Young Scientist event attracts brightest and most inventive

Winners of the Young Scientist Exhibition at the RDS have an outstanding record when they bring their projects forward to similar events abroad.

Aside from a cheque for €5,000 the winning Young Scientist is automatically entitled to compete in the Competition for Young Scientists organised by the European Union. Prizeholders may also be invited to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and Irish students have won top prizes 15 times in 25 such events.

Record numbers

Part of the reason they do so well, particularly in recent years comes down to efforts by main organiser BT to ramp up the numbers of students seeking to take part. Year after year record numbers of students apply to participate, with 2,077 projects submitted for the 2015 exhibition.

These projects must then enter a tough shortlisting process that reduces project numbers at the exhibition down to about 550.

This has helped to raise the standard of entries to the exhibition, says Colm O'Neill, chief executive of BT Ireland. It also means that students offered a chance to participate at the RDS are already winners for having been shortlisted, he says.

The 70 or so judges who will be assessing every project at least three times over the coming few days also agree that the standard of entries has risen over the past few years. It has made choosing the Young Scientist that much more difficult and challenging, they say.

Judging

Judging begins on Wednesday afternoon and continues through Thursday and into Friday. Final category winners are identified on Friday along with the top four selection including best and runner-up individual and best and runner-up group projects.

It is from these four that the BT Young Scientist or Young Scientists for 2015 will be selected.