The student-organised international physics student competition PLANCKS 2022, will take place in Munich between 5^th and 8^th May. It is co-organised by the German Physical Society, European Physical Society, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and the International Association of Physics Students. The local host is the university of Munich. The majority of the funding is kindly provided by the Wilhelm und Else Heraeus-Stiftung.

PLANCKS was launched in 2014 by the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS). Since then, the competition has been awarded annually to a different one of the 50 member countries, with IAPS as the global umbrella organisation representing over 70,000 students, on every continent.

At the heart of the event, the competition aims to showcase physics as a team sport, promote collegial international student work on scientific problems and inspire young physics students to pursue academic careers. PLANCKS 2022 will involve 160 students from about 30 nations who qualified through 28 national preliminaries. In addition to the competition, the programme also includes plenary lectures, laboratory tours and workshops. In the past, for example, Gerard ‘t Hooft, Wolfgang Ketterle, Stephen Hawking and Immanuel Bloch have been welcomed as speakers at PLANCKS.

In 2022 we welcome science communication expert Harald Lesch, member of the German academy of science, Sibylle Günter, herta-Sponser Awardee Adriana Pálffy-Buß, Wolf Awardee Ignacio Cirac and Nobel laureate Reinhard Genzel.

In addition to scientific excellence, PLANCKS 2022 is also focusing particularly on sustainability and diversity aspects in its organisation. For example, we have invited 50:50 female and male guest speakers, and our own sustainability team takes care to avoid aspects that are harmful to the environment. If unavoidable we have dedicated some funds to compensate that CO₂ pollution. We also want to enable talented students across the globe especially from less wealthy countries and personal circumstances to participate and excel in PLANCKS by providing travel grants for them.