The winners of the 59th BT Young Scientist of the Year are local students Shane O’Connor and Liam Carew from the Abbey School with their project Assessing the impact of second-level education on key aspects of adolescents’ life and development.
The winners were announced at the RDS on Friday 13th January, and the students (pictured above) were presented with their prize by Minister for Education Norma Foley TD, and Managing Director of BT Ireland, Shay Walsh.

Chair of the Social and Behavioural Sciences Group Judging Panel, Professor Joe Barry said, ‘What we are looking at here is a very impressive survey conducted in three waves over 24 months with more than 2,000 responses examining how secondary school students perceived school to impact on their social, physical and mental wellbeing. One of the key findings coming out of the research was that whilst inequality is prevalent in DEIS[1] schools, exponential improvements in areas of pastoral care and physical health are quickly closing this gap. To quote directly from the students’ research, ‘Secondary school is a vital social outlet for students and this can be seen across our interviews, focus groups and in particular in our survey.’