A record number of young people have entered next year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, with the number rising by 2% compared to this year's event.
In total organisers received 2,091 applications to take part in the 53rd edition of the event from 4,591 students at 375 secondary schools around the country.
However, just 550 projects made the cut and will take part in the event at the RDS in January.
The students behind the individual and group entries hail from 31 counties, with a 2:1 female to male split.
Social and Behavioural Sciences was the most popular category with 41% of the total entries.
Schools in Cork submitted the highest number of entries, followed by Dublin, Limerick and Tipperary.
