There was a buzz of nervous excitement in the air at Kent’s Graduate and Researcher College (GRC) this week, as twelve PhD students from across the University prepared to condense what would normally fill an 80,000 word thesis into a presentation just three minutes long.
The challenge they faced is known as the 3 Minute Thesis competition; the brainchild of the University of Queensland now organised each year on an international scale. At Kent, it’s an opportunity for PhD students to learn to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries and present them to a non-specialist audience.
As a judge at Kent’s semi-finals, I knew I was in for something special. I was amongst passionate researchers from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds and, what’s more, these were students who had dedicated time and effort to hone their storytelling skills at workshops run by the GRC in the run up to the competition. They understood exactly how to bring out the ‘wow factor’ in their research.
And bring it out they did. Each presentation was a fleeting window into a whole new area of discovery; from whether long Covid is linked to dementia, to how we can mitigate the security risks posed by AI. The rules of the competition dictate that participants aren’t allowed props and can use just one slide to illustrate their presentation. This encouraged them to experiment with tone, pace, narrative and metaphor to hold the audience’s interest and turn complex topics into something we could relate to.
There’s one thing that those who made it through to the final did particularly well; they successfully conveyed why their research is important and what impact it might have in the world. For early-career researchers this can be a common blind spot but one that’s easy to overcome. Understanding and learning to communicate how a research project meets local or global needs can increase chances of securing further research funding, attracting positive media attention and engaging those who might put your research into action. Those who master this can change the world!
The Kent final of the 3 Minute Thesis Competition is open to all to attend and is taking place at 10am on 27 May at the Grimond Lecture Theatre 3. Come along to learn about the following research projects:
- Adel Elzemity, Analysing and Mitigating Security Risks in AI Systems
- Salmaan Ansari, Rethinking Coastal Living: Health, Data, and Definitions
- Hazim Abdulsada, Can 6G Handle 30 Billion Devices by 2030?
- Katrine Callander, Complexity of Trauma and Agency among late-diagnosed Autistic Women within Frameworks of Social Power
- Katelyn Owens, Sexual Geographies and the Gentrified City: An Exploration of London’s Kings Cross
- Chloe Bates, Move Together, Think Together: How Synchrony Shapes Self-Other Representation