International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) is an annual astronomy competition for high school students. It is one of the international science olympiads.
| International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics |
| IOAA |
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The olympiad was founded as a dissidence inside International Astronomy Olympiad, specially due to its less open organization. The first IOAA site says that "IOAA is designed to be a truly international organization on Astronomy and Astrophysics competitions. The organization is run by an international committee, whose members are elected from international members of the organization."
The first IOAA was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in November, 2007. The second one was held on Bandung, Indonesia in August, 2008. The third one was held on Tehran, Iran in October, 2009. The fourth one was held on Beijing, China in September, 2010. The fifth was held in Chorzow, Poland in September 2011. The next IOAA will be held in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2012.
Host Countries
Note: Hosts from 2014 onwards were decided on tentative basis (subject to availability of funding) during the fourth IOAA.
Important Statues
Important statues from IOAA constitution are reproduced below. For a complete document on statues of IOAA, consult webpage of latest IOAA.
- Statue 1 (Objective and Schedule)
- The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics should be organized during the within of August – December.
- Statue 2 (Hosting Rights)
- The competition is organized by the Ministry of Education or other appropriate institution of one of the participating countries on whose territory the competition is to be conducted.
- The organizing country is obliged to invite all the participants of any of the latest three competitions. Additionally, it has the right to invite other countries.
- No country may have its team excluded from participation on any political ground resulting from political tension, lack of diplomatic relation, lack of recognition of some countries by the government of the organizing country, imposed embargo and similar reasons.
- Within five years of its entry in the competition a country should declare its intention to be the host for a future Olympiad. A country that refuses to organize the competition may be barred from participation, even if delegations from that country have taken part in previous competitions.
- Statue 4 (Composition of Team)
- Each participating country sends one regular team consisting of up to 5 high school students. Also students who finish their high school in the year of the competition can be members of a team.
- The age of the contestants must not exceed twenty on December 31st of the year of the competition. Each team should normally have 5 students.
- In addition, each country also sends one delegation leader (responsible for the whole delegation), and one pedagogical leader (responsible for the students).
- The leaders become members of the International Board, where in they have equal rights. Members of the International Board are treated as contact persons for the participating countries concerning the affairs of the IOAA until the following competition.
- The leaders must be selected from scientists or teachers, capable of solving the problems of the competition competently. Normally each of them should be able to speak English.
- Statue 5 (Guest Team)
- The organizing country has the right to invite guest teams in addition to the regular teams (no more than one guest team per country). Normally the guest team consists also of five students and two leaders.
- The leaders of the guest teams are not members of the International Board. Except for that, their duties are the same as those of the leaders of the regular teams.
- The country sending a guest team pays all the expenses arising from its participation.
- Countries present with guest teams only are not obliged to organize the IOAA in the future.
- Contestants from guest teams and guest teams are classified in the same way as regular teams. They may receive diplomas and prizes, their names should be identified with the letter “G” (“Guest”) in all official documents.
- Statue 6 (Language)
- The working language of the International Olympiad in Astronomy and Astrophysics is English.
Participating Teams
Following teams are regular participants in IOAA: Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Ukraine.
Kazakhstan, Serbia, Russia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Colombia, Hungary, Portugal and Croatia joined IOAA in recent years.
Teams from Azerbaijan, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Philippines, and observers from Malaysia have participated in IOAA in the past. However, there is no regular participation.
See also
- National Astronomical Olympiads:
External links