International Junior Science Olympiad

The International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) is an annual science competition for students aged 15 and under (U16 or 12-16 years old) on December. It is one of the International Science Olympiads and an international academical competition that covers physics, chemistry and biology at the same time. The first IJSO was held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2004. Around 50 countries send delegations of three to six students, plus one to three team leaders, and observers.^[1]

Silver Medal from IJSO 2007 by Tanmay Satyarthi

The competition is broken down into three tests, each of which lasts between three and four hours. The theoretical portion consists of two tests: a multiple choice questionnaire consisting of 30 questions, and a theoretical test. The practical portion consists of three laboratory examinations, one for each field.^[1]

Incidents

2020

Because of COVID-19, the 17th International Junior Science Olympiad 2020, originally planned to be held in Frankfurt, Germany, was cancelled.^[2]

2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 18th International Junior Science Olympiad 2021 was conducted in a hybrid format. This allowed students from the participating countries to participate without travelling to the host country United Arab Emirates.^[3]

2024

At the closing ceremony of 21st International Junior Science Olympiad 2024, 10 students that should have received a Bronze medal, mistakenly received a Silver and 10 students that should have received a Silver, instead were given a Bronze, but due to the only difference being the outline (Outline of a Bronze medal had a "pink bronze" look, and outline of a Silver looked gray-silver colored) no sort of escalation by either side followed at all.

Executive Committee

Current Members

Source:^[4]

Emiel De Klejin (President)

Thandie Lekone (Vice President, Africa)

Elena Losada Falk (Vice President, America)

Abdallah El Marhoune (Vice President, Asia)

Kwok-Tung Lu (Secretary)

Budhy Kurniawan (Treasurer)

Former Members

Source:^[5]

Presidents

Paresh K. Joshi (2015-2022)

Sang Chun Lee (2012-2015)

Masno Ginting (2004-2012)

Vice Presidents

Ui Wook Hwang (Asia)

Paresh K. Joshi (Asia)

Robin Naidoo (Africa)

Heide Peters (Europe)

Ronaldo Fogo (Americas)

Fatima al-Rashid (Asia)

Paraic James (Europe)

Paulius L. Tamosiunas (Europe)

Relations Officers

Heide Peters

Mahesh Edirisinghe

Echakart Lucis

Secretaries

Yung-Ta Chang

Robin Powles

Treasurers

Kwok-Tung Lu

Paraic James

Michael Cotter

The Event

Rareș Razvan Gheorghe (Romania) at 2024 IJSO, wearing a gold medal and holding his award for 2nd-highest score in Biology.

Upon arrival in the hotel, students are met by their coordinators and led to their rooms. They are also given some gifts. Those include: An IJSO backpack, water bottle and a T-Shirt, alongside various different items. Each team have 6 person.

During the event, students and delegates are housed in separate hotels and get to meet each other on three occasions: Opening ceremony, cultural night and closing ceremony. After the opening ceremony ends, any electronics that can connect to Bluetooth are confiscated from students by the delegates (though they still maintain connection through the coordinator, who is in the same hotel with the students). This is done in order to prevent students from knowing the test questions in advance, which are given to delegates one day before the test for them to translate those to their native languages. As a result, students are given two question papers: One in English (Official), and one in their native language.

Cultural night

Team Georgia dancing at cultural night in 2024

Cultural night is on the same day as the experimental test. At cultural night, countries stage a performance related to their culture, mostly either a song or a dance of their choice, but participation is optional, so not many countries perform. In 2024, for example, only 16 out of 53 participating nations had a performance. Also, confiscated electronics are returned to the students on this day.

Closing ceremony

Closing ceremony involves giving roughly 60% of students a Medal (Gold to 10%, Silver to 20% and Bronze to 30%), but few also get a handful of special awards. Those being: The youngest participant (1 student), best scores in each subject (3 students for each subject), top-scoring group in experiments (3 groups), Top scorer in theoretical portion (MCQ and theory combined), (1 student), Overall (Absolute) winner and Country Winner.

Summary

Source:^[6][7][8]

#	Year	Host country	Host city	Participating Countries[9]	Absolute Winner	Country Winner	Notes
1	2004	Indonesia	Jakarta	31
2	2005	Indonesia	Yogyakarta	33
3	2006	Brazil	São Paulo	30	Hailun Hsu	South Korea	[10]
4	2007	Taiwan	Taipei	36	Yu’an Chen	Taiwan	[10]
5	2008	South Korea	Changwon	44	Myeonghwan Son	South Korea	[10]
6	2009	Azerbaijan	Baku	46
7	2010	Nigeria	Abuja	33		Taiwan (3)	[11]
8	2011	South Africa	Durban	41		Taiwan (4)	[12][13]
9	2012	Iran	Tehran	30	Lai-He Chang	Taiwan (5)	[11]
10	2013	India	Pune	37	Chingwei Huang	Taiwan	[12]
11	2014	Argentina	Mendoza	30	Kushagra Juneja	India	[12]
12	2015	South Korea	Daegu	43	Chenyu Lu	Taiwan	[12]
13	2016	Indonesia	Bali	47		Taiwan	[12]
14	2017	Netherlands	Nijmegen	48	Grigorii Bobkov	Taiwan	[12]
15	2018	Botswana	Gaborone	45		Taiwan	[14]
16	2019[15]	Qatar	Doha	67		India	[16]
17	2020[17]	Germany	Frankfurt	(cancelled due to COVID-19)
18	2021[18]	UAE	Dubai (Online)	49	Hsuan-Ming Lin	Taiwan	[19][20]
19	2022	Colombia	Bogota	44	Joon Kim	India	[21]
20	2023	Thailand	Bangkok	53	Tzu-Chiao Yen	Taiwan (12)	[22]
21	2024	Romania	Bucharest	53 (confirmation needed)	Yi-Yang Fan	India	[23]
22	2025	Russia (Confirmed)	Sochi