Our 3MT® 2024 competition was incredible! This year we had 35 competitors, taking part across 4 heats. Each the winner or runner-up of their respective heats went through the final competition, held back on the 28th March 2024.

But…

What is 3MT®?

What are the prizes?

Who participate and who were our winners?

What our winners and judges reflect about the competition journey?

We have put together this PGR blog to navigate you through the competition, our participants, the finalists and Of course! - the winners; what they think about their participation, and what they are taking moving forward. We have also asked some of the judges about their experience and what 3MT® was for them. They have done an outstanding job helping us to select the best presentations.

We hope you enjoyed this summary of the event, just as much as we LOVED it !!

Three Minute Thesis® Official Logo, used for The University of Glasgow for the purpose of this event.

What is 3MT® 2024?

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is our annual academic competition for anyone who is active in PhD, MPhil, MRes, or any other research programme. This competition challenges the participants about presenting their WHOLE RESEARCH TOPIC IN 3 MINUTES. They prepare it using one-single PowerPoint slide and the audience is conform by non-specialists. This is a great opportunity to practice and enhance public engagement skills but also to gain confidence about the importance of the participant’s research topic, preparing them for more specific audiences within their fields.

In simple words, it is a magnificent and really interesting event made to and for the #UofG PGR community.

At the end of the event, the top presenter (3MT® winner), and the Runner-up are decided by our wonderful judges. Top winner win a £1000 travel grant, and our runner-up win a £500 research grant.  Additionally, the audience has the opportunity to select a winner, as our People’s Choice winner, who will win a £100 voucher.

Our presenters

On this year 3MT®, 35 participants competed. The presenters were all #UofG PGR Researchers, covering a huge range of different research disciplines across all 4 colleges – The College of Arts and Humanities, College of Social Sciences, College of Science and Engineering, and College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences. Here’s who got involved:

Ahmed Bahaaeldin Nabih Elmarghany
Angelina Kirilova Kancheva
Anith Ravindran
A S M Rubayet Ul Alam
Christiana Myers
Daniel Kelly
Daniel Mitchell
Edgar Joao Manrique Valverde
Elise Sandbach
Emma Elizabeth Porter Stone
Erin Bartley
Grace Mclean Barrett
Ioannis Tsigkos
Jan-Hendrik Ewers
Jenny MacLeod
Judith Hoppermann
Katherine Prentice
Kirsten Kernaghan
Lavinia Agra Coletto
Lydia Jilantikiri
Michelah Brown
Mirava Coree Yuson
Nada Mohsin Taher Aboghunaim
Narthana Ilenkovan
Navneet Jhariya
Novika Grasiaswaty Kamal
Orestis Angelidis
Pinar Aksu
Rachel Millar
Rong He
Senthilkumar Subramanian
Xingyu Tao
Yuwei Cai
Zhiyi Yu
Zita Borbala Fulop

Our finalists

For the final event, we have 13 amazing and through-provoking finalists. Their names are in the list below:

Mirava Coree Yuson (MVLS) - "Does this necklace make me look rabid?” (3MT® Top winner).
Narthana Ilenkovan (MVLS) - Let’s get serious about Low Grade Serous.
Angelina Kirilova Kancheva (MVLS) - Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Beyond the Brain – More Than Meets the Eye (People’s Choice winner).
Elise Sandbach (CoAH) - Fangirls as creators: The power and influence of fangirls in the superhero comic book community.
Erin Bartley (CoSS) - Once Upon a Time: how storytelling in career guidance can improve sense of self and decision making in developing adolescents.
Novika Grasiaswaty Kamal (CoSS) - Automation, Autonomy and Activism among Platform Worker.
Lavinia Agra Coletto (MVLS) - Understanding and Preventing Transition from Psoriasis to Psoriatic Arthritis.
Senthilkumar Subramanian (CoSE) - The space dust is unromantic.
Orestis Angelidis (CoSE) - District Heating and Cooling networks: the cool side of heat (Runner-up winner).
Zita Borbala Fulop (CoSE) - Redefining Cancer Treatment Through Multiscale Modelling.
Kirsten Kernaghan (MVLS) - COMPASS: Community Pharmacies and Scotland’s Sexual Health.
Jenny MacLeod (CoAH) - ‘An art in which women are destined to excel’: Scottish Women Etchers During the Etching Revival, 1880-1930'.
Rong He (CoAH) - Beyond Borders: A Ukrainian Refugee Family's Showcase on Social Media.

