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I would like to know which one, huge or enormous, would be preferable to use in academic writing, such as in the following example:

  1. Overcoming the current cancer levels in the population is a huge challenge.
  2. Overcoming the current cancer levels in the population is an enormous challenge.
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    This is off-topic, as it is asking for opinions. However, my own opinion is that academic writing is usually quite prosaic, and excited adjectives like huge, enormous, gigantic, mighty, etc, are deplored and you would do better just to use more restrained ones like 'large', 'sizeable', 'significant' etc.
    – Michael Harvey
    Feb 5, 2019 at 18:38
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    What @MichaelHarvey said. Except that my preference would be not to include any adjective at all. Or if I did, I'd go for the least "florid" alternative - a big challenge. Come to that, arguably it would read more naturally if you reflected the preceding -ing form - ...is challenging.
    – FumbleFingers
    Feb 5, 2019 at 18:45

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Personally, in a formal (and particularly scientific) context, I wouldn't use either. "Extremely challenging" would probably be the strongest, or partake in some academic understatement (it's pretty common) and say "a significant challenge".

This is because, I think, in formal (especially scientific) contexts, colourful adjectives and adverbs that are emotive but imprecise are generally a mismatch for the overall tone.

This from a native British English speaker with some postgraduate scientific background.

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