POLARIS: Bangladeshi team shines at CERN’s schools physics contest

On the afternoon of 2 June 2026, CERN — the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, home of the Large Hadron Collider and the place where the Higgs boson was found — announced the five winning teams of the 13th edition of its Beamline for Schools competition, run together with two other giants of accelerator science: DESY in Hamburg and the ELSA accelerator at the University of Bonn. 

The winners' list ran across continents: Türkiye, the UK, the US, India. And, for the first time in the competition's history, Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi team is POLARIS. It is made up of five college students from Noakhali, Dhaka and Rangpur, coached by a final-year undergraduate student. None of them has set foot in a particle physics laboratory. In August, they will — at the ELSA accelerator of the University of Bonn.

"For us, winning Beamline for Schools means getting the chance to turn an idea into reality," said Salman Alam Sohan, one of the members. "We are grateful for this opportunity and excited to see what we find."

What they actually won

Beamline for Schools, or BL4S, is not a quiz contest or a science-fair poster competition. It is an invitation to design a real experiment and run it on a real particle accelerator. Started by CERN in 2014, it asks secondary-school pupils worldwide to submit a proposal for a physics experiment to be carried out at the beamline of a particle accelerator — either at CERN itself or at one of two partner institutes: DESY in Hamburg and the ELSA accelerator at the University of Bonn, both in Germany.

A beamline, in plain terms, is a facility that fires controlled, high-energy streams of subatomic particles that researchers use to probe questions in fundamental physics, materials science and medicine. Access to one is the kind of thing PhD students compete for. BL4S hands it to teenagers.

The scale of the 2026 field is worth pausing on. A record 712 teams from 89 countries submitted proposals this year — a 40% jump on 2025, and the largest number of participating countries since the competition began. More than 4,500 high-school students took part, also a record, with schoolgirls making up 38% of participants. Out of all of that, a committee of scientists drew up a shortlist of 50, and from those 50 chose five winners.

POLARIS was one of the five. The winning proposals were selected by a committee of CERN, DESY and ELSA scientists from that shortlist of 50 particularly promising experiments.

What awaits Team POLARIS

Winning Beamline for Schools is only the beginning for Bangladesh's Team POLARIS.

In August 2026, the team will travel to Germany to carry out its experiment at the ELSA accelerator of the University of Bonn. While CERN organises and brands the competition, POLARIS will conduct its hands-on research at Bonn's world-class electron accelerator, which is hosting Beamline for Schools winners for only the second time.

Physicist Klaus Desch, who leads ELSA, praised the achievement. "It is impressive to see young people engaging with particle physics to such a high standard," he said, adding that ELSA looked forward to supporting the students as they carried out their experiment.

A cheaper way to monitor radiation beams

The POLARIS proposal stands out because it connects particle physics with a practical challenge in cancer treatment.

Radiotherapy depends on accurate monitoring of radiation beams. One commonly used tool is a scintillator, a material that emits light when radiation passes through it, allowing doctors and technicians to measure and map the beam. However, conventional plastic scintillators gradually degrade under prolonged exposure to radiation, becoming less reliable and eventually requiring replacement.

POLARIS wants to test a potential alternative: polysiloxane, a material believed to be far more resistant to radiation damage.

"Our experiment tests whether a thin polysiloxane scintillator sheet can work as a beam-profile monitor for high-energy electrons," said team member Nazifa Tasneem. "If it performs well, the idea could be useful wherever radiation detectors need to remain stable for a long time."

The ELSA accelerator is particularly suited for this research because of its expertise in detector physics and its relevance to applications linked to medical technology.

A team from across Bangladesh

POLARIS is unusual because it is not drawn from a single elite institution. Instead, it brings together students from several colleges in Bangladesh.

According to CERN, the team includes students from Choumuhani Government Saleh Ahmed College in Noakhali, Birshreshtha Noor Mohammad Public College, and Collectorate School and College in Rangpur.

The five members are Salman Alam Sohan, Nazifa Tasneem, Md Abdul Rahim Parosh, Nazia Titim and S M Tawsif. Their coach, Md. Nishad Ahmed Jibon, is a final-semester undergraduate student in Computer Science and Telecommunication Engineering at Noakhali Science and Technology University.

Beamline for Schools allows coaches to be teachers, researchers, university students or parents. In this case, a university student still completing his own degree helped guide a team of college students to one of the world's most prestigious school science competitions.

The team also says it submitted a second proposal under the name Team Geometry, which reached the competition's shortlist of 50 teams worldwide. While CERN's official announcement does not list all shortlisted teams, the claim highlights the depth of scientific engagement within the group.

"This was never only about one submission," said Md Abdul Rahim Parosh. "Preparing the proposal forced us to read, calculate, revise and think like researchers, not just students preparing for an exam."

The journey ahead

The major expenses for the Bonn programme have already been covered. According to the team's coach, the organisers will pay for travel, accommodation and meals during their stay in Germany.

However, one important goal remains unfunded. The students hope to visit CERN in Switzerland after completing their experiment in Bonn. While CERN runs the competition and provides the global platform that made their success possible, travel from Germany to Switzerland is not included in the programme.

For the students, the visit would be more than sightseeing. It would offer an opportunity to see firsthand the institution behind one of the world's most celebrated scientific competitions.

"This is not just a trip for us," said Nazia Titim. "It is the chance to carry out the experiment we proposed, learn from scientists at the facility, and bring that experience back home."

Support for that additional journey would help transform an already remarkable achievement into a fuller scientific experience.

A win with wider significance

The importance of POLARIS goes beyond the competition itself. The students identified a problem with direct human relevance — the cost and reliability of equipment used in cancer treatment — and designed an experiment to investigate a possible solution.

Whether polysiloxane performs as hoped will be determined in August. Yet the project already demonstrates the kind of thinking that turns students into researchers: applying advanced science to practical problems with real-world consequences.

"The biggest thing this win can do is make other students believe that these spaces are not unreachable," said S M Tawsif. "Someone from Bangladesh can propose an experiment, compete globally, and be taken seriously."

For five students from Noakhali and Rangpur, and a coach who has yet to collect his own diploma, that future arrives this August. Their journey will begin on a beamline in Bonn and, if support can be secured, may continue to CERN itself — an inspiring reminder that world-class science is within reach for talented young Bangladeshis.