36th EU Contest for Young Scientists: and the winner is…

Today, the winners of the 36^th edition of the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) were announced during the event's award ceremony at the Splendid Palace in Riga, Latvia, following a five-days contest where the most promising young scientists aged 14 to 20 and coming from 40 countries across Europe and beyond have competed to win prestigious prizes to advance their scientific career.

The projects winning the first prize of € 7000 each are:

• Evan Budz from Canada for his project 'Development of an Autonomous Bionic Sea Turtle Robot for Ecological Monitoring using AI'
• Anna Černá from Czechia for her project 'Role of RECQ4 in DNA replication initiation'
• Antoni Łuczak from Poland for his project 'On Apollonian Cubics in a Triangle'
• Dani Zuhair from Sweden for his project 'Investigation into the Depth Dependent Dynamics of Columnar Skyrmions'

The second and third prizes (€ 5 000 and € 3 500 each, respectively) went to projects from Türkiye, Portugal, Greece, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary and the USA. The Special Jury Prize of €2 500 went to Georgia. The winning projects share a total of €64 500 in prize money.

View the detailed list of all winners

Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

"Congratulations to the winners of EUCYS 2025. Your talent and dedication show why Europe must keep investing in young scientists. The creativity and excellence of the next generation will keep Europe at the forefront of research and innovation. At the same time, we must continue to invest substantially in Europe's research and innovation to ensure that the best minds choose Europe."

The participants presented 90 different projects to an international jury of 21 highly qualified scientists and engineers with worldwide reputations in their chosen fields, chaired by Hans Langeveld, the founder of Biomass Research. The winners received their awards from the President of the Jury and from Mr Andris Kužnieks, Head of the Representation of the European Commission in Latvia.

Background

The European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) is the most important student science fair in the EU set up by the European Commission in 1989. Each year, the event brings together the best young scientists aged 14-20 years old from the EU and beyond to present their projects to a panel of international judges. The number of participating students has grown from 53 in the first competition in 1989 to an average of 140 a year.

EUCYS is hosted annually in a different European country. Every year, a new local host organisation co-operates with the European Commission to organise the event. In 2026, the event will be organised in Kiel, Germany, as part of the larger EU-funded project 'Science Comes to Town'.

The participants had all previously won first prizes in their home countries' national science competitions in their specific fields. Their projects cover a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines, from biology, chemistry, environment and materials, to computing, engineering, mathematics, and physics, to medicine and social sciences.

EUCYS aims to foster the careers of young scientists from Europe and beyond by offering them the opportunity to compete and exchange with their peers at international level, all while being advised and guided by some of the most prominent scientists in Europe.

Another main goal of EUCYS is to promote the participation of young women scientists in Research & Innovation, as they are still underrepresented in STEAM. This year, 60 of the 132 participants are young girls, marking an almost 5% improvement since the 2024 edition.

More information

36th EUCYS 2025 - European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Riga

Press contact:

EC Spokesperson for Research, Science and Innovation