Two Irish students were awarded first prize in the EU Young Scientist of the Year Competition, held in Paris this week. Liam McCarthy and John D. O’Callaghan, from Kinsale Community College, Co Cork, received joint first prize, beating 84 other competing teams from across the EU with their project, entitled “The Development of a Convenient Test Method for Somatic Cell Count and it's Importance in Milk Production.”
The European Commission has run this competition for the last 21 years, under its EU Science in Society programme. Speaking at the event, the Science and Research Commissioner, Janez Potočnik, said “Europe needs to encourage the best young talents to take up a career in science and we must make these careers attractive to our future researchers… The high quality of the projects in competition is a positive signal showing that Europe is a real reservoir of talent.”
For further information on the EU Young Scientist of the Year Competition please see the following link http://ec.europa.eu/research/youngscientists/index_en.cfm