Festival Overview
The 2023 Festival of PhD Research will take place on 10 and 11 May in Belfast campus and is open to ALL PhD Researchers, from any campus and at any stage of their PhD.
We are very excited to be hosting Professor Inger Mewburn (Australian National Uiversity), also known as 'The Thesis Whisperer' at this year's Festival.
We look forward to welcoming our PhD Researchers to the new campus for a programme of presentations, posters, pratice based exhibitions. Also included in the programme is the 3MT® Final and a return of the Bake Your PhD competition! Prizes for the Best Presentations and Best Posters will be awarded on the 11 May at the Awards Reception.
What the PhD Researchers say about the Festival...
Great variety of research, very professional presentations, the team conducted a very smooth running and professional conference.
The atmosphere, the presentations, especially the 3MT and the Quiz in the Doc afterwards. Honestly the whole thing was great! Also really liked the Bake your PhD competition!
The range of disciplines and research on display. The organisation and structure of the day worked really well with lots of time to socialise with other researchers.
The festival was really well organised. It was great to have a range of presentations throughout the day from keynote speakers, oral presentations, poster presentations, bake your PhD and 3MT presentations - I feel this kept the event very engaging. It was also fantastic to have an in-person event and meet staff and other researchers from other faculties. It was also great to get additional presenting experience.
I would like to sincerely thank once again the organizers and the Doctoral College for this amazing event, to have given us the opportunity to network with other PhD researchers, exhibit our work, and practice our presentation skills!
The 2023 Festival of PhD Research will take place on 10 and 11 May in Belfast campus and is open to ALL PhD Researchers, from any campus and at any stage of their PhD.
The programme includes :
- Keynote speaker, Professor Inger Mewburn
- PhD Presentations
- Posters
- Exhibitions by practise-based PhD Researcher
- 'Bake Your PhD' competition
- Workshop with Professor Inger Mewburn
- Social Events (Pizza, Walking Tour & Quiz)
- 3MT Final
- Awards Reception
Check out the photos from previous Festivals of PhD Research.
Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition 2023
We are delighted to be hosting Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at Ulster for the sixth year running.
The live 3MT Final will take place as part of our Festival of PhD Research on Thursday 11 May at 6.00pm in the Lecture Theatre 1, BC Building in Belfast campus.
Our Finalists:
Jane Fulton
Biomedial Sciences
Rowan Kearns
Sport
Erin McEvoy
Sport
Amanda Mironova-Stronge
English
Adam O'Boyle
Engineering
Nicola Watson
Geography and Environmental Studies
Maria Wesolowska
Biomedical Sciences
Bake Your PhD
'Bake Your PhD' takes place at 1.45pm on Wednesday 10 May in BC-03-115a (off the Atrium space).
Researchers can bake anything (e.g. cake or other baked goods) that visually depicts any aspect of their research (e.g. from the physical samples, findings, methods employed in the project, or the research topic concepts and ideas).
Check out our video on Bake Your PhD!
Tips for success
- Think about the overarching concepts and ideas in your research, can you make an analogy of them with cake?
- It is not restricted to cake, we will also accept other edible baked goods; biscuits, pies, breads etc
- Try to incorporate your research into more than just the icing on the cake.
- While non-edible decorations are allowed, why not try making edible decorations to really impress the judges?!
- Think about your presentation to the judges. Impress them with a story or maybe incorporate moving parts or a demonstration to your presentation.
- Remember you don't have to represent all your research in one cake, pick your favourite or most interesting part and have fun with that!

Keynote Speaker - Professsor Inger Mewburn
The keynote speaker for 2023 is Professsor Inger Mewburn.
Professor Inger Mewburn (better known as @Thesiswhisperer on the internet) was born on Nuenonne country, which is now known as Tasmania, Australia (always was, always will be, Aboriginal land). She has a background as a designer and a researcher, which was nurtured at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University.
Since 2006, she has worked exclusively with PhD students and early career academics, helping them finish complex research projects with (very) demanding stakeholders. She’s passionate about people reaching their potential as researchers and helping create a kinder, more inclusive academy.
Inger is the Director of Researcher Development at The Australian National University where she oversees professional development workshops and programs for all ANU researchers. Aside from creating new posts on the Thesis Whisperer blog, she writes scholarly papers, books and book chapters about research education, with a special interest in post-PhD employability. She is a co-creator of the PostAc app and co-hosts a regular podcast called ‘On the Reg’ with Dr Jason Downs.
You find out more via her Linkedin profile, Amazon author page, or on Wikipedia. You can view her publications and books on the Thesis Whisperer About page. A full list of her scholarly work is available via her Google Scholar page or OrcidID.
Inger is @Thesiswhisperer on all the major social media channels, but you can message and talk directly to her on Mastodon here or via Linkedin.