The Big Bang Competition recognises and rewards young people's achievements in all areas of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), whilst providing them with the opportunity to build their skills and confidence in project-based work.
The Competition is open to all UK residents in full-time education or training (year groups 7 to 13 and Scottish/NI equivalent). We are revising the programme and entry procedure for 2020/21 and will be announcing these details soon.
Finalists compete for over £20,000 worth of amazing prizes , including top and runner-up prizes in the Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories for science and engineering, as well as the coveted titles of GSK UK Young Engineer of the Year and GSK UK Young Scientist.
Visit our How to get started page for advice and inspiration, and read the rules and eligibility for 2020 (2021 Finals).
If you have any questions, please contact us at competitions@thebigbangfair.co.uk
If you are in Years 7-13, you are invited to enter a very short story to be in with a chance of winning up to £100.
Oxford are looking for a complete story, written in Spanish using NO MORE THAN 100 WORDS.
They are looking for imagination and creativity, as well as your ability to write in Spanish. Your use of Spanish will be considered in the context of your age and year group: in other words, we will not expect younger pupils to compete against older pupils linguistically.
There are two categories: Years 7-11 and Years 12-13. A first prize of £100 will be awarded to the winning entry in each category, with runner-up prizes of £25. The winning entries will be published on our website.
The UKMT Individual Maths Challenges are lively, intriguing multiple choice question papers, which are designed to stimulate interest in maths in large numbers of pupils.
Junior UKMT is the first of the 3 levels and is aimed at 11-13 y/o
The papers contain 25 multiple choice questions. Of these, the first 15 are more accessible whilst the final 10 will provide more food for thought.
Gold, silver and bronze certificates are awarded to 40% of participants nationally in the Junior Challenges,
The most successful participants are invited to enter follow-on rounds; Kangaroos (multiple choice questions) or Olympiads requiring full written answers.
This essay competition will be appropriate if you are studying any kind of humanities subject, but particularly history. It could also be something that you talk about in your personal statement.
Essays will be judged by current Oxford Classics students.
First prize will be a £100 book voucher, second prize £50 voucher and third £25.
The UKMT Individual Maths Challenges are lively, intriguing multiple choice question papers, which are designed to stimulate interest in maths in large numbers of pupils.
intermediate UKMT is the second of the 3 levels and is aimed at 14/15 year olds.
The papers contain 25 multiple choice questions. Of these, the first 15 are more accessible whilst the final 10 will provide more food for thought.
Gold, silver and bronze certificates are awarded to 40% of participants nationally in the Intermediate Challenges,
The most successful participants are invited to enter follow-on rounds; Kangaroos (multiple choice questions) or Olympiads requiring full written answers.
Schools are invited to hold an essay competition for their Modern Languages A-level students and to submit one essay for consideration for the Essay Prize. The topic for differs every year and can be interpreted by the student as they will.
Essays should be written in French, German or Spanish, should be no longer than 500 words, and should include a bibliography (not included in the word count).
A prize of a £100 book voucher will be awarded to the best essay, judged by a panel of academics from the Department of Languages and Cultures. There are also two runners up prizes of £25 book vouchers.
Young Scot is the National Youth Information Agency, providing young people aged 12-26 with a mixture of information, ideas and incentives to help them become active, informed and confident citizens.
No formal qualification required! • Interest in the issues surrounding young people, Scotland and your digital world • Able to work within a group • Have the flexibility, commitment and willingness to travel across Scotland
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust invite people from all walks of life to carry out bumblebee surveys.
Anyone can become a BeeWalker – all you need is a spare hour or so every month to walk a fixed route of about a mile (you choose where it goes), and send us your sightings. The information collected by BeeWalk volunteers is integral to monitoring how bumblebee populations change through time, and will allow us to detect early warning signs of population declines.
All data collected will contribute to important long-term monitoring of bumblebee population changes in response to changes in land-use and climate change, and, ultimately, to informing how we manage the countryside.
The UKMT Individual Maths Challenges are lively, intriguing multiple choice question papers, which are designed to stimulate interest in maths in large numbers of pupils.
The Senior individual challenge is the highest of the three levels and aimed at students in the final years of high school.
The papers contain 25 multiple choice questions. Of these, the first 15 are more accessible whilst the final 10 will provide more food for thought. Gold, silver and bronze certificates are awarded to 60% of participants nationally in the Senior Challenge.
The most successful participants at each level are invited to enter follow-on rounds; Kangaroos (multiple choice questions) or Olympiads requiring full written answers.
Girton’s Humanities Writing Competition is for students in Year 12 (or equivalent) who have an interest in the Humanities. Students will submit an essay based on one or more objects selected from the College’s small antiquities museum, the Lawrence Room.
This competition is an opportunity for research and writing beyond the curriculum using one or more of the museum objects as your focus. Essays or creative responses (such as dramatic monologues or short stories) are equally welcome. We are looking for the ability to connect different areas of knowledge, to think about details and to communicate clearly.
Closing Date: 5pm on Friday, 13th March 2020
Prizes: Up to £200 cash and £200-worth of books from Cambridge University Press, the latter to be shared between the winning entrant/s and their school/s. The prize fund may be divided between winning entrants.
For business people aged 30 or less who have demonstrated a high degree of entrepreneurship, creativity and vision for the future. The judges will be looking to identify an individual who has set up a business that has set and achieved objectives within its business plans. In addition to this, judges will want to see an understanding of the relationship between your own development and the future success of the business.
