GENEVA – Five teams of secondary school students from India, Türkiye, the UK, the United States and Bangladesh have been selected to conduct experiments using particle accelerator beams at CERN, DESY and the University of Bonn, organisers said on Tuesday.

The winners of the 13th edition of the Beamline for Schools (BL4S) competition were chosen from a record 712 proposals submitted by more than 4,500 students across 89 countries, CERN said. The number of entries rose 40% from last year, with 38% of participants being schoolgirls.

India’s “attoPION” and Türkiye’s “PionIST 3” teams will travel to CERN in August to carry out their experiments. The UK’s “Mobile MIPs” and the US “Centauri Stars” will work at DESY in Hamburg, while Bangladesh’s “POLARIS” will conduct research at the University of Bonn’s ELSA accelerator.

“CERN’s mission has always been to advance science and inspire the generation that will carry it forward,” said Ursula Bassler, CERN’s Director for Stakeholder Relations. “This year’s successful participation shows that interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is growing all over the world.”

The BL4S programme, launched in 2014, allows school teams to propose experiments using accelerator beamlines. DESY has hosted winners since 2019, while Bonn joined in 2025.

Beate Heinemann, Chair of DESY’s Board of Directors, said she was “thrilled to see this enthusiasm for research” as the Hamburg facility prepares to welcome two teams. Klaus Desch, head of the Bonn accelerator, praised the “curiosity and teamwork” of the students.

The winning experiments range from testing CMOS sensors in mobile phones as particle detectors to studying pion interactions and Cherenkov radiation.

The competition is funded through the CERN & Society Foundation and supported by donors including Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative and the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation.