The Wiki Science Competition in Argentina
In recent years, Argentina has participated in two editions of the Wiki Science Competition (WSC), the international scientific photography competition started by Wikimedia Estonia, which later expanded to other countries through national editions coordinated within the framework of a common international organization. The objective of the competition is to visually document science and make that material available under free licenses. In both editions, the organization of the competition at the national level was led by the WikiUNLP team, which coordinated the call for entries and related activities in our country, promoting the participation of Argentina’s scientific and photographic communities.
The 2023 and 2025 editions featured hundreds of images related to scientific work, ranging from field photographs and records of biodiversity to images obtained in the laboratory or through microscopy. All images from the competition were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, where they are available for reuse in Wikipedia articles, educational projects, and outreach materials.
In total, more than 350 photographs were submitted for the 2023 edition, while the 2025 edition featured 508 images, reflecting the growing interest in this type of initiative within the local community.
The 2025 edition also benefited from the support of the Argentine Association for the Advancement of Science and the Argentine Astronomical Association. This collaboration is significant because it involves scientific associations interested in open access to data, documents, and content on the internet, and serves as another link to the scientific and academic community.
Photographing science
The Wiki Science Competition seeks to expand the ways in which scientific knowledge circulates online. In many cases, scientific and academic output is accompanied by valuable visual records that often remain confined to academic or institutional settings. By inviting researchers, students, research teams, and scientific photographers to share these images on Wikimedia Commons, the competition allows this material to become part of an open repository that supports Wikimedia projects, expands access to scientific output and knowledge, and facilitates its reuse for educational and/or scientific purposes.
The images are organized into different categories that reflect the diversity of scientific practices:
– People in science, featuring images of researchers and research teams in their work environments. – Microscopy images, featuring images obtained using optical or electron microscopes. – Nature, which includes photographs of organisms in their natural habitat. – Astronomy, dedicated to images of the sky, astronomical viewing, and astronomical equipment. – Image sets, which present visual series related to the same scientific phenomenon or process. – Non-photographic media, including video and audio files, and computer-generated imagery. – General category, which includes other images related to various scientific disciplines.
Supporting local participation
In the 2025 edition, WikiUNLP also organized an activity designed to support those who wanted to participate in the competition but were not very familiar with the Wikimedia ecosystem. To this end, a hands-on virtual workshop was held, focusing on:
– How to upload images to the project, – How to write clear and helpful descriptions, and – What to consider in order to participate in the international competition.
Initiatives like these not only facilitate participation in the competition but also help bring the scientific community closer to Wikimedia projects and open knowledge practices.
The winning images
You can find the 49 winning images from the competition here.
You can find the 508 images that were entered in the competition here.
What the WSC leaves us with
The 2023 and 2025 editions demonstrate the potential of these types of initiatives to strengthen the link between science and Open Knowledge. The competition allows researchers to share images that are part of their daily lives and that often remain outside mainstream public circulation. When these images are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, they enrich the ecosystem of Wikimedia projects and can be reused to illustrate Wikipedia articles and other educational materials.
At the same time, participating in the international competition opens up the possibility for images produced in local contexts to reach a global audience, thereby increasing the visibility of the scientific work being carried out in the region. For WikiUNLP, promoting these types of initiatives is also part of a broader objective: to strengthen the presence of local scientific output within the Wikimedia ecosystem and to encourage scientific and academic communities to actively participate in the creation of open knowledge.
