July 20, 2017, by Lisa Chin

[Call for Participation] 3 Minute Thesis Competition

This post is contributed by Dr Lee Jiin Woei, Research Training Development Manager.

An 80,000 word PhD thesis would take 9 hours to present. Their time limit… 3 minutes. 

The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) will hold its 2017 Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®) on 12 September 2017 at the Great Hall.

First developed by the University of Queensland in 2008, the 3MT competition challenges research students to communicate the significance of their projects to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes. The 3MT contestants must condense their research into a brief, engaging presentation for a non-specialist audience, using a single static presentation slide. The aim is to help research students develop their academic, presentation and research communication skills.

Following a successful launch in 2013, the Universitas 21 (U21) 3MT 2017 competition will pit the leading presenters from each U21 member university against one another. Each participating member will hold their own internal 3MT competition to select a local winner who will then be put forward via video submission for the U21 final, to be judged by an international panel consisting of industry and academic professionals.

Therefore the winner of the face-to-face round at the Malaysia Campus will progress to the tri-campus round to compete against the UK and China campuses via video submission. The video of the overall winner will represent the entire University of Nottingham at the U21 final.

Active doctoral candidates who have successfully passed their confirmation milestone (including thesis under submission) are eligible to participate in the competition.

To register your interest, please click on the following link: http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/mod/tutorialbooking/view.php?id=2448195&redirect=0

A compulsory preparatory event and training session for those who are interested in entering the competition will be held on Tuesday 8 August 2017 at 10am in H1B13. Several peer review feedback sessions will then be held up till the date of the competition. During these peer review feedback sessions, participants will have the opportunity to practise their three minute presentation and be given feedback on elements they can improve on.

To help support your research development, the prize winnings for this year’s competition are as follow:

UNMC 2017 3MT® Winner: Conference funding of RM1,500

UNMC 2017 3MT® Runner Up: Conference funding of RM750

UNMC 2017 3MT® People’s Choice: Book voucher worth RM250 

The conference funds will be accessible once the winners decide to attend a conference of their choosing.

More information on the briefing, key events, dates and times for the competition will be released in due course. In the meantime if you would like to gain a greater understanding of the 3MT competition, please visit the Three Minute Thesis website: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/. To view examples of winning presentations from other universities that host the competition, please visit 3MT Showcase: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/watch-3mt and http://www.u213mt.com/u21_3MT_vidz.php.

If you have any enquiries, please email us at graduateschool@nottingham.edu.my.

We look forward to your participation!

Posted in News and EventsPostgraduate lifeResearcher Development