Wiki Science Competition
The Wiki Science Competition is a global science photography competition for students, researchers, and others to contribute freely licensed high-quality, well-sourced images and other media to Wikimedia Commons.
It evolved from the Estonian [Science Photo Competition]. The first global competition took place in 2017 and is now held every two years, occurring for most countries around November or December. It has been called one of the most important photo competitions in the world. The main organizer of the competition is Ivo Kruusamägi.
The first competition saw participation from over 2,200 contestants, with the number of images exceeding 10,000. In 2023 there were more than 7,500 photos submitted.
In 2017, there were five categories: People in Science, Microscopy images, Non-photographic media, Image sets, and a General category. In 2019, a new category, Nature, was added; in 2021, Astronomy was added. A special prize for "Women in STEM" is also offered.
Media are evaluated based on the detail of their description, with sources from high-impact journals, datasets, and other reliable third-parties being prioritized. This incentivizes expert-driven contributions backed by verifiable materials.
Among the countries where it has been launched and regularly held there are Estonia, Switzerland, Ireland, United States, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.