'Jugend forscht' contestants win prizes in Lisbon
This release is available in German.
At the 22nd European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) in Lisbon this week, two second-place prizes, worth 5,000 euros each, were awarded to Simon Schuldt and to Luca Banszerus and Michael Schmitz. Simon Schuldt received an additional award for originality from the European Patent Office (EPO). A fourth German researcher, Andreas Lang, also received the "Special Prize from Portugal".
The young researchers, aged 18, are all 2010 winners of the federal contest "Jugend forscht"(young people doing research): Simon Schuldt in technology, Luca Banszerus and Michael Schmitz in physics and Andreas Lang in mathematics/computer science. They prepared for their participation at EUCYS in Lisbon with the newly endowed DFG Europa-Preis.
The DFG Europa-Preis (Europe Award) was granted to selected winners of the federal competition "Jugend forscht" and consists of a monetary award of 1,000 euros for each project group and a mentoring programme. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) brought together researchers from various generations, establishing contacts with experienced researchers from the respective subject area and providing financial support for exchanges between researchers. The young researchers could thus prepare for the European competition together with their mentors. This included, for example, visiting institutes, preparing sample presentations in English and enhancing their technical knowledge to further develop their projects.
The young recipients were very pleased with the additional recognition of their work on the European level. The desire to research is unabated: Simon Schuldt, who is working on further developing aircraft into energy-efficient "flying wings", will use his prize money to "invest in the project and build a new aircraft model. Now I can use better materials, and that's great."
The DFG mentors accompanied the students to Lisbon and were there to support them. They, too, commented positively after the competition. Marc Ritter of TU Chemnitz, mentor to Andreas Lang, summarised on behalf of the others: "For the young researchers, it is very important to participate in international competitions such as this and establish contact with the community early on. The knowledge from the projects becomes much more tangible, the personality trained and social skills improved. I am proud of the prizewinners and am excited as a researcher."
Provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
