First the bad news: unfortunately, the last Tutki-Kokeile-Kehitä competition was held in spring 2024. Despite the efforts, the joint TuKoKe journey of Opinkirjo and TEK ended in financial challenges, as funding in the education sector was cut significantly. We hope that the past 44 years have provided young people with valuable experience and enthusiasm for science and technology.
And then the good news: we still want to continue to encourage young people to explore and discover technology and science. TEK will now organise a new science and technology competition Kipinä for young people, and pre-registration is already open!
Kipinä is a more targeted science competition, aimed at young people aged 13-19*. The aim is to select Finland's representatives for the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). This year's competition was just held and Finland's representative was awarded, congratulations Manu Kiiskilä!
You can enter the competition with a project or research. The competition is an opportunity for young people to show their skills and learn new things. We also hope that you can help in supporting young people in their early research and development experiments – so share info about this competition with young people, teachers or other educators you know!
The Kipinä Competition website with pre-registration links can be found at www.tek.fi/kipina-competition.
Pre-registration is worthwhile, as once you have registered you will have access to your own online workspace, where you will find tips, advice and the opportunity to ask the organisers for advice on how to set up your project and write your report. We are happy to provide further information and will endeavour to ensure that the work submitted to the Kipinä competition is already directly eligible for further processing under the EUCYS rules. You will receive a login link in your email after pre-registering.
*) The minimum age limit for the 2025 EUCYS is 14 years (from 1 September 2025), but the maximum age limit is 20 years (by 30 September 2025).
Kipinä in short
- The competition will select 1-3 projects to represent Finland in the EU Young Scientist competition.
- Reporting guidelines, categories, age limits are similar to those of EUCYS. EUCYS categories are: Biology / Chemistry / Computing / Engineering / Environment / Materials / Medicine / Mathematics / Physics / Social sciences
- Pre-registrants will have access to a dedicated online workspace with tips, guidance and the possibility to ask the organisers for advice on project development and report writing.
- The workspace will also include an OpeCafe for tutors to ask questions and reflect on their tutoring work with the support of a peer network.
