A team of secondary school students will take part in the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
The 18th edition of the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) will take place this year in India. A French team of secondary school students, who have been preparing for the event throughout the year, will take part for the first time.
On Monday 2 June 2025, the members of the first team of secondary school students to represent France at the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) were revealed at an event attended by Sylvie Retailleau, ambassador of Université Paris-Saclay.
For the past year, a team of secondary school students from the Essonne French department have been working with a team of teachers, university students and professors to introduce them to astrophysics, space science and higher education and research. The training preparation took place at the Institut d’astrophysique spatiale d’Orsay (IAS - Univ. Paris-Saclay/CNRS) and the Université Paris-Saclay Observatory for Sciences of the Universe (OSUPS), and was coordinated by Hervé Dole, professor, astrophysicist at the IAS, vice-president for art, culture, science and society at Université Paris-Saclay, and Alain Cano, physical chemistry teacher at the Lycée de la Vallée de Chevreuse (91) secondary school.
In the end, two female secondary school students were chosen for the final team: one of whom studies at the Lycée de la Vallée de Chevreuse at Gif-sur-Yvette, and the other who studies at the Lycée Blaise Pascal at Orsay. Through this action, Université Paris-Saclay is contributing to a continuum between secondary school and undergraduate students by establishing links between peers.
This first French participation was made possible thanks to funding from the Université Paris-Saclay Foundation, the CMA Académie Spatiale d'Ile-de-France and the French Astronomical Society (SAF). Training preparation initiatives for Astrophysics Olympiads are set to the increase with other universities in the coming years.