The final of IOP’s First Science Popularization Competition wrapped up on the afternoon of November 22 in D212 lecture hall. The final started at 2 o'clock afternoon. Prof. Wei Hongxiang, Assistant Director of the Institute of Physics (IOP), made an opening speech. He said that more and more IOP scientists and students are engaged in science popularization in recent years. Thanks to the long-term support of all judges and their institutions, IOP has made great achievements in science popularization. He expressed his hope that common efforts should be encouraged to create more influential brands for science popularization. He also expressed his sincere gratitude to all judges and guests present and wished all the best luck for the competitors.

Six expert judges were invited for the final. They were respectively Zhao Nan, Deputy General Secretary of the Communist Youth League Committee for the Beijing Public Institutions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Fu Fangming, Director of Department of Science Popularization of Xinhuanet, Geng Ming, Head of Science Channel of Toutiao, Wu Baojun, Science Writer of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Jinping, Director of the Editorial Department of Physics magazine, and Fang Shaobo, Associate Professor of IOP. Besides, over 20 public judges from IOP were invited to score for the competitors.

Sixteen groups of competitors who had passed the primary evaluation showed their works one by one. All competitors displayed their work in six minutes and then answered the questions raised by the judges in two minutes. By on-site experiments, storytelling and other forms, all competitors vividly showed how they discovered and explored science in life, which expanded the audiences’ horizons for understanding of science and greatly impressed the judges and audiences. Wang Jinping said it is admirable that the graduate students of IOP showed strong interest in science popularization in their spare time of doing research. She also encouraged students to create more wonderful works according to the suggestions given by the judges. At last, the first prize went to the Sand Painting by Li Xuanyi, Miao Guangyao and Sun Fei, and other works won the second prize (five groups of winners) and the third prize (ten groups of winners).

Finally, Wang Wanyan, Director of Postgraduate Department of IOP, made a summary speech. She said that all science activities of IOP have got intensive attention from all teachers and students, and she was deeply impressed by the final. She mentioned that General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed "laying equal stress on science popularization and technological innovation" at the National Conference on Scientific and Technological Innovation, the 18th Academician Congress of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the 13th Academician Congress of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Ninth National Congress of the China Association of Science and Technology (CAST) in 2016, and she hoped that students can improve themselves with the broad science popularization platforms of IOP and wished future IOP competitions on science popularization a greater success.

The theme of this competition is "Opening the Door to Science by Science Popularization". The competition was jointly held by the Postgraduate Department and the General Affairs Department, with the aim to build a platform for people who love science popularization, arouse the interest of students and teachers in science popularization and find more science talents.