In 1993 the representatives of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and the State University of Belarus, Minsk decided to organize together a conference for 14-18 year-old secondary school students. The aim of the organizers with organizing such a new type of a competition was to acquaint secondary school students with the methods of scientific research. This includes different phases of research work from the very beginning the pointing out the topic to the last step, summing up the results of the research in a foreign language-lecture. The conference gives the challenging opportunity to the young scientists to get some feedback of the work with which they are just trying to deal, and to measure their strength in an international field.
During the years students from the following countries have participated in the Conference: Belarus, Czech Republic, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, The Netherlands, Ukraine, United States of America, Yugoslavia.
The conference in Hungary (Visegrád, 1994, 1996, 1998), in Belarus (Baranovichi, 1995, 1997, 1999), in 2000 in The Netherlands, in Nijmegen, in 2001 in Poland, in Katowice, in 2002 in Georgia, in Kutaisi was organized respectively, in 2003 will be held in Czech Republic, in Prague.
The first ICYS was in Visegrád in 1994. Then 70 lectures were presented by students from 5 countries. Hungarian organizers always come back to Visegrád, the competition become widely known as "Visegrád Conference".
In 1996 the number of participants increased, 86 lecturers from 9 countries gave their lectures. The Conference every year becomes richer, new countries join to the competition. The Conference has a good reputation not only in the Middle European countries, but outside Europe too. This year we have an observer from Singapore, a country where the education receives from the government the highest financial support all over the world. This year we have more than 80 secondary school participants, and more than 70 lectures with wide variety of topics. We are convinced, that nowadays, during the permanently decreasing popularity of sciences a scientific event which attracts the young generation has special significance. Perhaps most of the participating students will later become students at various universities and will be researchers reporting at scientific conferences. This first appearance may be a decisive factor in their future scientific carreer.