Three Minute Thesis
Fri, 03 Jun 2016 13:57:00 BST
An 80,000 word thesis in 3 minutes…the 3MT competition
The Huddersfield Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition is back with almost double the number of contestants this year. 3MT is a competition developed by the University of Queensland, Australia for doctoral students where their thesis is presented to an audience of a mix of academics and non-academics.
The students have just three minutes to deliver an engaging presentation on their thesis topic, its originality and its significance. Candidates can only use one PowerPoint slide with no additional animation or props to translate complex ideas in a simple way. The three minute time limit is very strict and if the candidate goes over even by a second they will be disqualified
This exercise provides doctoral students with an opportunity to develop their academic, presentation and research communication skills. It encourages researchers to effectively explain their research in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience. The competition offers the following prizes - Winner £1,000, Runner-up £500, and an audience vote for the People’s Choice Award of £250.
The 3MT 2016 competitions are being held on Monday 6 June (semi-final) and Tuesday 14 June (the final). The Huddersfield 3MT 2016 team is chaired by Professor Michael Clarke, Dean of the Graduate School and project managed by Shailesh Appukuttan, from the School of Education and Professional Development. Other key members of the organising team are Rosemary Wood and Steven Shepherd from the Research Environment team. [Pictured right - Professor Michael Clarke]
The inaugural Huddersfield 3MT competition held in 2015 was a grand success. The panel of judges, led by Professor Andrew Ball (Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Enterprise), was impressed by the quality of presentations. The Huddersfield 3MT 2015 winner was Dara Mojtahedi from the School of Human and Health Sciences. See the full report and photos (https://www.hud.ac.uk/graduateschool/3mt/2015/) from the inaugural Huddersfield 3MT 2015 competition.
[Pictured from left: Professor Bob Cryan, Dara Mojtahedi and Professor Andrew Ball]
Shailesh Appukuttan, from the School of Education and Professional Development introduced the idea and was instrumental in bringing this 3MT competition to Huddersfield and organising it. He worked with Dionne Coburn, the Research Environment Manager, and gained permission from the University of Queensland to run the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at Huddersfield. Together they examined the 3MT rules and guidelines and studied how it is implemented at some of the UK universities.
[Pictured from left: Steven Shepherd, Dionne Coburn, Rosemary Wood and Shailesh Appukuttan]
Professor Bob Cryan, the Vice-Chancellor was very enthusiastic about 3MT and his encouragement was really inspiring. He was the chief guest at the inaugural 3MT final and awarded the prizes and certificates to winners and finalists. At the 2015 ceremony Professor Bob Cryan said:
“When I first heard about the Three Minute Thesis competition coming to Huddersfield, I thought ‘what a great idea, why didn’t I think of it’! Thanks to Shai and Dionne for organising this. I was delighted to see the quality of presentations, diversity of research topics and the truly international participation. Absolutely fantastic!”
For more information on the 3MT® please visit https://www.hud.ac.uk/graduateschool/3mt/. (hashtag: #hud3mt)