The winners

Mireva Coree Yuson (MVLS), Orestis Angelidis (CoSE), and Angelina Kirilova Kancheva (MVLS) were our 3MT® 2024 winners! Mireva was our 3MT® Top winner, Orestis won Runner-up, and Angelina was selected as our People’s Choice winner.

Their presentations were absolutely fantastic and the way they present their research topic was truly interesting and complete in just 3 minutes!! Huge congratulations to our winners again. We wish them the best of luck in the next stage of their journey :)

Reflections from the winners

We asked the winners of this year's competition about their experiences, how they felt about their participation, and what they can share with other fellow PGR, to invite them to participate in future 3MT® competitions. Here are they reflections:

My entry into 3MT 2024 was unpremeditated. I had no plans to join initially, since I usually joined writing competitions, not speaking ones. But funnily enough, I’d accidentally missed the deadline for a different travel grant competition so I figured I’d try this one instead. As they say, when one door closes, etcetera. Using whatever creative juices I had, I tried to make a speech (and PowerPoint slide) that encompassed the parts of my research that I was especially proud of. Winning was the last thing I expected, and it was gratifying on a different level having all my postgraduate progress acknowledged. There’s still a long way to go, but what a fun pitstop this was.
What I didn’t anticipate was how light the atmosphere would be. The organisers, judges, competitors and audience were all incredibly supportive and kind. This created a relaxed vibe that made 3MT® more fun than nerve-wracking. Furthermore, this competition was my first exposure to research topics outside MVLS college. We’re often siloed within our respective departments, so getting to know other PGRs from Arts & Humanities, Science & Engineering and Social Sciences, and hearing then break down and explain their research in such unique ways was incredible. I was humbled by the depths of other researchers’ knowledge and got to learn so much about different subjects just from participating.
For any future 3MT® presenter, who, at this point, has already watched previous 3MT speeches for inspiration, if there’s anything I can recommend, it’s to practice, practice, PRACTICE until you can recite without thinking. Practice with as many different kinds of people as possible, as long as they’re people whose opinions you trust. Practice with those who know nothing about your research and those who know everything, those who have done 3MT and those who’ve never heard of it. I practiced alone, too, and adjusting my presentation little by little, by either changing my cadence or revising the text until it flowed more naturally. I practiced until it felt perfect.
3MT® is great for building soft skills – namely, communication and creativity – which are often neglected if you’re not a regular conference attendee. Moreover, you get to spend three minutes hyping up your own work. What’s not to love?
While buried in my thesis, with models constantly crashing and the last 6 months of my thesis weighing on me, I saw an email from the university about a 3MT® competition and thought that it would offer a nice change of pace from my everyday struggle.
Rethinking how you present your ideas in a simplified way is more fun that people give it credit for. Stepping away from itty-bitty details of thermofluid behaviour to why you even care about your project is the beauty of 3MT®, it allows you to remember why you spend hours in front of a computer.
It's also a great way to escape your bubble and see what others are doing in the university. If I had not participated, I would have not known about the mysteries of space dust or the advancements of tumour detection practices. Most importantly, I think 3MT® addresses one of the major issues with academia. It takes away the stigma of “seriousness”, the need to draw a line between academics and the public. The gap between academia and society keeps widening, we often get closed in our elitist world of scientific writing and tend to forget the aspect of knowledge sharing in a palpable and accessible way.
So, if you ask me “should I join the 3MT®?” the answer is a strong yes. Not only for seeing the incredible work from our colleagues, but mainly for finding pathways to express your work to a wider audience. Simple is harder than it looks, but definitely important!
I decided to join 3MT® Competition 2024 on a bit of a whim. I was not having the most productive day when I decided I was going to devote my afternoon to a more creative task to actually feel better. I had already been thinking about describing a patient in my mind – so I now had to put that into words and think of a catchy slide design. This is how it all started.
My participation in 3MT® was rewarding and – honestly – very enjoyable. My favourite part was getting to see how much is done by PGRs at Glasgow University – the breadth and depth of ideas, the different creative approaches, the opportunity to draw inspiration from others. It was great!
I think that participating in an event where one should try and describe their work in a simple and catchy manner, regardless of what it is, but especially if it is science, should almost be a must! It really helps you take a step back from your work and almost assess it slightly more objectively, but also, realise why exactly it matters. So, I would definitely recommend participating to fellow PGRs who are contemplating the idea.
I really did not expect to be in the final and did not expect to win the People’s Choice Award, so it’s been a sweet surprise! To me, the biggest reward is the recognition for my dedicated and enthusiastic approach to my work – I’d always hope it shines through. I have a wonderful supervisory team (Prof. Terry Quinn and Dr. Donald Lyall), so in a way, winning also reflects on them. While it’s my own personal effort, I see it as a bit of a ‘team’ win – I feel supported and encouraged to partake in different projects, big and small, and they always have my back. So, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank them as well.
In terms of any tips and advice, I’d say: even if you decide to apply on a whim, presenting well in all the Heats actually takes work and lots of practice. While I decided to partake in 3MT® rather spontaneously, when I knew I would actually have to present in the Heats, I took the task seriously. I must have rehearsed my pitch about 40 times, including under the shower, on my bike, in front of friends, and in front of the mirror. You will – of course – be nervous on ‘Heats day’, but practice will give you a more solid base to fall back on.

