Turku and Bayer join forces to launch science competition

All Finnish secondary school students can apply to the Beyond 2030 Challenge until 15 October

The Finnish City of Turku and the pharmaceutics company Bayer have teamed up to launch a unique science competition: Beyond 2030 Challenge. This competition seeks to encourage young people to pursue education and careers in the fields of science and technology. Therefore, it is open to all Finnish secondary school students.

Investing in a sustainable future

According to a press release by the City of Turku, the previous edition of the competition was a great success; however, it was only open to students from Southwest Finland. Seeing the need for expansion, the co-organisers decided to make this year’s Beyond 2030 Challenge available to all secondary school students in the country. Now, they hope that it will become the largest science competition in Finland.

CEO of Bayer Nordic Miriam Holstein discussed the significance of this opportunity, commenting: “Developing one’s own skills early on is important for Finland’s competitiveness and helps to overcome the challenges facing the whole world. Science is the key to a more sustainable future, as we at Bayer strongly believe.”

In other words, the City of Turku and Bayer Nordic seek to strengthen the business community of the country and invest in the new generation of experts. Moreover, the challenge aims to show students the various jobs offered in science and technology.

Application process

Students who are interested in participating in this year’s competition can apply until 15 October. Following the application period, the top 25 ideas will be selected for the first phase of the project which will take place from mid-November to mid-December.

In December, 10 of the top 25 ideas will be selected and will continue to the semi-finals. The semi-finals will then take place in January when only 5 ideas will get the opportunity to advance to the second phase of the competition.

The closing ceremony will be held in April 2022 when the finalists will have to present their projects. The top 3 projects will be selected to receive monetary awards, with the first, second, and third place winning EUR 4,000, EUR 2,000, and EUR 1,000, respectively.