Minutes of the International Board IPhO 2016
1. A total of 398 students, 25 of whom were female, participated in theIPhO. The participants came from the following countries: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador,
Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana,Greece, Hong-Kong (China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macao (China), Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia,Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia,Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname,Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei), Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Uzbekistan,Vietnam. Luxembourg and Tunisia sent observers.
2. A quorum of 147 leaders was present.
3. Leaders were asked to check their marks, and then some statistics wereshown. The final marks were roughly symmetric about 25. The thresholdfor Gold Medals was 39.8 marks, for Silver Medals 30.7 marks, for Bronze
Medals 22.7 marks, and for Honourable Mentions 17.5 marks. There were
47 Gold Medals, 74 Silver Medals, 98 Bronze Medals, and 65 Honourable
Mentions awarded.
4. The special prize for the Most Creative Solution was sponsored by thePaul Scherrer Institute. The following Special Prizes were awarded:• Best Overall: Chenkai Mao, China• Best Theory: Aleksandr Artemev, Russia• Best Experiment: Chia-Hsuan Lu, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei)• Most Creative Solution of Experiment: Taavet Kalda, Estonia• Best participant from Switzerland/Liechtenstein: Markus Khler, Switz.
• Best female European: Aletta Csapo, Sweden• Best male European: Aleksandr Artemecv, Russia• Best female from Asia.Pac: Thi Huong Thao Dinh, Vietnam• Best male from Asia Pac: Chenkai Mao, China
5. The final results were accepted by the International Board almost unanimously.
6. Hans and the International Board thanked Simon Birrer, Andrea Schneider, Marco Gerber and Thomas Uehlinger, amongst others, for their efforts
in organising the Olympiad.
7. It was announced that IPhO 2017 would be held in Indonesia, possiblyin Bali. The International Board expressed its gratitude to Indonesia for
agreeing to host the Olympiad on such short notice.
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8. Portugal has confirmed, with a letter from the new Minister of Education,that it will host the Olympiad in Lisbon in 2018. Hungary has confirmedin writing that they will organise the Olympiad in 2026. Since the hostfor 2021 was to be Indonesia, but they are helping us by organising in2017, a new host is needed for 2021. Singapore is no longer able to do
this. There is another option here so far which will be explored , and assoon as we know for sure, this will be communicated to everyone. We are
fortunate to have a long list of countries that are interested in organising
the Olympiad.
9. The Secretary asked the International Board to contribute ideas for arevamp of the website, and presented some suggestions received so far.
The intent would be to make it reflect our Olympiad in the modern age
and make it useful to our colleagues.
10. Eli Raz presented a proposed change to the awarding system: a) that thethresholds for medals and HM be established after the moderation andpublished after the acceptance of the final grade; b) that the percentages
be changed to 12% gold (up from 8%), 18% silver (up from 17%), 25%bronze and 17% honourable mentions. This is based on the average actual
percentages after the final moderation now; and c) that moderation time
be increased to at least 35 minutes for each question for each delegation.
Eli presented the following as a rationale for this proposal: Currently,• some leaders devote time to students close to the thresholds, andignore others who deserve points but are too far away from the nextthreshold• Sometimes leaders argue about something that is not really deserving,
because a student is very close to a threshold.
• Markers might not want to give students points they deserve, forinstance where they haven?t understood something and so a large
shift is possible, to keep the medals reasonable.
• The limited time for moderation leads to focus on ?valuable? pointsand having to explain to students why they didn?t get the points
they deserve.
• The ratio of silver to gold medals is highly skewed by the inflation in
the current system.
• For the reputation of the IPhO the medal fractions should not differ
from the statutes.
The floor was opened for discussion, with the following comments:• Jan Mostowski (Poland): Supports the proposal. Why do we havethe current system? Many leaders wanted to increase the numberof medals (makes it easier to get support at home). Also, the atmosphere would be friendlier. This seems to have occurred, but at otherOlympiads, there is also a friendly atmosphere, so this is not a huge
issue. Fixing the number of medals would be better. Exact cutoffs amatter for discussion.

2• Jaan Kalda (Saudi Arabia): In favour of existing system. Argumentof atmosphere is probably not worth a lot. What is most importantis the name of the medal - noone remembers the points. In the case of
the current system, leaders can focus their energies on those students
for whom this can change, and hence to make the most difference.
There is not enough time not just during moderation, but also during
preparation, to deal with every single point for every students. Thisis a more fair system, as where it really matters, the results can bemade more fair. Most leaders work very hard during the IPhO, andget a lot of relief hearing the medals. Now you want to allow themto have two more days of uncertainty - this will increase the risk ofheart disease, etc.
• Stefan Petersen (Germany): Is sympathetic to the marks after moderation, to encourage people to focus on the physics. If this ischanged, though, perhaps we could also change the medals to match
the fractions used at other Olympiads, eg 10, 20, 30 - since HM has
perhaps not really as much prestige and other Olympiads give moremedals.
• Lasse Frant (Finland): Setting the medal boundaries before moderation has these large black spots near medal boundaries, so that mostpeople don?t miss the medal by 0.1 points. This new system would
vastly increase the number of students who are in this bad situation.
New system will have leaders wanting to moderate each and every 0.1
that might be relevant, so the moderation time will increase dramatically so that people never have to give up. The current system allows
people to be relatively happy in a shorter time. Giving enough time,
regardless of the rest of the system, is the most important thing.
• Eli Raz (Israel): Our duty is to moderate for every student. We
owe every student every effort to get the points that he or she reallydeserves, for correct physics.
• Arshad Momen (Bangladesh): From the perspective of a relative
newcomer, the current system works in our favour - we have limited
training, other countries would generally do better. We need to lookat every student? If you have more people in your marking team,
you can do that better - so rich countries get an advantage. If thenew system is put into place, then newish countries with small leader
teams will feel handicapped.
• Will comments be circulated? Perhaps. Please send to Eli and Hans.
• Proposal to do dummy medals for everyone for showing to others,
then have just an internal ranking here - avoid all this hassle.
11. Prof. Engelbert Stütz, Austrian leader since 2005, has been involved withthe Austrian Physics Olympiad since 1982. He is leaving us this year –farewell and all the best for your future.
12. European Physics Olympiad suggestion: IPhO - easy to grade but not
like real research. There exists the Hungarian Eötvös competition, shortand challenging problems, tests creativity and independent thinking. Proposal: create a European Physics Oympiad in the mould of the Eötvös3competition, but unlike this competition, include an experimental round.
Interested parties please talk to Jaan.
13. Andrzej: Michele Dolfi created for us some wonderful software which madeour lives much easier. Suggestion that the Olympiad keep using this program - acclamation from the floor. Comments requested. Israel - greatly
appreciated the program. Would like the possibility to save the file in tex.
Suggesting that it would be nice to narrow down the list by language, forexample, to make it easier to navigate.
14. Anwesh says a few words - proceedings from last year are now online.
Please download a copy if you would like one. A 30 minute video summarising the Olympiad is also on that page.
15. Thanks are offered by Thomas to all who helped with the Olympiad. andto the Academic Committee - a young team, mostly volunteer - Michele,
Andreas, Johanna, Simon, Lionel, Levy, Yves, and to Hans, Matthew foradvice and support.
16. The final meeting was closed at 8:37pm.

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