stewart who provides an introduction regarding his background and why he introduced the JUS Competition to the Business School!
Who can apply?
This competition is exclusive to Undergraduate Southampton Business School 1st and 2nd year students. Please note the competition is not open to Undergraduates who will graduate summer 2025 or Masters students. Students on placement are welcome to apply.
How do I enter?
Write a Financial Times style article (max 500 words) on a subject of your choosing.
Please send your entry to SBSEDO@soton.ac.uk by 4th April 2025, 12pm.
Your article must be a word document, in 12-point font, with your name included in the filename and in the document heading, and no longer than 500 words. You do not have to Harvard reference but you must identify your sources (particularly for figures). Remember the style needs to be suitable for the FT.
Guidance and support
Join us for a Writing Boot Camp on 12th March 2025 (12pm to 1pm) in building 100/5013.
Sign up to reserve your spot here:
https://forms.office.com/e/dLgjfLU8zm
You will need to sign up and reserve your spot in order to be able to come to the Writing Boot camp. 30 tickets available, which will be allocated on a first come, first served basis!
This Writing Bootcamp will provide a great opportunity for you to receive dedicated support with writing your articles.
This workshop will specifically help you:
· to scope your possible writing topic
· consider authentic examples of Financial Times articles
· make progress on planning and writing your article.
Open to all SBS students who are interested in entering the JUS Competition. Don’t forget shortlisted candidates will visit companies in the city of London and the top four winners will also receive £500 each!!!
Identify a topic for your article
Choose a current or recent issue that you think could have an impact on business. It could be a story about a particular company or a sector, or political or other events that could have an impact on business. If you can, find a new topic, or a new angle to an existing story.
Previous finalists have written about:
- The Finnish phoenix: How Nokia is slowly reinventing itself
- How government legislation is set to transform the future of English Football
- Is History Repeating? The Return of Vinyl: A Cultural Rebirth
- Adidas and Manchester United Sports sponsorship: The strategies behind successful partnerships
- Trains are going up again… Are we paying for less?’
- Revolutionising Wealth Management: How AI and Robo-advisors are Democratising Investing
- Does cryptocurrency have a future in finance?
- Pay With Just a Hand? Amazon One Mass Introduction
You will need to research your topic using reliable, credible sources. You will need to identify what the potential and realistic impact of these issues could be, using what political and/or financial commentators are saying.
We encourage you to attend the Writing Bootcamp to get support with writing your article. You should also spend some time monitoring the Financial Times. As a student at Southampton you have free access to the Financial Times (You will need to set up a FREE account – the University has a subscription).
You may also want to gather ideas and views from other business news sources such as the Economist and some of the standard ‘broadsheet’ newspapers such as the Guardian and Telegraph from the library website.
View 2 example entries from previous winners:
Questions you need to think about
1. Have you followed the overall instructions given?
2. Is the article concisely but clearly written?
3. Is there a well-argued assessment of the impact of the issue?
4. Has suitable evidence from appropriate sources been used?
5. Have you followed all instructions for formatting, length, and submission?
Find out about resources to help you with research and writing
Visit the SASH pages http://library.soton.ac.uk/sash/writing and explore the resources
Visit the business pages in the library http://library.soton.ac.uk/business to find sources.
Here are some comments from previous competition winners!
“I entered this competition twice and won on my second attempt. The first time I wasn’t even a runner up, but I knew I had to try again otherwise I would regret not entering and having at least a chance to win. There’s nothing to lose!
Even if you don’t win I was able to use some of the knowledge and skills I acquired from reading the Financial Times and writing the article in some of my essays for my modules, so as I say you can only gain from entering this competition and it doesn’t take that long to write either.”
***
“I had applied for the prize the day before the competition and had never thought I would actually win it. I tend to be someone who never wins raffles and prizes etc so I did not expect this win at all. It was refreshing to start with a blank piece of paper with a open brief and be able to write absolutely anything I want. I chose to write about the importance and any misconceptions about financial literacy. It was a personal interest that I had never written about so it was nice to write it as an article and submit it.
It was really easy to enter the competition, there is really no reason notto. It’s a win win situation, if you win the competition you win a cash prize, something valuable for your CV, and a lunch and if you don’t you’ve only spent a couple of hours learning and writing about something that interests you, so may as well apply and see how it goes!”
We wish you the best of luck with your submissions and look forward to reading them! If you have any questions or would like to informally chat about the prize, please contact SBSEDO@soton.ac.uk or Roy Edwards R.A.Edwards@soton.ac.uk