CERN’s Beamline for Schools Competition (BL4S) is a science competition open to high school students from all over the world. The prize, fabulous by any standards, is the opportunity to conduct an experiment for 10 days on-site at CERN, in Geneva. Now entering its tenth year, BL4S has enabled CERN to engage almost 22 teams and more than 17,000 students from across the globe to experience particle physics research first-hand. 

Through BL4S, students test themselves as innovators, problem solvers and collaborators, and are motivated to embark in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers to meet the growing demand for a stronger workforce with STEM skills. 
In order to participate, students prepare experimental proposals, often with the help of members of the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG) and other physicists around the world. 

The shortlisted teams win a cosmic-ray detector for their school (introduced for the first time in 2016), a BL4S t-shirt for each team member, and for some, the chance to visit a nearby physics laboratory. All participants in BL4S will receive a BL4S certificate. 

The winning teams selected will then travel together to CERN to perform their experiment. So far, more than 22 teams have seized this thrilling once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! In 2014, the winning teams came from Greece and the Netherlands; in 2015, Italy and South Africa; in 2016, Poland and the U.K.; in 2017, Italy and Canada; in 2018, India and Philippines; in 2019, Netherlands and USA; in 2020, Switzerland and Germany; in 2021 Italy and Mexico; in 2022 Egypt, France and Spain; in 2023, Pakistan, The Netherlands and the US .

For more information about the competition and the latest updates, please visit the BL4S website.

The Beamlines at CERN are undergoing scheduled regular maintenance and upgrade. Hence, for the 2023 edition, the Netherlands conducted experiments at DESY, Germany.