A school science project from Tralee reached an international stage in Kiel, Germany, in late September, where its creator, Aoibheann Aíne Daly, received the Special Jury Award for Youth at the 2026 EU Contest for Young Scientists. Her project, GlioScope, explores whether patterns in pre-operative MRI scans could help predict information about diffuse gliomas before surgery.
The award was announced at the contest’s closing ceremony on Sept. 27. The 2026 gathering was the competition’s 37th edition. The European Commission’s recap says about 140 young scientists, ages 14 to 20, from nearly 40 countries spent the week presenting projects to an international jury, visitors and one another. The host, Kiel University, lists Daly in the medicine category as Ireland’s recipient of the youth jury award.
Daly attends Mercy Secondary School Mounthawk in Tralee, County Kerry. The Irish Examiner reported that she represented Ireland after winning the 2026 Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition earlier in the year. At EUCYS, she presented GlioScope, a project centered on a difficult question in brain-tumor care: whether information in an MRI might offer useful clues about a tumor’s molecular profile before doctors have tissue results from a biopsy.
Kiel University’s project description explains the challenge this way: treatment decisions may need to begin before a tumor’s genetic profile is known, while current identification relies on a tissue sample. GlioScope’s stated aim is to use explainable artificial intelligence to estimate molecular profile and severity from pre-operative MRI images. In other words, the student project asks whether an image could offer useful information earlier in the care process, while professionals still weigh it alongside other evidence.
The word “explainable” in the project title points to a question beyond whether a model can make a prediction: can people examine how it reached one? Kiel’s short project summary does not detail the methods or test results, so this story sticks to the stated research aim. That boundary is part of accurate science reporting, especially when a project connects computer models with patient care.
That is a research aim, not a ready-to-use medical test. The sources describing the project do not establish that GlioScope is approved for clinical use, that it can replace biopsy, or that it has been shown to improve patient outcomes. Those distinctions matter in a field where treatment choices are personal and consequential. The recognition is for the student work and its question, not a claim that the question has already been solved.
In a Sept. 27 report, Irish Examiner education correspondent Jess Casey described the award and Daly’s response to representing Ireland. Daly said receiving a core prize and being selected for the 2027 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair were honors, and thanked the people who had supported her. The report also quoted the head judge of the health and wellbeing category calling the project an extraordinary achievement.
The European Commission describes the Special Jury Prize for Youth as a €2,500 award; it went to Ireland at this year’s contest. That detail helps distinguish the recognition from the competition’s three first prizes, which went to separate projects from Poland, Italy and Georgia. Kiel University’s winners list records Daly’s award in the medicine category.
EUCYS brings school-age researchers together across disciplines, from medicine and computing to biology, engineering, physics and the environment. The European Commission says 20 scientists, innovators, researchers and industry experts assessed the competing projects. The event is designed not just to announce winners but to put young researchers’ work in front of specialists, the public and peers from other countries.
For Daly, the Kiel award adds an international milestone to a project first recognized at Ireland’s national exhibition. GlioScope asks how machine learning might help interpret medical images; any such system would require further research and careful clinical evaluation. For now, the verified achievement is clear: a student from Tralee brought that question to a European science competition and left with its Special Jury Award for Youth.
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