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 High 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 Gold - Exceptional Medal level across all categories each year. The Special Awards include two General Problem Awards and six 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

• Gaspard Monge Award:

  This award is given for outstanding solutions to Continuous Problems (EuroMCM Problem α). Gaspard Monge, regarded as the father of differential geometry, made significant contributions to understanding the curvature of surfaces. His work, building on Leonhard Euler's studies, developed the general theory of curvature and its applications, including notable insights into the geometry of ellipsoids.

• Johannes Kepler Award:

  This award honours exceptional work on Discrete Problems (EuroMCM Problem δ). Johannes Kepler is famous for his work on the packing of congruent spheres, which was a precursor to modern discrete geometry. His discovery of the most efficient way to pack spheres in three-dimensional space (the Kepler conjecture, later proven by Thomas Hales).

• Émile Borel Award:

  This award is presented for excellent solutions in solving Operations Research/Network Science Problems (EuroMCM Problem π). 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.

• Karl Pearson Award:

  This award is awarded for outstanding solutions to Big Data Problems (EuroMCM Problem Ω). 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.

• Eratosthenes Award:

  This award honours outstanding solutions to Policy Problems (EuroMCM Problem θ). Eratosthenes of Cyrene is renowned for his accurate measurement of the Earth's circumference using geometric and astronomical methods. Additionally, Eratosthenes was involved in administrative and policy-related work, as he advised kings and governours on various matters.

• Brook Taylor Award:

  This award is for exceptional solutions to Computer Vision Problems (EuroMCM Problem ξ). Brook Taylor, recognized for his contributions to perspective theory and the mathematics of vision, is considered a pioneering figure in the study of vision-related problems. His book Principles of Linear Perspective laid foundational principles for understanding and representing 3D structures in 2D, aligning with the challenges of computer vision today.

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 Gold - Exceptional Award certificate for the respective team.