Participation

Can I compete in the IBO?
The most important criterion to be able to participate in the IBO is to win the Biology Olympiad in your country/region (National Biology Olympiad, NBO). Each IBO member country/region can send up to four students. There are some other restrictions.

• You should not be older than 20 years of age (at 1 July of the year of the competition).
• You can only participate twice.
• You have not yet started university (or equivalent) as a full time/regular student.
• You should be a student of a regular secondary school for general education (e.g. not specific for STEM or biology). Note that due to this rule home-schooled students are not eligible to participate. Furthermore, most countries do not consider international schools (with International Baccalaureate) to be be a regular secondary school. These students are also no eligible to participate.

For the full list of participation criteria, please see section §3.5 from our Operational Guidelines. If your country/region does is not a member of the IBO community, it will not be possible for you to participate.

Where can I register for participation?
You cannot register for participation with the IBO directly. Please talk with your high school teacher, look at the website of your national/regional competition, or contact your national coordinator. Please see here: IBO member country/region.

I am living abroad, can I still compete?
This depends. For example, if you live in Austria but go to a German school across the border, you are eligible to participate in the German Biology Olympiad and may become a winner there. If you go to an German International School, for example in the USA, that follows an approved curriculum by the German government, the same is true (however, it may be difficult for you to participate in all rounds of the NBO competition). However, if your international school does not follow a state approved curriculum (note: often International Baccalaureate is not state-approved), you would not be able to participate in the IBO. However, you may still be invited to participate in the NBO if the country allows it.
As a final note, your nationality plays no role to determine your eligibility. For example, if you are a citizen of Argentina, living in Spain and going to a regular Spanish school, you would be allowed to participate in the Spanish NBO and may join the Spanish IBO delegation.

I won, now what?
Congratulations! Your next challenge is the international competition. Here you will make Theoretical and Practical Exams. The Theoretical Exams encompass ca. 100 tasks in largely closed-ended format (e.g., multiple true-false). These tasks cover all domains of biology and require you to apply your science knowledge in analyzing advanced biological phenomena. The Practicals typically fall into 3-4 laboratories. The content domains for each Practical are announced ca. 6-12 months before an IBO. In the lab, students showcase biological skills by conducting investigations and analyzing data.

A typical IBO week is structured like this:

How can I prepare for the IBO?
There is no syllabus or curriculum for the IBO. In other words, you should expect a large variety of topics to be part of the examinations. Always consult your team leaders for advice on how to prepare. Many countries use university level general biology textbooks in their final preparation rounds. Taking a look at old IBO exams can be worthwhile. Our IBO's Operational Guidelines provide some information on the distribution of theoretical topics (§3.7.3) and general practical skills (Appendix 2).

In the past, IBO exams were mostly based on reproduction of knowledge (i.e. factual based questions, easily prepared by rote memorization). However, this is not how biology works in real life situations. Therefore, the vast majority of problems you will face during a modern IBO exam will test your practical skills, your biological insight, your analytical approach and capacity for problem solving.