A record number of projects have been submitted for this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
2,048 entries, involving 4,449 students from 371 schools in the Republic and 25 from Northern Ireland, have been entered into the contest, which takes place in January.
This represents an 8% rise in the number of schools involved last year, with more than half of all secondary schools in the Republic now submitting entries.
Almost two thirds of the entries are from girls, with 38% from boys.
As expected, Dublin has the highest number of entries, followed by Cork and Limerick in second and third place respectively.
1,580 entries are group entries and 468 are individual entries.
When it comes to categories, the largest volume, 857, is in Social and Behavioural Sciences, followed by Biological and Ecological Sciences, Technology and Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
120 awards will be up for grabs at next year's exhibition.
