The IMC is primarily a competition for individuals, although most participating universities select and send one or more teams of students.
The IMC is a residential competition and all student participants are required to stay in the accommodation provided by the organisers.
Notably, in 2018 Caucher Birkar (born Fereydoun Derakhshani), an Iranian Kurdish mathematician, who participated in the 7th IMC[2] held at University College London in 2000, received mathematics' most prestigious award, the Fields Medal.
She is now a Professor and the Chair of Number Theory at the Institute of Mathematics of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
[6] University College London[7] has been involved in the organisation of the IMC and Professor John E. Jayne[8] has served as the President from the beginning in 1994.
The IMC runs over five or six days during which the competitors sit two five-hour examinations, each with five questions (six until 2008) chosen by a panel and representatives from the participating universities.