Discovering talent, developing potential: Promoting physics on a national scale
On the 5th of June 2025, the award ceremony of the 35th State Olympics in Physics of the State of Brandenburg took place at the IHP - Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics. 53 pupils in grades 7 to 12 from 12 different schools prevailed in two qualifying rounds and demonstrated their impressive physical skills in the final.
The venue for this year's final round was once again the Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Gymnasium in Frankfurt (Oder), a long-standing partner and host of the competition. On Wednesday, the 4th of June, the participants first faced challenging theoretical tasks from various areas of physics. On Thursday, the 5th of June, practical experiments followed, which required not only specialist knowledge, but also skill and a good understanding of physical correlations.
After completing the competition tasks, the students were welcomed from 13:00 at IHP. The event began with an official welcome from Professor Gerhard Kahmen, Scientific and Technical Director of IHP. In particular, he emphasised the importance of physics and other natural sciences for our highly technological society and the need for outstanding young scientific and technical talent. In the following keynote speech, group leader Dr Markus Ulbricht addressed the question ‘How do you become a scientist?’ - and gave personal insights into scientific career paths as well as motivation.
In the subsequent laboratory tours, the participants were able to experience the institute at first hand: From the clean room to the laboratory for molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and the spectroscopy laboratory, the young physicists gained fascinating insights into day-to-day research at IHP. This provided numerous opportunities to talk to scientists, ask questions and make initial contacts in the field of research.
During the award ceremony, Uwe Toman, Chairman of the BLiS e.V., honoured the outstanding achievements and enthusiasm of the participants. The State Olympics has now existed for 35 years - just as long as the state of Brandenburg itself - and is therefore regarded as a pioneer for school competitions in the field of science throughout Germany. This is made possible in particular by the continuous commitment of the teachers, who are now the fourth generation to be involved in the preparation and organisation. He also emphasised that many pupils were not taking part for the first time - some had already made it to the national finals several times.
The long-standing co-operation between the Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Gymnasium and IHP enables this exchange at a high level and makes the State Olympics a sustainable funding instrument for the next generation of scientists and engineers in Brandenburg. In addition to the subject-specific challenge, it offers the opportunity to create points of contact with current research fields and scientific institutions at an early stage.
Once again, the 35th State Olympics in Physics organised by BLiS e.V. impressively demonstrated the potential of the state's young talents - and how important early support and scientific impetus are for their personal and professional development.
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