The IOI is (not) a Science Olympiad

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) aspires to be science olympiad alongside the international olympiads in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. We argue that, in its current format, the IOI fails to be scientific in an important way. Informatics as a discipline is well suited to a scientific approach and it offers numerous possibilities for competitions with a high scientific standing. In this paper, we describe the major ingredients of the IOI to guide further discussions. By presenting the results of an extensive analysis of two IOI competition tasks, we hope to create an awareness of the urgency to address the shortcomings. We offer some suggestions to raise the scientific level of the IOI.