Nostalgia: Recalling Cork’s proud tradition at the Young Scientist awards

The annual BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE) has been taking place this week, with 122 projects from Cork among the 550 selected for the final exhibition.

The exhibition, which has showcased the curiosity and ingenuity of young people for six decades, has its roots in 1963 when UCD physics researchers — a Carmelite priest, the Rev Dr Burke, and Dr Tony Scott — discovered the concept of ‘science fairs’ while conducting research in Socorro, New Mexico, USA.

Keen to replicate something of the like in Ireland, the pair established the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, holding the inaugural festival in 1965 in the Round Room of the Mansion House in Dublin.

That first competition attracted 230 entries, with John Monahan from Kildare crowned the first ever winner.

Success

Such was the success and interest in the event that the exhibition moved to the much larger venue of the RDS in 1966, where it has remained ever since.

The early Young Scientist Exhibition involved individual student competitors, but in 1976 groups were introduced for the first time.

Exhibitions in the first few years of the Young Scientist involved individuals competing under subjects related to the curriculum but re-categorisation came in the 1970s with new science syllabi.

The first of the special awards, of which there are now many categories, was introduced in 1981.

The awards, sponsored by the Institute of Physics, allowed the organising committee to build up a series of special prize sponsors in various fields.

Group entries were also introduced and this enabled multi-disciplined managed projects to develop.

By 1990, the three established categories were chemical, physical and mathematical sciences; social and behavioural sciences; biological and ecological sciences.

The annual event was sponsored by Aer Lingus until 1998 when BT took over as the new key sponsor.

Technology

Following this, technology was introduced as a new category and separate spaces during the annual exhibition made ‘hands on’ interactive science available.

In 2015, entries soared to 2,077 projects.

This year is nearly on par with 2,042 projects submitted from 343 schools in 30 counties from across the island of Ireland.

Cork was well represented at this year’s competition with more than 20% of the projects selected for the final exhibition coming from schools in the city and county.

Addressing the students at the opening ceremony, President Michael D Higgins suggested to them that there has “never been a better time in which to be a young scientist”.

“Yes, it is a challenging time of interacting crises in ecological, social and economic terms, but it is so potentially fulfilling to know that the choices you make will have effects that are important, not just for your own time but for the very possibility of life itself in its diverse forms,” he said.

“Indeed your work can affect the very possibility of all of us having a future on our vulnerable planet.”