Felix Report

The Royal College of Science Union (RCSU) launched the Science Challenge 2012 on Tuesday 18 January after holding an event that saw students turn out in force. The launch event, held in the Sir Alexander Fleming building, revealed the questions which this year's Science Challenge revolve around, with Paul Beaumont, RCSU Vice President (Operations) and Science Challenge Chair hosting the night.

The Science Challenge is an essay writing competition that aims to encourage scientific debate, reasoning and the communication of science in a public friendly context. Paul Beaumont emphasised the need for entrants to write a "compelling scientific argument that any member of the public, with only a basic grounding in science could read, understand and be swayed by".

Guest speakers included Managing Director of Sustainability Services at Accenture Peter Lacy, BBC's Science Editor, Imperial alumnus and former Felix Editor Pallab Ghosh and Professor Lord Robert Winston, who each set a question along with Mark Henderson, head of communications at the Wellcome Trust, who was unable to attend.

Entrants select one topic question and must write 800 words by 5 March, when the competition closes. Tuesday's launch event saw the speakers tell stories of their experiences with science communication, which were preceded by speeches from the Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences Professor Maggie Dallman on communication as a valuable asset and former RCSU President Jad Marrouche.

The event was modernised with an interactive live twitter stream being displayed on one screen for the attendees to post collectively as they experienced the event. The tweets were aggregated under the hashtag #SciChal but the screen was shortly switched off as there was no moderation mechanism in place.

The questions for this year's Science Challenge this year are as follows:
Lord Robert Winston: "What are the five main ethical issues that face modern science and how do we tackle them?"
Pallab Ghosh: "What is the role of science journalism in the 21st Century?"
Peter Lacy: "What scientific breakthrough should we focus on to provide sustainable food, energy and water for nine billion on a planet of apparently finite natural resources, and why?"
Mark Henderson: "How should politicians best make use of science?"

The competition allows both Imperial students to enter as well as students from secondary schools and colleges, with a separate prize branch for external students. Two unallocated tickets to the House of Lords dinner, where the final is expected to be held, were handed out during the launch to Annina Sartor, who successfully answered the arithmetic riddle given with 131, the number of years since the RCSU's founding.

RCSU President Luke Kanczes praised the launch, telling Felix that he's "really excited that [they've] launched this year's Science Challenge", adding "hopefully, the questions will generate some fantastic responses to some of the biggest questions facing today's Scientists."

The event makes a change from last year's scaled down version, where the RCSU were unable to secure sponsorship for the awards. The budget this year is substantially larger and is reflected in the prizes.

The overall winner of this year's Science Challenge will receive a tour of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN as well as a cash prize of £2,000. The category winners will receive a cash prize of £500, with the finalists all also receiving a tour and dinner reception at the House of Lords.

The Science Challenge

Imperial instigated its annual search for science writing talent among its students and school pupils this week, with the launch of this year's Science Challenge competition.

The arrival of Science Challenge 2012 was heralded by a reception attended by some of the judges, including the College's Professor of Science and Society Lord Robert Winston and the BBC Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh, an Imperial alumnus.

The competition, organised by the Royal College of Science Union, aims to promote scientific communication and creative thinking with categories open for both Imperial students and school pupils. The entrants have a choice of four questions to tackle, set by the judges, and winners will be announced at a reception to be held at the House of Lords in the summer.

The prizes on offer include £2000 for the College winner, and £500 for the schools winner, with both also receiving a tour of the CERN facility in Switzerland. As well as the overall awards there will also be prizes in each of the question categories.

One of the organisers, undergraduate Paul Beaumont from the Department of Mathematics, said:

"This science essay competition values the importance of communicating science to the public - a skill that is crucial in a modern world, where scientists must appease the public for support, financially and ethically.."

Alongside the judges listed above, Mark Henderson, the former Science Editor of the Times and current Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust will be adjudicating together with Peter Lacey, a Managing Director in Sustainability Services at Accenture. They will read the top five essays for both College and school categories, as selected by a panel of PhD markers with expertise in the question areas.

