A great day for Irish science as schoolboy comes second in European contest

23 Sep 2014

Pictured: Paul Clarke in Warsaw this afternoon

The 2014 winner of the BT Young Scientist competition Paul Clarke from Dublin has come second place in Mathematics at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Warsaw today.

The news comes just hours after the previous years’ BT Young Scientist & Technology compettion’s winners Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow from Kinsale Community School were last night named the overall winners of the Grand Prize as well as the 15-16 Age category at the Google Science Fair.

Representing Ireland (North and South) Paul beat off intense competition from students throughout Europe, ranging in ages from 14-21 to win the award worth €5,000. Paul also won the CERN prize of a week’s visit to the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Paul Clarke from St Pauls College, Raheny won the 2014 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition with his project entitled, ‘Contributions to cyclic graph theory.’ Paul’s project investigated and provided sufficient and necessary conditions for unsolved problems in the contemporary field of cyclic graph theory.

“It is a true testament to the standard of entries and entrants to the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition that two winning projects have now received international acclaim in their respective fields,” observed BT Ireland chief executive Colm O’Neill.

“These awards raise Ireland’s profile internationally, demonstrating our continued commitment to the critical subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths. I would encourage any student considering this year’s exhibition to submit their one-page entry before October 1st.  

“Paul, Emer, Ciara & Sophie have done us all proud and we offer them our heartfelt congratulations.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com