The Art Directors Club of Europe expands eligibility for its flagship awards programme, allowing creatives who enter selected national competitions to compete directly for the title of “Best in Europe” and earn points toward The One Club’s Global Creative Rankings.
The Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE) has announced a significant change to the structure of its prestigious ADCE Awards, expanding eligibility to all entrants from 34 leading competitions across Europe. The new system will come into effect ahead of the 2026 call for entries, which is scheduled to open in May.
Until now, the ADCE Awards were open only to winning and shortlisted work from competitions organised by ADCE’s 25 member clubs and a small number of selected non-member organisations. Under the new rules, participation will be broadened so that anyone who enters those member competitions will also become eligible for the ADCE Awards, along with entrants from nine additional non-member competitions across Europe.
With this change, the ADCE Awards move away from their previous role as a final round for already awarded work and evolve into a more connected platform designed to identify and celebrate the best creativity produced across the continent.
The expanded entry system aims to better reflect the diversity of the European creative landscape. By allowing entrants from both member and non-member competitions to participate, the programme opens the door to a wider range of agencies, studios and independent creatives. In particular, the change is expected to create greater visibility for smaller agencies and creatives from smaller markets whose work may previously have faced structural barriers to entering the ADCE competition.
Although access to the awards is expanding, ADCE emphasises that the judging standards and evaluation process will remain unchanged. The ADCE Awards will continue to be judged by international juries composed of leading creative professionals from across Europe, bringing together diverse cultural and professional perspectives from the continent’s creative industries.
The judging process will still combine online evaluation with in-person jury sessions held during Creative Week Europe in the autumn. ADCE juries will continue to use the proprietary judging platform developed by The One Club for Creativity to ensure fairness, transparency and consistency throughout the evaluation process.
The expansion of the ADCE Awards also strengthens the programme’s position within the global ecosystem of The One Club for Creativity, the international nonprofit organisation that ADCE joined in 2023. The change creates additional pathways for European creative work to gain recognition beyond the continent.
Winning entries at the ADCE Awards contribute points to The One Club’s Global Creative Rankings, an annual benchmark that measures creative performance across agencies, brands, campaigns and individual creatives worldwide. The rankings combine results from several major competitions organised by The One Club, including The One Show, the global ADC Annual Awards, the ONE Asia Creative Awards, the organisation’s US chapter awards and the Type Directors Club competitions.
By expanding participation to entrants from 34 European competitions, more creatives will now have the opportunity to earn ranking points and gain international recognition through the Global Creative Rankings.
The 2026 ADCE Awards call for entries will officially open in May, with full details about the new eligibility rules and submission process to be published on the ADCE website in the coming weeks.
