Coimbra Group 3-Minute-Thesis competition

2025 EDITION

The Coimbra Group is pleased to launch the Call for Participation for the 9^th edition of its Three-Minute-Thesis (3MT®) Competition. This call is open to all Coimbra Group Universities. See and download the full call here.

The live final of the 2025 competition will take place at the University of Bologna on Thursday, 12 June, 2025, in connection with the Coimbra Group’s 40^th Anniversary Annual Conference (10-13 June 2025).

The timeline is as follows:

31 October 2024, COB	Deadline for Coimbra Group Universities to indicate participation in this edition.
4 November 2024, 10h00 – 11h00 CET	Technical briefing meeting with 3MT contact persons from CG participating universities.
28 March 2025 COB	CG participating universities to submit the video entry of the winner.
1-9 April 2025	Eligibility check by the technical committee.
10-24 April 2025	Voting period: all CG Universities may vote for the top three entries (one vote per university).
After 28 April 2025	The three shortlisted candidates will be announced.
12 June 2025	Live final at the University of Bologna.

2024 EDITION

This year the Coimbra Group Three Minute Thesis (3MT) live final took place on 6 June 2024 at the Logomo Theatre in Turku. Developed by the University of Queensland, the 3MT competition consists of effectively explaining one’s research in 3 minutes, in a language appropriate for a non-specialist audience.

We are delighted to announce that Silvia Lasnik emerged victorious in the 2024 CG 3MT competition. The jury awarded Silvia, a PhD candidate at Graz University, for her outstanding presentation titled “Dragon-Proof Teaching: Slaying Native-Speakerism.” In under three minutes, Silvia adeptly elucidated how native speakerism impacts students’ self-perception of their foreign language abilities and contributes to the shaping of macro-ideologies. A keen reader, the topic of her thesis (“But I’m not a Native-Speaker” – Self-Perceived Foreign Language Proficiency and Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety among Austrian Primary School Teachers) was inspired by her personal experiences.

The two excellent runners-up were Princess R. Cabotaje (Uppsala University) and Rachel Hare (University of Bristol).

Princess R. Cabotaje, from Uppsala University, opened the competition with a flawless presentation “Learning from Nature: Turning air into electricity”. She explained how to improve the potential of hydrogenases, which convert and utilize hydrogen using earth-abundant metals like nickel and iron, for biotechnological applications by shedding light on their evolution and diversity through an interdisciplinary. Originally from the Philippines, Princess R currently resides in Sweden where she enjoys performing dance covers and precision sports.

Then, Rachel Hare, from the University of Bristol, gave us a remarkable presentation on “The Art of the Swoon,” navigating the complex and often contradictory meanings of fainting in early modern drama. Her research focuses on the conflicted interpretations of embodied gestures and the ways these conflicts expose and interrogate prevalent anxieties about gender, performance, perception, emotion, and the body. She also works as a researcher on public engagement and research projects related to grief, creativity and community.

Many congratulations to the three of them for this thrilling event that this year again conquered the whole audience!

The 2024 jury was composed of:

Antonella Forlino (Pro Rector for Internationalisation at the University of Pavia and a member of the Coimbra Group Executive Board) – 3MT jury spokesperson
Sverre Ole Drønen (Science policy, science communications & global relations specialist in the Division of Research and Innovation at the University of Bergen)
Elise Pinta (Head of the Research Career Unit at the University of Turku and Vice-Chair of Coimbra Group Doctoral Studies WG),
Jaanika Anderson (Director of Research at the University of Tartu Museum)
Giulia Marina Licini (Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Padova and Vice-Chair of Coimbra Group STEM WG).

25 out of the 40 Coimbra Group member universities took part in this year’s competition by submitting the video of the winner of their local competition.

All Coimbra Group universities were then invited to vote for their preferred top three candidates. The live final is the second and last phase of the network competition, where the three shortlisted candidates are assessed by a judging panel.

This year, the winner receives from the Coimbra Group a 2 000 € Prize, and the two runners-up are granted 1 500 € each. Each of the three finalists also gets a wooden trophy.

The event was streamed live and the recording is available here.

For further information about the 3MT competition, please visit: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au

2023 EDITION

The Coimbra Group 3MT final event took place on 1 June 2023 at the main Auditorium of the University of Cologne. Developed by the University of Queensland, the 3MT competition consists of effectively explaining one’s research in 3 minutes, in a language appropriate for a non-specialist audience.

Coimbra Group’s 2023 winner is Ida Cecilie Jensen, from Aarhus University. Congratulations to her on her presentation, which won over the entire jury and the audience! By whetting our appetites with her research on the “smelly feets of ants”, Ida introduced the assembly to the very interesting plant pathogen inhibition of ants, her investigation aiming to develop the use of ants as sustainable alternatives to chemical pesticides in the management of plant diseases.

