International Junior Science Olympiad

The International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) is an annual natural science competition for students under sixteen years old as of December 31st in the year of the competition. The IJSO welcomes participation from over 50 countries each year, with each country sending a team of six participants. 

The IJSO 2024 exam was held in Romania from 2nd to 11th December 2024, and Russia will be the organising country for the session 2025. 

The competition aims to ignite students' interest in the natural sciences, encourage them to pursue scientific careers, foster international relations in the scientific community, and promote future scientific collaborations. The IJSO exam includes several stages, such as multiple-choice questions, theoretical exams, and laboratory tests. This article will provide you with all the details regarding these stages and why attending the exam is crucial.

1.0What is the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO)?

The International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) is a yearly science competition for students under 16 years old by December 31 of that year. It aims to celebrate excellent science skills, help talented students improve in natural sciences, and help students from different countries make friends and connect.

Several nations have organized the IJSO in the past few years, including Germany, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Botswana, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The IJSO provides both individual and team events. Natural science students participate in several theoretical and practical events.

IJSO 2025 Highlights: Key Details

Here are the key highlights of the IJSO 2025 Junior Science Olympiad.

2.0IJSO 2025 Important Dates: Exam Schedule

The IJSO exam usually takes place in the first week of December of every year in different countries. Currently, around 50 member countries participate every year. The officials have announced that registration for the IJSO 2025 exam will start on 29th July  2025. For more information and to know the dates of important events, consider the following table: 

3.0International Junior Science Olympiad Syllabus

The International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) syllabus outlines the necessary skills and knowledge areas that competitors need to know. It guides the scientific committees in host countries in creating tasks and helps leaders from participating countries train their students effectively. To ensure the syllabus remains current, it should be reviewed, revised, expanded, or condensed every three years.

The syllabus content is derived from the previous IJSO syllabus, as well as the syllabi used by students up to 15 years of age in participating countries. It also includes problems from the IJSO until the 5th IJSO held in 2008. Adjustments were made as necessary, including omissions and additions, to ensure relevance and suitability. Here is the PDF link for the new and corrected version of the new IJSO syllabus.

4.0International Junior Science Olympiad Eligibility

Eligibility is the fundamental requirement that you must meet to sit for any exam. Similarly, the IJSO has specific basic requirements that aspirants need to fulfil.

Below, we have provided the details of the International Junior Science Olympiad eligibility requirements:

International Junior Science Olympiad Age Requirement:

• Competitors must be 15 years old or younger on December 31 of the competition year. For example, students born on or after January 1, 2001, could participate in the 2016 IJSO.

Country Representation:

• Students must have a valid passport of the country they represent or have attended school there for at least one academic year before the competition.
• They should not have engaged in another country's selection process.
• Participants should not be enrolled in university education during the competition.

Compliance:

• Students must adhere to the IJSO 2025 Junior Science Olympiad statutes and the organizational rules set by the OC (Organizing Committee).
• Material Restrictions:
• Personal collections of formulas from subjects like mathematics, chemistry, and physics are not permitted during the competition.

5.0IJSO Science Olympiad Registration: How to Participate

One of the key aims of the Olympiads is to expose the youth to cultures and help the students from different parts of the world interact. Thus, the Olympiads have tremendous scope to promote peace and harmony throughout the globe. The countries which have attended past IJSOs can register by using the login ID and password sent by IJSO.

New countries wishing to participate for the first time or those still needing their login credentials should contact the IJSO official website to obtain their login ID and password.

6.0IJSO Exam Pattern 2025: Marking and Format

Once you have completed the registration process for the exam, you must know the exam pattern to get an idea of the exam mode, duration, types of questions, and marking schemes.

For now, the exam pattern is the same as last year, but if there are any changes in the future, we will update it in the same blog. So please find the IJSO exam pattern below: 

• The exam is conducted over three days with an interval of 1 day between each exam. 
• The questions on these exam papers should align with the IJSO syllabus, covering as much of the content as possible and crafted creatively, with answers that do not depend on language.
• The multiple-choice and theoretical exams are scored individually.
• In the multiple-choice exam:
• Correct answers score 1 point.
• Incorrect answers incur a penalty of 0.25 points.
• Unanswered questions receive 0 points.

7.0IJSO Result 2025-26

After the completion of the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) exams, the much-awaited IJSO 2025 results will be out. Contestants can download their results only on the official IJSO website (ijsoweb.org). Only those candidates who have written the final round of the IJSO will be privileged to download and view their results.