For last year's student winner, Andrew Purcell from the Department of Humanities, the competition was an opportunity to commit to paper his perspective on UK science funding:

"I was involved in the Science is Vital campaign and saw the essay question about the Higgs boson as a great chance to make the case for state funding of fundamental scientific research - CERN really has to be the poster-child for this! I simply felt that making this argument coherently in writing would be a nice change from me simply ranting about it to my mates in the pub."

Andrew's full essay can be read here, along with the full list of 2011 winners together with their essays.

Science Challenge 2012 has been supported by Imperial's Faculty of Natural Sciences and Accenture.

Dinner in the House of Lords anyone?

The RCSU Science Challenge is back. The what? It was all a little low key last year, but older students will remember that the Science Challenge is the RCSU's annual essay competition. This year, entrants will be given four questions to choose from, all set by distinguished judges, and then a good essay will land you at a Dinner Reception in the House of Lords, and in for a chance of winning our top prize. Our 'top prize', however, will have to remain a secret until our Launch event, but I promise you, it's no less-impressive than Dinner in Parliament.

But enough of the rewards - you'd be entering for the scientific challenge, not the prizes, right? This year our guest judges - who will all be speaking at our Launch event - include famous faces from TV, Radio (Radio? Faces? Well...you know what I mean..) and Newspapers. Professor Lord Robert Winston, Imperial Professor and TV personality will head up the judging panel, complimented by the BBC's Science Editor and Imperial Alumnus Pallab Ghosh, Mark Henderson - Science Editor of The Times - and Peter Lacy, the Managing Director of Sustainability at Accenture. Each judge has set one question. All you have to do is answer it with eight hundred words (give or take a few).

The official 'description' of the Science Challenge is: "An essay competition that aims to encourage scientific debate, reasoning and the communication of science in a public-friendly context." In reality, this means that we're asking you to write a compelling scientific argument that any member of the public, with only a basic grounding in science could read and both understand and be swayed by. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Previous winners have branded the RCSU Science Challenge 'life-changing'. Isha Puri who won the school's version of the Challenge (we run the competition in one-thousand schools nationwide concurrently: luckily the competitions are judged separately so the competition will be less fierce!) was awarded - as part of her prize - a financial bursary to study at Imperial. Now in her third year of Imperial, Isha is revising her GCSE grammar and getting ready to enter the Imperial Students' competition: "Why not? If it'll get me a seat in the House of Lords, it's worth a try". Yes, Isha...

Last year's competition was won by Andrew Purcell for his witty response to the question "Why should the average person care whether we discover the Higgs Boson?" The essay is a mix of well-researched yet amusing tales of physics banter with his Father and his 'thick Lancashire accent'. It is available - along with all the other winning articles - here.

The Launch event, at which the questions will be released, the full list of prizes announced (that could take a while..), introductory speeches by the judges given and the only two currently unallocated tickets to the House of Lords given away for free will be held in SAF on Tuesday 17th January 2012 at 6:15pm. Unlike previous competitions, tickets for the Final won't be on sale: the only way to get to the House of Lords is by entering (and coming in the top twelve) or via these two free tickets.

If you're unable to make it to the Launch, the event will be filmed and made available via our website. The capacity for the Launch evening is five hundred (including an overflow room) - with two hundred seats already filled, space is quickly going to run out.

Hopefully, by now, I'll have grabbed your attention. If not, then I should probably throw in the fact that this competition is both free to enter, and the top entrants will each receive a cash reward. The top prize is in the (multiple) thousands of pounds, so not something to sneer at! Of course, cash prizes wouldn't be possible without the backing of our sponsors, Accenture Management Consultants & the Faculty of Natural Sciences here at Imperial College London. To register yourself for the Launch event (free food and wine too!) head to rcsu.org.uk/sciencechallenge. RCSU students have a head-start as they have already received an email from me with a registration link, so sign up soon before all seats are filled!