Gastronomic short story competition

RULES OF THE 1ST GASTRONOMIC SHORT STORY COMPETITION
ROYAL ACADEMY OF GASTRONOMY

1. Subject and theme

The 1st Gastronomic Short Story Competition is an initiative of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy, supported by CaixaBank, SA, whose objective is to reward literary creation that highlights the role of gastronomy as intangible heritage of society.

The submitted works must explore the capacity of gastronomy to forge bonds between people, cultures and communities; open opportunities and generate links; strengthen human relationships; and, ultimately, act as a backbone of collective cultural heritage and social identity.

Special consideration will be given to stories that, with literary quality, reflect the influence of gastronomy as a phenomenon capable of connecting traditions, generations and territories, highlighting its social, cultural, identity or emotional dimension, and that address themes such as, by way of example only, shared table, cuisine, territory, hospitality, migration, family or tradition.

2. Participants

Any individual of legal age, of any nationality, who submits an original and unpublished work in accordance with these rules may participate in the Contest.

The members of the jury, the academics of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy, the employees of the organizing entities who have intervened in the organization of the Competition, and the first-degree relatives of both, will not be able to participate in the Competition.

3. Characteristics of the works

The works must meet the following requirements:

• Maximum number of stories. Each participant may submit a maximum of two (2) stories, although each one will participate independently in the selection process.
• Extension. Each story will have a minimum length of three thousand (3.000) words and a maximum length of seven thousand (7000) words including the title.
• Language. Stories may be written in any of the official languages ​​of the Spanish State: Castilian, Catalan, Basque, or Galician. Stories submitted in a co-official language other than Castilian must be accompanied by a Castilian translation prepared by the author. The Castilian version will be submitted to the jury, although the jury may consult the original version.
• Format. Submissions must be in digital format, as a non-editable PDF file. The text must be set in Times New Roman or Arial font, size 12 points, with 1,5 line spacing and 2,5 cm margins on all sides. Pages must be numbered consecutively at the bottom.
• Originality and novelty. Submitted works must be original (not based wholly or partially on AI, etc.), unpublished, and must not have won any other literary competition or contest. Works that have been published, in whole or in part, in any medium (including digital platforms, social media, blogs, or forums) prior to the competition's decision date will not be accepted. Failure to comply with these requirements will result in the participant's disqualification (even if they have submitted another work that does meet these requirements) and, where applicable, the revocation of any prize awarded.
• Content restrictions. Works whose content constitutes a crime, is offensive, violates fundamental rights of third parties, incites hatred or violence, or is contrary to human dignity will not be accepted.

Stories generated substantially using generative artificial intelligence tools, or those in which such tools have significantly replaced the author's human intellectual creation, will not be accepted. The purely instrumental use of technological tools for spell checking, layout, or linguistic support will not, in itself, result in the exclusion of the work.

Participation in the Contest implies the author's declaration that the story is the exclusive product of their personal intellectual creation. The organizing entities reserve the right to verify this and to disqualify any work for which there is reasonable evidence of non-human authorship.

The participant will be liable to the organizing entities for any third-party claim arising from non-compliance with these rules or from the violation of intellectual property rights, industrial rights, honor, privacy or any other rights.

4. Presentation and shipping

• Submission deadline. The submission period for works will begin on June 16, 2026 and will end at 23:59 hours (Spanish peninsular time) on September 30, 2026. Works received outside of this period will not be accepted.
• Shipping channel. The works will be submitted exclusively by email to the address [certamen@realacademiadegastronomia.com], indicating in the subject "Participation in the 1st Short Story Competition."The organizing entities are not responsible for technical incidents, connection failures, errors in electronic transmission or corrupted files that prevent the correct receipt or opening of the works.

• Documentation. The email must contain two separate attachments:
  • The first file will contain exclusively the story (or the two stories, as the case may be) in PDF format, headed only by the title of the work and, if applicable, by a pseudonym, without any data appearing in it that allows the author to be identified (the "Work File").
  • The second file, in PDF format, will constitute the so-called "Plica" and will include the following data:
    • Title of the story.
    • Pseudonym used, if applicable, full name and surname of the author, national identity document number, passport or equivalent document
    • Postal address, email address, and contact phone number.
    • A signed declaration in which the participant states that the work is original, unpublished, of their exclusive authorship, that it has not been generated by artificial intelligence and that they fully accept these terms and conditions.

5. Anonymity and confidentiality

The evaluation process will be anonymous. The jury will only receive the artwork files, without access to the sealed envelopes, which will remain in the custody of the competition secretariat until the decision is made. Any participant whose identity can be deduced from the content of the artwork or the submitted file may be excluded from the competition at the discretion of the organizing entities.

6. Jury, deliberation and evaluation criteria

The jury will be composed of seven (7) members:

• Four (4) full members of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy, including its President and its Secretary General.
• One (1) member appointed by Caixa Bank, SA
• Two (2) writers of recognized prestige linked to the gastronomic field.

The presidency of the jury will fall to the President of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy.

The jury will be assisted in the secretarial functions by a person designated by mutual agreement between the organizing entities, who will have a voice, but no vote.

The jury will deliberate as a group and will reach its decisions by a simple majority of the members entitled to vote. In the event of a tie, the foreman's vote will be decisive. The jury's verdict will be final.

