On this page
Most school science exhibitions reward a neat working model. IRIS National Fair asks for something different: an original question, your own experiment, data and a research paper. That makes it harder to enter at the last minute and more rewarding if you plan. This post covers who can enter, what you submit, what gets rejected, and a backwards timeline with real dates.
What is IRIS, and where does it lead?
The IRIS National Fair website describes IRIS (Initiative for Research and Innovation in STEM) as a programme of EXSTEMPLAR Education Linkers Foundation, running since 2006, for students in Classes 5 to 12. It says IRIS is an ISEF Affiliated Fair and that top finalists represent India at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. Society for Science, which runs ISEF, confirms that competing at ISEF "starts at a Society-affiliated fair" and that ISEF has 22 categories.
Who can enter?
From the IRIS rules and guidelines and FAQs:
Students of Indian origin studying in a school in India: government, semi-government or private, including international curricula. Students studying abroad cannot enter.
Individually or as a team of exactly two.
One project guide, whose job is to verify the work, not do it.
A student who registered for IRIS before as a Class 12 student cannot apply again.
Experimental data cannot be more than 12 months old at submission.
The fee listed in the FAQ is ₹5,000 plus taxes per project, with a waiver for EWS students who upload a valid certificate.
What do you submit, and what gets rejected?
Three things, all online: a synopsis PDF of up to 5 MB, a research paper PDF of up to 20 MB, and a project video of at most 90 seconds as a YouTube link. You must not reveal your school, city or state anywhere in them.
The guidelines list what IRIS will not evaluate:
Textbook experiment replication, such as oxygen generation or seed germination
Essays or survey reports without your own experiments
Hypotheses without experimental work
Claims that break established laws, such as perpetual motion
Toxicity studies that kill vertebrate animals
Display-only models with no research behind them
Worked example: budgeting the synopsis and the calendar
The synopsis has six sections with word limits: abstract 250 (the portal enforces 300 as a hard cap), introduction 100 to 150, innovation 50 to 100, methodology 150 to 250, results 100 to 150, and acknowledgements and references 50 to 100.
Add the lower limits: 250 + 100 + 50 + 150 + 100 + 50 = 700 words. Add the upper limits: 250 + 150 + 100 + 250 + 150 + 100 = 1,000 words. So plan a synopsis of roughly 700 to 1,000 words, with methodology the largest single block.
Now the calendar. The website advises allowing at least 12 weeks for experiments. The 2026-27 window closed on 13 October 2026. If the next window ends on a similar date, count back 12 weeks, or 84 days: 13 October to 13 September is 30 days, to 13 August is 61 days, and 23 more days takes you to 21 July. Experiments would need to start by about 21 July, which means choosing a question and reading around it in May and June. Check the site for the actual dates before planning.
Which mistakes sink good projects?
A question too big for school resources. Pick something you can measure with what you have.
No control group. The site asks for experiments "with control groups and statistical validation".
Too few repeats. One reading is an anecdote, not data.
Writing the paper last. Keep a dated data book from day one.
Naming your school in the video. That breaks the anonymity rule.
A practice routine for this year
Keep a question notebook. Write down one measurable question a week from daily life.
Run a small pilot. Test your method on a tiny scale before committing 12 weeks.
Learn to plot and compare. Graph every dataset and ask whether the difference is bigger than the spread between repeats.
Picture the physics before you build. If the idea behind your set-up is hard to see in your head, the Fermi Simulation Lab has interactive simulations for ideas that are easier to see than read, which can help you choose what to vary.
Look at other routes too. Our posts on the National Children's Science Congress and the INSPIRE MANAK award describe Indian programmes with different formats.
Pick one measurable question tonight and write down what you would vary, what you would keep the same, and what you would measure.
