Building a strong competition judging panel: Diversity, expertise and engagement

The quality of a judging panel can define a competition’s reputation, shaping both its credibility and the value people place on it. Exceptional judges bring diverse perspectives, thoughtful analysis and a commitment that ensures fairness, consistency and long-term integrity.

When building a judging panel, it’s important to recruit a diverse and expert panel, and be open to fresh judges each year. Over-reliance on the same judges can reduce exposure to emerging trends and ideas, and increase risk of bias or complacency.  

Fostering engagement is also important, and can help create a sense of community and shared purpose, making your judges effective ambassadors of the competition. This dedication also encourages them to provide valuable feedback for the improvement of the contest.    

Want to build a strong competition judging panel? Read our trips below on how to bake diversity, expertise and engagement into your competition judging panel.                

How diversity helps build a strong judging panel

Diversity is essential for building a balanced judging panel for your competition. It can enhance representation, attracting quality entrants. Diverse judging panels can facilitate fairer assessment by reducing unconscious bias and curbing the prevalence of a similar thought process.

This diversity can also prevent over-reliance on the same reviewers.  

It’s worth noting that diversity among judges isn’t restricted to demographic diversity. Beyond the commonly understood forms of gender, racial and generational diversity, there are other dimensions to be considered. 

Professional diversity matters. For example, your judging panel might feature a dynamic mix of academics, practitioners, entrepreneurs, creatives and policy experts. This diversity should extend to their skill sets. If you run a multi-faceted competition, it’s ideal to have different judges to assess functionality, feasibility, beauty, creativity and social impact.

Similarly, judges should have varying decision-making styles, appetites for innovation and ideological perspectives. Such differing approaches and views can foster deeper judgment and richer discussions in competitions involving values, facilitating the recognition of the nuances of excellence. 

How expertise builds trust in the judging process

To create a panel of judges that entrants and the audience can trust, the judges need to bring a host of expertise to the program. Having deep knowledge and experience enables the judges to appreciate the details and context of each submission, thoroughly evaluate entries and identify the most deserving ones. 

The expertise of your judges speaks volumes about your competition. Being associated with renowned figures can strengthen brand reputation and reduce the possibility of controversy around the decisions. 

It’s helpful to ensure that your judges have core knowledge and experience in the domain of the competition. They should also be familiar with your judging processes, scoring practices and peculiar contexts that may affect some submissions. Consider selecting judges who understand the audience’s perspective. 

How to keep competition judges engaged 

The strength of your judging panel largely depends on the commitment of the judges to your competition. If they’re invested in the awards program, their attention and passion will be felt immensely. They’ll promote the contest, offer valuable contributions to improve the program and complete evaluations on time and thoroughly. 

What’s more, engaged judges are typically aligned with your objectives for the competition. This ensures that their decisions go beyond simply following rules to endorsing what the competition seeks to acknowledge. Also, engaged judges lead to a positive experience for entrants. 

To effectively engage your judges, provide value to them by:

• Offering proper training during the onboarding process
• Providing helpful tools like competition management software to enhance the judging process
• Showing your appreciation through public posts, interviews and more that showcase their involvement
• Inviting their suggestions and feedback
• Communicating with them post-competition 

Regardless of the competition type, diversity, expertise and engagement are crucial blocks for building a judging panel. Together, they ensure all shades of excellence are recognised and both the energy of entrants and the spirit of the competition are honoured.