Inter-American Organization for Higher Education

1.1 The competition is open to all Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE) members*, and are up to date with their statutory obligations. 

1.2 The call will be carried out in two stages: the submission of abstracts (Stage 1), after which a shortlist of experiences or case studies will be selected. The selected authors will be invited to submit their full paper and present it to the international jury (Stage 2).

1.3 Abstracts and full proposal can be submitted in one of the four official IOHE languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese or English.

1.4 The Jury will award the three best proposals.

1.5 An electronic publication will be produced containing all the full papers submitted.

1.6 Participation in the 6th Edition of the MEIN Award does not entail any registration fees for the participating HEIs.

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*To find out if your HEI is a member of the IOHE, you can consult the following page:

https://oui-iohe.org/en/members-oui/

The research or case studies must address one of the following thematic areas related to the main theme “Data Analytics for Decision Making in Higher Education”:

2.1 Institutional analytics for strategic planning and quality assurance

Experiences or case studies that document the use of academic, administrative, and financial data to support institutional decisions related to strategic planning, quality assurance, accreditation, continuous improvement, etc.

2.2 Predictive models for student trajectory management

Experiences or case studies on the implementation of analytical or predictive models used to support decisions related to admission, retention, academic progression, timely graduation, student support, or other related topics.

2.3 Governance, visualization, and ethical use of data for decision-making

Case studies that address institutional experiences in data governance, design and use of dashboards for university authorities, as well as practices oriented towards the ethical, responsible and transparent use of data analytics.

3.1 The abstract for Stage 1 of the competition must not exceed 250 words and include the following elements for evaluation:

• Title.
• Context of the experience.
• Objectives and the need(s) addressed.
• Methodological aspects of the implementation.
• Evaluation and results.
• Conclusions and recommendations.
• Bibliographical references are not required.

3.2 Authors of abstracts selected for Stage 2 will receive guidelines on how to prepare and submit their full proposal or paper for presentation and evaluation.

The proposal abstracts must be submitted via the following form by May 22, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Montreal, Canada time (UTC/GMT – 4 hours): MEIN Award 2026 Application Form 

The winning projects will receive the following prizes:

First Place:

• A round-trip airfare for the winning project leader to attend the next edition of the Congress of the Americas on International Education (CAEI-2027).
• 3 hotel nights at CAEI-2027 for the winning project leader.
• 3 free registrations to CAEI.

b)  Second Place:

• 2 free registrations to CAEI.

c) Third Place:

• 1 free registration to CAEI.

Activity	Term
Abstract submission	May 22, 2026
Selection of abstracts	June 19, 2026
Submission of full proposal	August 14, 2026
Presentation to the Jury	October 5 – 7, 2026
Publication of competition results	October 16, 2026
Academic publication of submitted papers	1st quarter 2027