Recognition & results
Every contestant leaves with something. Here is how the IEO recognises performance — individual medals, team trophies, special prizes and certificates — how scores are actually decided, and the real results edition by edition.
Medals, trophies, prizes & certificates
Individual medals
Gold, silver and bronze on overall individual results, decided by the International Board on the Jury’s recommendation — total medals capped at half of the invited contestants.
Team trophies
Gold, silver and bronze statuettes for the best national teams — rewarding all-round strength across the individual parts and the shared Business Case.
Special prizes
For the best performance in a single part — recent editions have recognised best in Economics, best in Finance, and best Business Case.
Certificates for all
Every contestant receives a certificate of participation, and team leaders receive certificates listing their team’s awards — verifiable through the official certificate tool.
A 200-point result, fairly combined
All recognition is based on your combined result across two parts — the individual Economics & Finance test and the team Business Case — never a single round.
Economics & Finance · 150
The individual side — 40 multiple-choice questions plus 5 open questions (your best 4 count), across economics and financial literacy.
Business Case · 50
The team round — analyse a real-world problem and present your recommendation to judges in English.
Z-score normalisation
Raw marks aren’t simply added — each part is standardised so the two combine fairly. With Z = (G − A)/σ, each part’s final score is F = (M/2)(1 + Z/2), floored at 0, where M is the part maximum (150 or 50). Ties break on the Economics & Finance result.
The medal cap
“Total medals should not exceed half of the invited contestants.” So the ceiling scales with the field, not fixed cut-offs — roughly half of finalists leave with a medal. In 2025, across 52 countries, 133 medals were awarded (24 gold / 43 silver / 66 bronze).
Results by edition
Host cities and medal counts where the organisers have published them. Numbers grow with the field each year.
| Year · Host | Countries | Medals | G / S / B |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 · Moscow | 13 | 38 | 10 / 11 / 17 |
| 2019 · Saint Petersburg | 24 | not published | |
| 2020 · Astana | 29 | not published | |
| 2021 · Riga | 44 | 108 | 15 / 38 / 55 |
| 2022 · Shenzhen | 40 | 100 | 18 / 31 / 51 |
| 2023 · Volos | 47 | 111 | 16 / 40 / 55 |
| 2024 · Hong Kong | 50 | 118 | 18 / 36 / 64 |
| 2025 · Baku | 52 | 133 | 24 / 43 / 66 |
| 2026 · Shenzhen | ~61 | upcoming | |
Compiled from the official results pages and edition reports. Medal totals are shown only where the organisers published them; 2019 and 2020 totals were not clearly published. Country counts follow the official edition tables.
Who has stood out
2025 · Baku
Singapore took the team gold and the top two individual places — Marcus Cheong and Spencer Ong, who shared the Financial Literacy prize. Brazil won best in Finance and best in Economics. 133 medals awarded.
2024 · Hong Kong
Pranav Pathak (Canada) was the overall individual winner; Singapore took the team gold. 118 medals awarded.
2023 · Volos
Daniel Zhang (Canada) won overall and topped the Economics part; Brazil took the team gold. 111 medals awarded.
Recurring strength
Across editions, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Russia and China have been the most consistently successful nations — multiple team golds and individual absolute winners between them.
Named individuals and per-edition results above are drawn from the official IEO results pages and Final Reports for each year (see the archive below); always confirm at ieo-official.org.
A result that travels
A rare application signal
An internationally benchmarked, externally verified result — scarce by design, since the cap means fewer than half of finalists medal and only a small share earn gold. It stands out for economics, PPE and finance applications at competitive universities worldwide (as part of a whole application, not a guarantee).
Skills that last
Beyond the certificate: applying micro- and macro-models under time pressure, real financial literacy, and open-ended team problem-solving presented and defended in English — close to how economics and finance are actually practised.
Full results & certificates
Full medalists, team trophies and per-part results for every edition — from Moscow 2018 to Baku 2025 — plus the certificate-validation tool are published by the organisers.