Not only the future of business, young entrepreneurs are the innovative zest of commerce today. They are the data-literate, socially savvy sharers who create new technologies to render old problems defunct.
The fearless spirit of the young entrepreneur invigorates monopolies with fresh competition, while their acumen as digital pioneers empowers local businesses to adopt global horizons.
Apart from age, there is no specific entry criteria for the Royal Bank of Scotland Great British Entrepreneur Awards. As long as you are an entrepreneur, and your business...
Peterhouse hold an annual Science essay competition for students with a keen interest in their chosen science.
Competitors are advised that the main focus of the essay should not be material previously or currently being studied by the entrant as part of their sixth form studies. The entrant may refer to topics that will be studied in future so long as, at the time of the closing date, the entrant has received no formal tuition on the topic in question. All entries must be verified by a Head of Sixth Form or Head of History confirming that the essay is the entrant’s own work and that the main focus of the essay is not something which they have hitherto studied in the sixth form classroom.
The prizes are open to all students in year 12 or equivalent (i.e. in their penultimate year of school and usually aged 16 or 17), regardless of nationality or school country. Essays must be written in English.
Each competition has a prize pool of £750. Winners will be contacted by post -...
Peterhouse hold an annual History essay competition for students with a keen interest and high calibre of History writing.
The prizes are open to all students in year 12 or equivalent (i.e. in their penultimate year of school and usually aged 16 or 17), regardless of nationality or school country. Essays must be written in English. Please note that essays must be uploaded as pdf documents through our online submission system. All entries must be verified by a teacher and must conform to the guidelines given in terms of length and content, making sure that all citations and quotes are acknowledged using any recognised system. There is a strict limit of two entries per prize per school or college, unless your school requests extra entries before the closing date of the competition. Extra entries are granted at the discretion of the prize co-ordinators and must be arranged in advance by your teacher.
Each competition has a prize pool of £750. Winners will be contacted by post -...
Peterhouse hold an annual essay competitions for students with a keen interest and high writing calibre in English.
Competitors are advised that the main focus of the essay should not be material previously or currently being studied by the entrant as part of their sixth form studies. The entrant may refer to topics that will be studied in future so long as, at the time of the closing date, the entrant has received no formal tuition on the topic in question. All entries must be verified by a Head of Sixth Form or Head of History confirming that the essay is the entrant’s own work and that the main focus of the essay is not something which they have hitherto studied in the sixth form classroom.
Each competition has a prize pool of £750. Winners will be contacted by post - please make sure your postal address and other contact details are entered correctl
If you are an enthusiastic and motivated 16-18 year old student wishing to have an unforgettable and inspirational summer experience, our Warwick Pre-University Summer School is for you.
- Experience a taste of Warwick with like-minded peers, one of the UK’s highest ranked universities - Eight nights on Warwick’s beautiful self-contained campus - Two nights in London, including lots of time to enjoy the capital city and a visit to LSE
- Choice of two courses taught by top Warwick faculty - Economics and Finance OR A Taste of Social Sciences - Visits to the famous University City of Oxford - Great mix of academic and personal development sessions as well as social and cultural activities; so it’s fun as well as educational - A fully catered programme with no hidden costs.
The University offers two streams as part of the Summer School;
Introduction to Economics and Finance and A Taste of Social Sciences. NOTE: Given the spread of COVID-19 and the turmoil associated with...
The Julia Wood Prize is an annual History essay competition open to Sixth Form pupils who have not been in the Sixth Form of any school or college for a period of more than two years. The Prize, worth up to £500, is offered by the Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College for the best historical essay submitted by the closing date
The Julia Wood Prize opens for submissions by the start of February each year; details will be announced on the College website.
The essay must be the entrant’s own work, but there are no restrictions on candidates submitting coursework to the competition.
The deadline for all tasks was 12 noon, Friday 13 March 2020 . The prizegiving ceremony will take place in Oxford in June, and winning entrants will be invited to attend with a guest. Reasonable travel expenses will be covered.
Open to ages 9-18
The Sheffield Philosophy Essay Prize is an annual competition for Years 10, 11 and 12. The aims of this prize are threefold: firstly, to widen interest in philosophy and in studying philosophy at university level among students who would not otherwise be exposed to the subject; secondly, to encourage ambitious and talented secondary school students considering applying to university to study philosophy; and thirdly, to recognise the achievements both of high-calibre students and of those who teach them. The competition is run by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.
Entrants must be students in years 10, 11 or 12 in the UK.
The WTO established the annual WTO Essay Award for Young Economists in 2009. The award, which carries a prize of CHF 5,000, aims to promote high-quality economic research on the WTO and WTO-related issues and to reinforce the relationship between the WTO and the academic community.
The paper must address issues related to trade policy and international trade co-operation. The author(s) of the paper must possess or be engaged in the completion of a PhD degree and, if over 30 years of age, be no more than two years past a PhD defence. In the case of co-authored papers, this requirement shall apply to all authors. In addition, to be considered for the Award, essays cannot exceed 15,000 words.
The winning essay will be published in the WTO Working Paper Series and it is the responsibility of the author(s) to endeavour to secure publication of the contribution in a journal.
NCH is inviting competition essay entries from students who are currently in their penultimate year of secondary education (Y12 equivalent in the UK).
The selection of essay titles engages across a broad range of humanities and social sciences topics and are looking receiving entries from talented and intellectually curious students who show passion and academic potential in the humanities and social sciences. Entries welcome from students located anywhere in the world.
