Awards and Designations

Overview

After the contest results are announced, all participants, including advisors and students, will receive a Certificate of Participation. Advisors can log in to the contest website via the Advisor Login link to view and print certificates for their teams. The results for the Secondary School, Undergraduate, and Graduate categories will be judged separately, with certificates of different result levels awarded accordingly. Certificates can be downloaded directly from the EuroMCM website. Each Special Award is granted to only one team within the Golden Laureate Medal level across all categories each year. The Special Awards include two General Problem Awards and seven Specialized Problem Awards. Additionally, the top three teams will each be granted an EuroMCM scholarship of €1000, with the distribution between students and advisors following a 9:1 ratio.

Special Awards Information

General Problem Awards

• Adolphe Quetelet Award:

  This award recognises the most innovative and creative solutions. It is named after Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian mathematician, astronomer, statistician, and sociologist, in honour of his pioneering role in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. Quetelet's work in anthropometry and his development of the body mass index (BMI) laid the foundation for the study of human characteristics.

• William Playfair Award:

  This award celebrates excellence in data visualization and overall presentation. William Playfair, a Scottish political economist and engineer, is considered the father of statistical graphics. In 1786, he introduced graphical data representations in his book Commercial and Political Atlas, which included bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts.

Specialized Problem Awards

• Emmy Noether Award:

  This award recognizes outstanding contributions to Continuous Problems (EuroMCM Problem α). German mathematician Emmy Noether's revolutionary theorem linking symmetries in physical systems to conservation laws transformed theoretical physics. By proving that every continuous symmetry of a system's action corresponds to a conserved quantity, her work bridged differential calculus, integral calculus, and physics. Noether's theorem remains foundational for analyzing continuous systems in fields such as quantum mechanics and field theory, cementing her legacy as a pioneer in modern scientific thought.

• Gino Fano Award:

  This award honors exceptional contributions to Discrete Problems (EuroMCM Problem β). Italian mathematician Gino Fano is known as the founder of finite geometry, particularly for his pioneering work on projective planes. His groundbreaking contributions laid the foundation for modern developments in discrete mathematics, with significant influence on combinatorics and graph theory. His work on axiomatic systems for projective geometry, published a decade before David Hilbert's similar contributions, emphasized the importance of rigor and independence in mathematical foundations.

• Karl Pearson Award:

  This award is awarded for outstanding solutions to Big Data Problems (EuroMCM Problem γ). English biostatistician and mathematician Karl Pearson, celebrated for his work on hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, and the development of the Neyman-Pearson lemma, made pivotal contributions to statistical theory. His achievements in data analysis provide a strong foundation for handling large-scale data tasks.

• Émile Borel Award:

  This award is presented for excellent solutions in solving Operations Research/Network Science Problems (EuroMCM Problem δ). French mathematician Émile Borel's work on Borel sets and the Borel measure significantly impacted modern probability theory, and he also introduced the concept of mixed strategies in game theory. One of his books on probability introduced the amusing thought experiment that entered popular culture under the name infinite monkey theorem or the like.

• Eugenius Warming Award:

  This award recognizes outstanding contributions to Sustainability Problems (EuroMCM Problem Ω). Eugenius Bülow Warming was a Danish botanist and a main founding figure of the scientific discipline of ecology His textbook on ecological plant geography introduced systematic methods for analyzing organism-environment interactions, shaping global research on biodiversity and sustainability. Warming's methodologies remain critical for addressing modern ecological challenges, from climate change to resource management.

• Archytas Award:

  This award honors excellence in Policy Problems (EuroMCM Problem θ). Archytas of Tarentum, an Ancient Greek mathematician and statesman, solved the Delian problem of doubling the cube with a geometric construction involving intersecting curves. He also advanced music theory by proving that superparticular ratios couldn't be divided by a mean proportional. Archytas is credited with creating a mechanical flying dove, an early application of math in engineering. Some scholars suggest he may have inspired Plato's philosopher king and influenced his political philosophy in The Republic and other works.

• Alexy Ivankhnenko Award:

  This award honors exceptional results in Modern AI Problems (EuroMCM Problem λ). Ukrainian mathematician Alexey Ivakhnenko's development of the group method of data handling (GMDH) pioneered inductive learning approaches that anticipated deep learning. His work on self-organizing deep learning networks, self-learning pattern recognition, and the design of multilayered neural networks with active neurons laid the groundwork for modern AI systems.

Please note that Specialized Problem Awards may not be presented every year, as their issuance depends on the quality of papers submitted in the respective tracks.

The following table outlines the different Special Awards and their corresponding inscriptions, and the number of teams awarded each year. The titles and inscriptions of the Special Awards will appear on the Golden Laureate Award certificate for the respective team.