Every May, about 1,800 students from more than 75 countries gather in the United States to present their research to judges and to the public. This is the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the largest science competition in the world for high school students. What the 2025 finalists chose to study says a lot about what it takes to reach that stage, and about where Korean students are strong and where they have room to grow.
How ISEF works
ISEF is run by Society for Science, a nonprofit organization, and is the most prestigious high school science competition in the United States. It began in 1950 and became an international event in 1958. Intel sponsored the fair from 1997 to 2019, which is why it was long known as Intel ISEF. Today Regeneron is the title sponsor.
Most participants are high school students, and every finalist has already advanced through a qualifying fair in their own country or region. The fair itself lasts about a week, with projects competing across 22 scientific categories. Students present their findings to the judges and to the public, and reaching the fair as a finalist is a meaningful achievement in its own right.
Which fields the 2025 finalists came from
At the 2025 fair in Columbus, Ohio, research in the life and health sciences was clearly the most popular choice. Engineering came next, and computer science trailed both.
| Field group | Share of 2025 finalists |
|---|---|
| Life sciences (Animal Sciences, Biomedical and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Biochemistry and related categories) | About half |
| Engineering and technology (Environmental Engineering, Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design, Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Embedded Systems) | The next-largest group; Environmental Engineering alone had more than 100 finalists, one of the biggest categories at the fair |
| Computer science | Noticeable, but smaller than life sciences or engineering; Systems Software, the category closest to pure computer science, was only about 4–5% |
