Competitions
We hold a range of competitions for students throughout the year, including our flagship annual TEXPO where students from local schools showcase their work and compete for prizes, and other projects and online activities. Find out more and enter here.

Images on the theme of Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking
We were absolutely delighted to receive such incredibly high-quality – and clever! – entries to our second Photographic Competition, this year on the theme of Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking to accompany our Affiliate Schools Project. As you will see below, these convey some very powerful messages, and should give us all pause for thought.
You can see all of the photographs at our web gallery here.
Congratulations to our winners, whose entries are shown below. They have received Amazon vouchers to the value of £60 (first prize), £30 (second prize) and £20 (third prize). We look forward to running another competition this year.

We are pleased to advise that our Centenary Photographic Competition 2021 is open for another four weeks, to allow as many people to participate as possible following the summer holidays and busy start of term.
The deadline for entry has now been extended to Friday 15 October 2021.
The competition, with this year's theme of Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking is open to anyone in full time or part time education in Essex and explores the key link between the creative arts and STEM.
We want you to take photographs that express what air pollution means to you, or how it impacts our health or our environment, and the negative or positive roles that technology can play.
Read full details here and submit your entry here (please make sure to read the FAQs, terms and conditions first!)
After our very successful 2020 photographic competition, which received some outstanding photographs depicting important aspects of the history of science and technology in Essex, we are pleased to open again for entries in 2021.
The competition is open to anyone in full time or part time education in Essex and again explores the key link between the creative arts and STEM. As part of a bigger project, which we will be running later this year, the theme of this year's competition is:
Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking
While pollution is a multifaceted global problem, from agricultural pollutants such as nitrates and ammonia to mercury and lead contamination and of course our worrying reliance on single-use plastics, air pollution is often less noticeable but is increasingly harming both our health and our environment.
We want you to take photographs that express what air pollution means to you, or how it impacts our health or our environment, and the negative or positive roles that technology can play. Each photograph should be accompanied with a short explanation (not more than 50 words) of the story or thoughts behind it.

Environmental Challenge | Plastic – friend or foe? | Trust Science: Make Essex Covid-Safe
A BIG thank you and well done to everyone who entered our spring 2021 Imagine! STEAM competitions on the themes of sustainability and Covid vaccination. We were pleased to receive so many entries, which you can see on our web gallery, and enjoyed picking the winners. Congratulations to everyone who received a prize, listed below.
Visit our web gallery to see all the posters and videos entered.
Read more: Spring 2021 Imagine! STEAM Competition winners announced

A CSES Imagine! STEAM Competition
We are pleased to announce another online competition, hot on the heels of our CSES Imagine! Environmental Challenge and CSES Imagine! Plastic – Friend or Foe?
Vaccination is the only way that we are going to beat COVID-19 and get back to normal. But this only works if over 80% of people are vaccinated.
It is vital that the Covid-19 vaccination message is understood by your family and people who are worried, unsure, resist or reject being vaccinated.
Help us de-bunk myths, lies and fake news about the vaccine! If you are a primary, secondary or home-schooled pupil or student in Essex, CSES is challenging YOU to help beat Covid-19 and make Essex Covid-safe.
Imagine! how you would persuade people to get vaccinated. Design a poster or make your "call to action" Video and get your own message across. You could win a prize! And your video or poster will be published.
The deadline for entry is Friday 4 June 2021. Open to children and school students of all ages.
Read on to find out more about the competition and click here to register.

Imagine! the Future by exploring plastic in our lives!
Many people believe that environmentalism begins and ends at the recycling bin. Simply throwing something away into a large recycling bin is enough to make us feel like we've done our bit.
But the recycling process is much more problematic and recycling plastics is much less straight forward than many of us think. Apart from complying with local rules and regulations, recycling is a business and as such must be profitable. If there is no demand for reprocessed materials, nobody will recycle them and if the recycled product is not good quality, nobody will buy it. Consequently, we consumers play a much more important role than we might imagine!
It is vital that we all play our part to ensure our beauty spots are not destroyed by pollution and our town centres are not clogged up with litter.
This particular challenge is concerned with PLASTIC pollution. Enter the challenge to encourage your friends and family to RECYCLE, increase their involvement with their environment and become part of the CIRCULAR ECONOMY.
Please register here if you would like to enter this competition.
- CSES Imagine! Environmental Challenge
- Centenary Photo Competition winners announced
- Bridge building competition winners announced
- Centenary Photographic Competition 2020
- CSES Schools' Competition 2020
- 2019 Competition results
- The Schools' Competition 2019 is now open
- Save the date: Schools' Competition 2019
- 2018 Competition results
- The Schools' Competition 2018 is now open