Albert Vidal Award

The Albert Vidal Award is a prestigious award, named after the founder of WorldSkills International (formerly known as the International Vocational Training Organisation – IVTO). During the first thirty-one WorldSkills Competitions (formerly known as the Vocational Training Competitions), Francisco Albert Vidal, from Spain, was responsible for the achievement of the original goals in a changing world: 33 years as an untiring promoter in his position as Secretary General and seven years as President of the international organization constantly presenting new ideas. The Vocational Training Competitions became his life's work and the international organization was shaped into what it is today. In memory of Albert Vidal, the Award recognizes the Competitor that achieves the highest number of points across all skill competitions.

The winner of the Albert Vidal Award is determined by Competitors’ results on the WorldSkills Scale, a point scale that reflects Competitors’ achievements on the 100 mark scale in each skill competition. The system of converting marks out of 100 to a common scale was originally developed by the then WorldSkills President, Cees Beuk, after the WorldSkills Competition in 1985 held in Osaka, Japan. This new system was developed upon the request from the Technical Committee Chair René Gonthier and his vision of making the skill competitions scores more comparable and universal.

With the new system, it became possible to compare the results of Competitors from skill competition to skill competition, and possibly event to event. The new system became effective in 1988 (when the WorldSkills Competition was held in Sydney, Australia) at which the "Best of the Competition Award" was introduced for the first time. Originally a 500 point scale was used, but as the number of Members in WorldSkills grew, there were a few weaknesses with the calculation used, so after a comprehensive analysis from a statistician and thorough review by WorldSkills International, the WorldSkills Scale was introduced at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017.

After Albert Vidal’s death in October 1993 the Award was renamed (proposed by Tjerk Dusseldorp, WSI President at that time) from the "Best of the Competition Award" to the "Albert Vidal Award" in order to honour the contributions of Albert Vidal for his decades of devotion to the WorldSkills movement. The new name of the award was introduced in 1995 when the WorldSkills Competition took place in Lyon, France.

“Fill youth with enthusiasm through special action! Convince young people’s parents, trainers and company chiefs that a promising future is possible only through good vocational training” -Francisco Albert Vidal