Keystone Education Group announces winners of the 2026 Keystone Awards

Oslo, Norway

Global leader in student marketing and recruitment, Keystone Education Group, today announced the winners of the 2026 Keystone Awards, celebrating the students, educators and institutions shaping the future of higher education.

Focused across ten categories, this year’s Keystone Awards recognised outstanding students and institutions for their leadership, resilience and innovation: from training that carried on through conflict, and hackathons confronting gender inequity, to scholarships widening access to education for displaced students.

All Keystone Awards winners were revealed today on Keystone Education Group's LinkedIn page.

This year, The Higher Education Institute of the Year title went to Luxembourg School of Business: the Grand Duchy's first graduate business school, known for small, executive-style cohorts taught by faculty drawn from MIT, Harvard and ESADE, among others.

On the student side, Shiza Hirani of the University of Regina was named Student of the Year. Shiza founded Youth MentorNet Café, a free mentorship initiative for newcomer, racialised and Indigenous youth that has reached thousands of high school students across Canada and internationally with workshops on financial literacy, career pathways and mental health.

Meanwhile, the International Student of the Year title went to Priscilla Jeyaraj, a PhD Medicine student from Malaysia at Queen's University Belfast who was recognised for academic excellence alongside her role helping build community for Malaysian students through QUB's clubs and societies network.

Among this year's institution winners, KROK Business School in Kyiv took the Training Provider of the Year title for continuing to deliver leadership development for Ukrainian businesses under wartime conditions, while RMIT Vietnam claimed Outstanding Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Initiative or Project for Hack The Gap, a student-led gender equity hackathon.

The University of Bristol's Think Big Development Programme claimed the Outstanding Student Experience award by supporting the university's international scholarship recipients with leadership workshops, networking events and a self-reflection pathway, with 98% of participants claiming the initiative helped them build professional skills and confidence.

“At Keystone, we believe in celebrating institutions and individuals that break the mould to show how brilliant ideas and consistent effort can elevate higher education as a whole. This year's winners in particular show what resilience and innovation in the sector really look like, from training programmes that continued as classrooms moved to shelters, to a hackathon that turned a serious equity gap into something students could play, debate and learn from. Congratulations to all!” 

Fredrik Högemark, CEO of Keystone Education Group

The awards nominees were evaluated by an international jury of academic and industry experts. To see the full list of winners visit the announcement page at www.keg.com/keystone-awards or continue below.

About Keystone Education Group

More than 100 million students annually trust Keystone to help them pursue higher education. In turn, Keystone helps over 5,500 education institutions reach, recruit, and enroll prospective students in more than 190 countries.  

 Keystone also operates a range of global student recruitment services including UniQuest, Asia Exchange, Blueberry, SONOR, Edunation, and Keystone Sports. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Keystone is backed by Viking Venture and Verdane, two leading Nordic venture firms. Keystone has 750 employees worldwide, with offices across the Nordics, Germany, Spain, and the UK. 

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