Researcher Development


Three Minute Thesis competition

The 3 minute thesis is an academic competition developed by The University of Queensland, Australia for research students. Participants present their research verbally in just 3 minutes and with related contents on one PowerPoint slide. The winner of the finals will win a £1000 travelling/research grant, as well as the opportunity to take part in a national 3MT competition.

With heats taking place in each of the four Colleges, over 50 Postgraduate Research students took up this challenge.  Following tightly fought contests, 12 finalists were selected to go forward to the Grand Finale, where they performed their three minutes to a wide-ranging audience, including invited guests and alumni, showcasing the wide diversity of ground-breaking research taking place at Glasgow.

Our 12 finalists were:

  • Anne Katrine Johansen, The gender puzzle in disease
  • Katrin Nather, Developing new drugs to treat high blood pressure
  • Kirsten Munro, Stabilising SOCS3 to limit vascular inflammation and neointimal hyperplasia
  • Akshaya Kumar, Provincialising Bollywood, what does cinema mean to the poor?
  • Di Xu, Struggling journalists in mainland China
  • Sophie Kromholz, Vanishing artworks
  • Lynne Braidwood, Oncolytic HSV1716- a virus that selectively kills cancer cells while leaving normal cells unaffected
  • Jamie Gallagher, Nanoscale thermoelectronics
  • Richard Middlemiss, How attractive are you? Making an ultra sensitive gravity sensor
  • Tarsisio Nyatsanza, Developing a transformative approach to AIDS education
  • Alexia Koletsou, Communicating sustainable behaviours
  • Muhammad Ashraf, Education policy of Pakistan: a conflicting debate

The Grand Finale
The grand finale took place on the 21st March 2013, 2-4pm, in the John McIntyre Building. Our judging panel awarded the grand prize but there was also a 'people's choice'.

And our winners were…

  • Jamie Gallagher, Winner of 2013 - Nanoscale thermoelectronics
  • Muhammad Ashraf, Runner up, 2013 - Education policy of Pakistan: a conflicting debate
  • Alexia Koletsou, People's Choice Winner 2013 - Communicating sustainable behaviours

Watch the films of our 3 winners!

Watch the films from the heats!

The 3MT® competition was initially developed at the University of Queensland in 2008 and has since spread to other universities, with this being the first competition to run in Scotland.  Finalists from the Glasgow competition will be invited to represent the University at national and international 3MT competitions, including a virtual competition with partner institutions through the Universitas21 competition.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. For further information about the 3MT competition at the University of Glasgow, contact Elizabeth Adams
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