The team “attoPION”, with students from different schools in India, and the team “PionIST 3”, from different schools in Türkiye, will travel to CERN in August 2026 to perform their proposed experiments. The teams “Mobile MIPs” from Liverpool in the UK and “Centauri Stars” from Lafayette in the USA will carry out their experiment at a DESY beamline, while “POLARIS” from different schools in Bangladesh will be welcomed at the ELSA accelerator of the University of Bonn.
A beamline is a facility that provides high-energy fluxes of subatomic particles that can be used to conduct experiments in different fields, including fundamental physics, material science and medicine.
The participation rate has been rising consistently since the launch of Beamline for Schools in 2014, with a record number of 712 teams from 89 countries submitting an experiment proposal in 2026. More than 4500 high-school students participated this year, setting a new record for student participation.
“CERN’s mission has always been to advance science and to inspire the generation that will carry it forward,” says Ursula Bassler, CERN Director for Stakeholder Relations. “This year’s successful participation shows that interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is growing all over the world. Together with DESY and the University of Bonn, we look forward to welcoming the winning teams and supporting them as they bring their ideas into real experiments.”
The fruitful collaboration between CERN and DESY started in 2019 during a long shutdown period of the CERN accelerators, and with the electron accelerator ELSA in the University of Bonn in 2025. This is the seventh year that DESY has hosted competition winners and the second year for ELSA. At DESY, experiments are performed at the accelerator that gave DESY its name – the German electron synchrotron (“Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron), which is a pre-accelerator for the PETRA III lightsource and also feeds several beamlines for testing detector prototypes.
Beate Heinemann, Chair of the DESY Board of Directors, says: “Beamline for Schools breaks yet another record this year with the highest ever number of submitted proposals. I am thrilled to see this enthusiasm for research in general and particle physics technologies in particular and very much look forward to again welcoming two teams at DESY: the Mobile MIPs from Liverpool, UK, and the Centauri Stars from Lafayette/CO, US. I hope their science experiments in Hamburg will be as momentous and as much fun for them as it was for the Beatles 64 years ago to perform on stage in the Star Club in St. Pauli.
“Science thrives on curiosity and teamwork. It is particularly impressive to see young people engaging with particle physics to such a high standard. We would like to congratulate all the winning teams, and we are looking forward to welcoming Team POLARIS from Bangladesh to our ELSA particle accelerator to support them in carrying out their experiment. Interacting with such committed and inquisitive students is also a great experience for us” says Professor Klaus Desch, who is in charge of the ELSA accelerator facility.
“Our team plans to test if the CMOS sensors in mobile phones can be used as a low-cost beam telescope using the electron beam at DESY,” explains “Mobile MIPs”, the team from the UK. “The CMOS sensors have a projected comparable resolution to current particle detectors and will later be used to study cosmic rays. We are delighted and honoured to be invited to DESY.”
“For us, winning Beamline for Schools means getting the chance to turn an idea into reality. Our experiment tests whether a thin polysiloxane scintillator sheet can work as a beam-profile monitor for high-energy electrons. We are grateful for this opportunity and excited to see what we will find,” say the members of team POLARIS from Bangladesh. “We are very excited to visit the ELSA facility of the University of Bonn!”
The winning proposals were selected by a committee of CERN, DESY and ELSA scientists from a shortlist of 50 particularly promising experiments. In addition, three teams will be recognised for the most creative video proposals and another 15 teams for the quality of their physics outreach activities in their local communities, taking advantage of the knowledge they have gained by participating in BL4S.
Beamline for Schools is an education and outreach project funded through the CERN & Society Foundationand supported by individual donors, foundations and companies. This 13th edition is supported notably by ROLEX through its Perpetual Planet Initiative and by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation in Germany.