About the IIF Award: The IIF Award for the Impact of Forecasting in Practice aims to recognize and showcase businesses or institutions that achieve significant impact by applying forecasting, while contributing to the forecasting community. Applications are evaluated in 5 key areas: Impact to the business or institution, Impact on the forecasting community, Challenge, Role of forecasting in the solution, and Style/quality of the submission and presentation. The award comes with a $10,000 cash prize to the first-place winning team. A non-cash recognition may be issued to the second-place runner-up, at the award committee’s discretion.

Requirements

  1. Entrants are companies or institutions, not individuals.
  2. Each entrant may be represented by a team of up to 5 contributors.
  3. Finalist teams must attend the Foresight Practitioner Conference in person to participate in the Final Round.
  4. To enter the competition, you must agree that if you become a finalist your team must submit the details of your methodology and impact for publication in a Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting special issue, according to the timeline requested by the editors.  The finalists from the 2025 competition were recently showcased in the Q4 2025 issue.
  5. Impact statement must be in writing from an executive (typically a VP or above) of the business or institution.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be evaluated in five key areas:

  • Impact to the business or institution: Quantifiable value-add to the business or institution (should be large in terms of both overall impact as well as relative to the size of the business). Applications should carefully denote any costs the organization incurred and elaborate on which gains are realized versus unrealized. 
  • Impact on the forecasting community through advancing a technology, sharing best practices, publications, etc.
  • Challenge: Degree of technical and/or organizational challenge that was overcome. Applications should explain what challenges were faced and how they were overcome.
  • Role of forecasting in the solution: Applications should explain how their solution related to forecasting, what portion of the value-add is attributable to forecasting, and what portion of the value-add was attributed to the entrant’s efforts.
  • Style and quality of the application and presentation.

Upcoming event

2026 IIF Forecasting Practice Competition: VIVES Bruges, Belgium | March 1, 2026

Application Timeline

  • Call for submissions on October 6, 2025
  • Initial application deadline extended to December 15, 2025
  • Finalists announced by January 9, 2026
  • Finalist application deadline January 31, 2026
  • Conference and presentations at the Foresight Practitioner Conference on March 1-3, 2026

Initial Application (deadline extended to 11:59 PM ET on December 15, 2025)

Entrants should submit a summary (maximum 5000 characters) including the following details:

  • The name and description of the entrant (company or institution). Contributors’ names and affiliations.
  • Short description of the forecasting application and its current implementation status.
  • Rough estimate of the impact of the work (financial or otherwise)
  • Rationale for why the application should be considered for the award.

Final Application (due at 11:59 PM ET on January 31, 2026)

The final application will consist of a maximum of 1,500 to 2,000 words, including specifics (methodological details, application details, description of the business process, calculation details of the value-add, and impact statement from an executive) of their implementation.

Finalists are expected to receive legal authorization for disclosure in advance to be considered for the award.

Finalists will be selected primarily on the realized value-add of their application, attributable to the entrant’s forecasting efforts, as well as the other evaluation criteria listed above.

Competition Final Round (at Foresight Practitioner Conference on March 1, 2026 starting from 1pm)

To be considered, invited finalists must present their work at the Foresight Practitioner’s Conference (presentations will be recorded), and must agree to have their submission considered for publication in a future issue of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting.

Special Guest:
Spyros Makridakis
Founder of M competitions 1982 to present
1960 Olympian – Rome

Register to attend

Past events

2025 Finalists: HP, Ipiranga, Wayfair, OpenGrid Europe, Maersk

2025 Winner: Wayfair

Read Press Release here.  The recording of Wayfair’s reprisal presentation is available on the IIF YouTube Channel @IIForecasters.