The National Heart and Lung Institute and the British Heart Foundation’s Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London offers the 3rd Annual "Science in Medicine School Teams Prize" to engage sixth form school students with science in medicine.  Any educational organisation in the UK with sixth form students may participate.

The aims are to encourage students to:

• stretch beyond the school curriculum, think outside the bubble of traditional biomedical fields and learn about the excitement of research.
• consider how trends in science and engineering will impact on health and medicine in the future.
• understand the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and teamwork to effective research and development for improvements in public and individual health.
• forward think realistically by realising the importance of affordability, availability and acceptability in translating inventions towards a reduction in inequality-related poor health outcomes.
• appreciate the importance of effective communication in rolling out scientific developments, with an emphasis on art and design.

This year there are three separate team contests.  Schools can enter one team to each contest and may need to conduct an internal selection process.  Teams should have no more six members and should be made up of members with varied interests to demonstrate a multidisciplinary approach.  Examples of possible student scientific interests include biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, maths, computing, data science and economics. Judges will be looking for communication skills and a team member(s) with art or design interests is recommended.

Collaborations between schools are possible and teams made up of students from two different schools can submit a Poster jointly. Just make sure that one school (teacher) oversees the submission.

Awards:

• Prizes for each contest are £3000 - 1^st, £2000 - 2^nd and £1000 - 3^rd and are intended for supporting science-related activities in the winning schools.
• Shortlisted teams will be offered the opportunity for online mentoring session with an academic.
• Prize-winners may be invited to submit blogs on their submissions.
• Prize-winning posters will be exhibited at the annual Imperial Festival.
• All team members will receive certificates of participation.

The three contests are:

• The British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Prize. This prize is sponsored by the British Heart Foundation. This year submissions should focus on a topic with interactions between the cardiovascular system and the nervous system, for instance in relation to pain or stress or in causing dementia or stroke, but students are free to choose any interaction that interests them. This prize is supported by the BHF and the Cardiovascular Theme of the Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
• The Lung Prize. This prize is partially supported by the NHLI and the Respiratory Theme of the Biomedical Research Centre. Submissions can focus on any aspect of the prevention or treatment of respiratory disease. 
• The Scleroderma and Raynaud’s UK Prize. The Scleroderma and Raynaud’s Prize is sponsored by Scleroderma and Raynauds UK (SRUK – Scleroderma & Raynaud’s UK | SRUK).  The challenge is to prepare an ePoster with a novel vision on how to promote the health and well-being of individuals with Scleroderma and/or Raynaud’s.  Teams are welcome to submit an entry focusing on any relevant topic, and suggestions are:
  • Interventions to prevent or treat Raynaud’s symptoms.
  • Interventions for preventing the development of fibrosis, as applied to scleroderma or other disorders.
  • Early diagnosis of scleroderma.
  • Pulmonary hypertension or interstitial lung disease in scleroderma
  • Monitoring of scleroderma disease activity, for instance using remote techniques.
  • Determining the prognosis of the individual patient and new strategies for personalised treatment

Instructions:

• Email us to register your intent in submitting a poster for this year’s Prize – in the email please include the name of the teacher, school as well as the name of the prize that interests you.
• Teams should submit an ePoster demonstrating an innovative idea(s), a striking ePoster design and original illustrations.
• The poster should focus on a particular topic rather than the disease area in general.
• Teams can choose whether to address a local, national or global issue.
• Teams are free to choose the design of the poster but are advised to describe clearly what problem is addressed, the anticipated innovation(s), and steps along the way to implementation.
• The judges will be looking for evidence that the vision considers affordability, availability and acceptability in translating science and/or engineering towards improved health.
• Teams are advised to indicate how each member contributed to the poster so that team work can be scored.
• The poster should be pitched to communicate to non-experts, for example fellow sixth form students.
• The ePoster should be submitted in Landscape format as a pdf file via our Qualtrics portal – see below
• The size of the ePoster should be suitable for a print-out size as an A0 (not larger than 84 cm (height) and 118 cm (width))
• The online submission portal is below. Please submit two versions of the posters, one with and one without identification of the educational organisation.

Short-listing

• The submitted version without the identification of the educational organisation will be scored by the short-listing panel.
• Judges will award up to ten points for each of the following domains:
• Definition and importance of the problem
• Scientific and technological approach
• Novelty and vision
• Feasibility
• Insight into testing efficacy
• Affordability and availability
• Social acceptability
• Poster design
• Original illustrations
• Evidence of teamwork
• The top ten teams in each of the three contests will move on to the finals event.

Finals Event

• For each prize, the top ten scoring teams from the short-listing will be invited to present their posters at an online finals event, to be held in late September – early October.
• Short-listed teams will be asked to give a Power Point presentation lasting seven minutes, which will be followed by three minutes questions and answers. Judges will score the same domains as used for the short-listing. 

The School Teams Prize 2023 is now closed.

For any queries, please email school-teams-prize@imperial.ac.uk

Prizes for 2022

School Teams Prize 2022 were awarded to:

 Heart and Circulation Prize

• Joint First Prize: Oxford International College and Winstanley College
• Joint Third Prize: - Yarm School & Henrietta Barnett School

Lung Prize

• First Prize: - Concord College
• Second Prize: - Saint Olave's Grammar School
• Joint Third Prize: - Wycombe High School and North London Collegiate School

The first, second and third prizes were £3000, £2000 and £1000 for supporting science-related activities. Feedback and mentoring meetings with Imperial Staff were arranged for each of the finalist teams.

Winners of the 2021 BHF Heart School Teams Prize

• First Prize: Featherstone School ‌
• Second Prize: Yarm School ‌
• Joint Third Prize: - Concord College & Malvern St James