Reflections from some of our judges

We have also asked some of our 3MT® amazing judges about their experience participating as part of the committee that selected the best presentations on each heat, and ultimately, the three winners of the competition. Here are their reflections:

I really enjoyed judging the final of 3MT® and getting the privilege to listen to people's research. The calibre of entries is always high, so the hardest part was picking my favourites. The organisers made the process incredibly straight forward and because of this I felt able to judge to the best of my ability. I had time to write proper feedback to each contestant and log my scores along the way.
See the winner of the people's choice being announced - always a special one! I would absolutely recommend entering next time if you have the chance to do so. It is a competition but there's a supportive atmosphere from the organisers and audience, and it's always good practice to reflect on your research with an outside perspective in mind.
My experience of being a judge was of learning, responsibility and fun. The range of subjects being presented took me into the worlds of disciplines other than my own, so this was a learning point for me and generates interest for me to look things up later, inspired by the taster that I have had.
The power to contribute to the scores and who wins is not easy to hold so it need care and responsibility. There is a duty to the work presented but most importantly to the people presenting the work – caretaking is at the centre of everything I do, so I concern myself with how the person is and try to treat everyone with due attention to their wellbeing. I always encourage presenters to take the occasion as a gift of each other’s company rather than a source of stress.
As an orator, I love the spoken word as a form. Though settings and conditions may change, it is an ancient art that I study and love. So in the thesis competition I see the scenario as a gathering round a fire (a digital one in the case of the Zoom platform) and we are sharing stories that inform, entertain and bring benefit to the collective in some way.
As academics and writers, we often work in solitude, and when we come together we find a chance to expand our thinking through conversation. It is a work of healing, the knowledge we pick up, we share with many others who are not in attendance, and who knows when this opportunity to share will come. I hope those who may not have considered taking part feel encouraged to do so for future 3MT®.
I thoroughly enjoyed judging the 3MT® Glasgow final. Although given the exceptionally high quality of all the presentations, it was also very tough to arrive at a winner - we judges had quite a lively discussion!
I really like the 3MT® competition, and in a previous life, I used to help run it in Aberdeen and was always a highlight of the year. It’s such a simple yet impactful format, and I can’t really think of another place where you get to hear such a wide range of exciting research stories in such a fast-paced and accessible way. I think it’s also a really good opportunity to develop and put into practice communications and engagement skills and can be a springboard to other public engagement activities – of which there are so many on offer at the University to get involved with.
So, congratulations again to everyone involved, and especially all the participants who crafted such wonderful insights into their research – everyone’s passion well and truly shone through.

Looking forward

This year competition was so refreshing and it was so wonderful to see so many presentations, from a wide range of topics across the University of Glasgow. All the competitors were excellent and we thank them so much for their participation and time. We would also thank our judges for their participation, time, and professionalism, thank you for contributing to the development of students!

We look forward for the next 3MT® event - If you would like to participate or have any questions regarding this competition, keep an eye on our PGR X account AND look closely to a wider number of events, workshops, sessions. Normally the information is send through the email researcher-development@glasgow.ac.uk.

We will see you next time!