Authors: Monica Constantin and Enrique Sánchez-Bautista

The European Physical Society (EPS) is pleased to announce that the EPS Citizen Science Competition has four winners, who receive travel grants to each visit one of the two most renowned research centres in Europe: CERN, Geneva (Switzerland) or EGO-Virgo, Pisa (Italy).

During September 2022, over 350 science enthusiasts joined the competition and participated in two different citizen science projects. They made classifications using real data from CERN and EGO-Virgo facilities in the fields of High Energy Physics and Gravitational Wave Astronomy respectively. These challenges were conducted through the Zooniverse platform, the world’s largest and most popular platform for citizen science projects, that support real researchers to make groundbreaking new discoveries.

The awardees were selected after a rigorous analysis of the number and quality of the classifications they conducted and the motivation letters expressing their genuine interest to visit CERN and EGO-Virgo. The names of the awardees were officially announced on the REINFORCE website and can be consulted here. The awardees will travel in March 2023 and will have the chance to spend one full day at CERN or EGO-Virgo, enjoying guided tours through the research facilities, including visits to the control rooms, labs, etc., accompanied by in-house scientists and engineers.

The EPS Citizen Science Competition was launched in the framework of the Surrounded by Science project, an EU-funded project which aims at fostering out-of-school science activities which can increase the interest in science to the general public. We encourage you to visit the Surrounded by Science website, subscribe to its newsletter and follow it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Spotify in order to stay up-to-date with new citizen science competitions and activities!