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 in the evening.

#UlsterPhDFest

What the PhD Researchers say about the Festival 2022...

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!

It was great to meet other PhDs after two years of restrictions. I enjoyed hearing about everyone else's research and it was good experience and put me at ease for going to other conferences.

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 Festival programme will be available in early April 2023.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition 2022

Registration is now open for the 2023 3MT competition!

Bake Your PhD

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). Further details to follow in the Weekly Update sent to your Ulster inbox each Wednesday.

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!

Register to take part in Bake Your PhD

The keynote speaker for 2023 is Professsor Inger Mewburn.