7. Evaluation criteria.

The works will be evaluated according to the following criteria, without the order of enumeration implying priority:

• Literary quality and mastery of narrative language.
• Originality and creativity of the approach.
• The narrative's ability to highlight gastronomy as intangible cultural heritage and as an element of social cohesion.
• Emotional depth and verisimilitude of the story.
• Suitability to the theme of the Contest.

8. Declaration as deserted.

The jury may declare the prize void, in whole or in part, if it considers that none of the submitted works reach the required level of quality. In such a case, the prize money will not be awarded.

9. Awards

The following prizes are established:

• First Prize. Awarded with the amount of 5000 euros gross, an accreditation diploma and the publication of the winning story under the conditions described in the Eleventh Base.
• Second Prize. Awarded with the amount of 1000 euros gross and an accreditation diploma.
• Honorable Mentions. The jury may award up to two (2) runner-up prizes, without monetary compensation, consisting of a certificate of recognition. The awarding of runner-up prizes is at the jury's discretion, and their number may be less than the maximum allowed.

The prize amounts will be subject to the withholdings and taxes that may apply in accordance with current tax regulations.

The prizes may not be transferred to third parties or exchanged for other goods or services.

In case of resignation, inability to locate the winner or subsequent non-compliance with these rules, the organizing entities may award the prize to the work that obtained the next best rating according to the jury's criteria.

10. Award ceremony

The awards ceremony is expected to take place in December 2026, in an event jointly organized by the Royal Academy of Gastronomy and CaixaBank, SA at the CaixaBank AII in One space in Pl. Colón 1 (Madrid).

The jury's decision will be made public at least fifteen (15) calendar days prior to the date of the ceremony.

The winners will be notified by email and by telephone.

The personal attendance of the award winner at the award ceremony will be considered a condition for receiving the prize, except in cases of force majeure duly accredited and accepted by the organizing entities.

11. Dissemination and publication

The organizing entities reserve the right to publish, in physical, digital or both formats, an anthology that includes the winning story of the First Prize and the stories distinguished with the Second Prize and the runners-up, if applicable.

This publication may be edited under the publishing label determined by the organizing entities and distributed for institutional, promotional and cultural purposes, without commercial character.

The organizing entities may also disseminate extracts or fragments of the awarded and selected works in their institutional communication channels, social networks, websites and corporate publications, always mentioning the name or pseudonym of the author and the title of the work.

The organizing entities may make the typographical, spelling, style or layout adaptations strictly necessary for the publication of the works, respecting in all cases their essential integrity.

Award-winning participants authorize the use of their name or pseudonym, image and voice in connection with the dissemination of the Contest and its results, without the right to additional compensation.

12. Intellectual Property Rights

• Award-winning and selected stories. The authors of the stories awarded First Prize, Second Prize, or an honorable mention grant the organizing entities, on a non-exclusive basis, the rights to reproduce, distribute, publicly communicate, and adapt their work (including translation) in any format (websites, social media, digital platforms, podcasts, dramatized readings, etc.), worldwide, for a period of three (3) years from the date of the Contest's decision. This transfer is considered included in the prize money and will not give rise to any additional financial compensation. The transfer is limited to the purposes of cultural, institutional, and promotional dissemination related to the Contest, the publication of the anthology stipulated in Rule Eleven, and any communication and visibility activities related to the Contest. Independent commercial exploitation of the works for profit unrelated to the Contest's objectives is expressly prohibited. After a period of three (3) years, the exploitation rights will revert in full to the authors, without prejudice to the right of the organizing entities to maintain the publications already made. The authors will in any case retain the moral rights recognized by current legislation, including the rights of attribution and integrity of the work.

• Non-award-winning works. The authors of works not awarded a prize or selected for the anthology will retain full ownership of all intellectual property rights to their stories. The organizing entities undertake to destroy or eliminate the copies in their possession within six (6) months of the Contest's resolution.

13. Protection of personal data

The personal data collected will be processed by the Royal Academy of Gastronomy and CaixaBank, SA, as joint controllers of the processing, for the purpose of managing participation in the Competition, communicating with the participants, organizing the award ceremony and, where applicable, fulfilling the tax obligations arising from the payment of the prizes.

The legal basis for the processing is the performance of the relationship arising from the acceptance of these terms and conditions and, with regard to tax obligations, compliance with a legal obligation.

The data will be kept for the time necessary for the management of the Competition and, subsequently, for the applicable legal limitation periods. Participants may exercise their rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection by contacting the following email address: certamen@realacademiadegastronomia.com

They also have the right to file a complaint with the Spanish Data Protection Agency.

14. Acceptance of the bases

Participation in the Contest implies full and unconditional acceptance of these rules.

The organizing entities reserve the right to modify the rules when there are justified reasons and provided that the modifications do not unfairly harm the rights of the participants, communicating any modification through the same channels used for their dissemination.

Any issue not covered by these rules will be resolved by the organizing entities, whose decision will be final.

15. Applicable law and jurisdiction

These terms and conditions are governed by Spanish law.

For the resolution of any controversy arising from the Contest, the parties, expressly waiving any other jurisdiction that may correspond to them, submit to the jurisdiction of the courts and tribunals of the city of Madrid.

In Madrid, on June 15, 2026