25.7.11

The Three Minute Thesis

If anyone's interested - spectators welcome...

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT)™ is an academic competition developed by the University of Queensland for Masters by Research and Doctoral students. The competition is designed to develop academic and research communication skills. It has become an annual event, with the Australia and New Zealand competition to be held at UWA in September 2011. Curtin University will be holding its own 3MT competition on 5 August at 2.30pm in the Bankwest Lecture Theatre with the winner going on to represent Curtin at the national finals at UWA.

Competitors have three minutes to give an engaging and dynamic talk on their thesis topic, and its significance, in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience. The talk should engage the audience without reducing the research to entertainment value only. As such, the competition does not trivialise or "dumb-down" research, but forces students to consolidate their ideas and crystalise their research discoveries.

Three substantial prizes are up for grabs at the national finals:
$5,000 research travel grant for the winner
$2,000 research travel grant for the runner-up
$1,000 research travel grant people's choice award

Please contact Julie Lunn at j.lunn@curtin.edu.au for more information and a registration form. Registration forms are to be returned to Julie by 29 July 2011. Spectators are also to rsvp to Julie by this date.


There is also a 3MT facebook page with videos of past presentations.

2 comments:

FJE said...

If you are suggesting entering - architecture is Masters by Coursework, so I think that counts us out.

I might check out the videos though - good to see good presentations, might pick up some techniques!

MC said...

No not for us doing Masters to enter. BCC is accessible to those doing PhDs too right? Anyone can join the audience though.

I think the concept is brilliant. I think it's a great way to make research more accessible (to the general public). I think it's also a good exercise for the presenter. It would require clarity of one's work and effective presentation skills. Yes definitely good to check out for presentation techniques!

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