This years’ competition was unprecedented: impressed by all presentations, the jury could not decide between a second and third place, hence chose for the first time to grant an ex aequo position to Juhi Parmar and Michaela Raab, the two runners-up. The jury was composed by Mikael Lindfelt (Rector of Åbo Akademi University and 3MT jury spokesperson), Mireille Van Poppel (Vice-Rector for Internationalization and Equal Opportunities, University of Graz), Pierre-Antoine Bonnet (Vice-Chair of CG Life Sciences WG, University of Montpellier), Elisabeth Hoffmann (Chief Communication Officer at the University of Cologne) and Adriana Zait (Chair of CG Doctoral Studies WG, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași).

Juhi Parmar, from Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, is an enthusiastic cognitive psychology researcher, currently in her final year of PhD. In 3 minutes, she captivated the audience with a presentation of her investigation on the effects of various affective consequences on “stimulus-response binding and retrieval”. She explained how priming processes can influence our behavior: with this research, she will contribute to a deeper understanding of instrumental learning and automatic processes.

On her part, Michaela Raab brought genetics and molecular biology to the Auditorium. This lover of Scotland is currently a final year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. During the live final, she took the audience on the journey of a biliary tree, a poetic way of presenting her research on how the bile ducts of liver form during development. She explained how she investigates the role of planar cell polarity signaling during this process and how it sculpts the complex bile duct network that is essential for optimal liver function.

Many congratulations to the three of them for this thrilling event that conquered the whole audience!

26 out of the 40 Coimbra Group universities took part in this year’s competition. These universities submitted the video of their institutional winner and a total of 31 universities submitted their votes. Voters were requested to assign 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to their preferred top three candidates. The live final is the second and last phase of the competition, where the three shortlisted candidates are assessed by a judging panel. This year, the winner receives 3000 €, and the two ex aequo runners-up are granted 1500 € each.

The event was streamed live on our YouTube channel and the recording is available here.

For further information about the 3MT competition, please visit: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/home

2022 EDITION

Congratulations to Omeed Neghabat on winning the 2022 edition of the Coimbra Group Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition! This year’s edition final took place on 10 June in an unrivalled setting: the Aula Magna of the University of Padova. An enthusiastic jazz listener and vinyl collector, this PhD candidate at Aarhus University won the first prize with a presentation called “Looking at the human heart from the inside out”. In less than three minutes Omeed explained how he uses a scanner that is inserted inside the blood vessels to create a better visualization of the blood vessel anatomy, disease, and treatment strategy.

Effy Ntemou, from the University of Groningen, ended up second with her presentation “Why you need a linguist in the operating room”. This hiking and photography lover investigates how language is represented in the brain of people with tumours by examining the different areas of the brain that verbs and sentences require when we speak.

As for Ignacio Abadía Tercedor, second runner-up from the University of Granada, his research is in the field of computational neuroscience, robotics, and artificial intelligence. With his presentation “Humanising Robots”, in three exact minutes he explained the goal of his thesis, which is to take inspiration from the central nervous system, particularly the cerebellum, to develop robot controllers that allow robots to move in an adaptive and safe manner, allowing them to learn how to perform different movements, just like humans and animals naturally do.

After two years of online presentations, the audience really enjoyed these three live performances – not only the research results achieved by the three finalists, but also the way they effectively communicated them to the non-expert audience.

The same for the judging panel, composed by:

PROF. TOOMAS ASSER

Rector of the University of Tartu and Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences

PROF. GIULIA LICINI
Chair of the Coimbra Group Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics WG, University of Padova

Dr JOHANNES MÜLLER
Coimbra Group representative and Head of International Science Department at the University of Cologne

Dr FRANÇOIS LECELLIER
Vice-Chair of the Coimbra Group Education Innovation WG, University of Poitiers

PROF. ADRIANA ZAIT (jury spokesperson)
Vice-Chair of the Coimbra Group Doctoral Studies WG, Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi

This year, a total of 23 out of the 40 member universities of the Coimbra Group took part in the competition. These universities submitted the video of their institutional winner and a total of 23 universities submitted their votes. Voters were requested to assign 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to their preferred top three candidates. The live final is the second and last phase of the competition, where the three shortlisted candidates are assessed by a judging panel for a first, second and third prize of, respectively, € 3000, € 2000 and € 1000.

Developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), the 3MT competition consists of effectively explain one’s research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Competitors are allowed one PowerPoint slide, but no other resources.

The event was streamed live on our YouTube channel and the recording is available here.

For further information about the 3MT, please visit: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/home

2021 EDITION

On Tuesday 29 June 2021 Coimbra Group held the online final of its 5^th edition of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, which has been developed by the University of Queensland and consists of effectively explain one’s research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.

Our congratulations go to Dounia Ziyati, a PhD Candidate at the Doctoral Schools of the Universities of Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon, on winning the 2021 competition! Through her brilliant talk “Compact PV-CSP hybrid systems: Expanding the global solar market beyond daylight power”, Dounia illustrated a valuable and economic model for the exploitation of solar energy.

Congratulations also to the runners-up of the competition, Favour Onyeogaziri, a PhD candidate at Uppsala University, and Robin Amsters, a PhD candidate at KULeuven, for their excellent research work and outstanding performance. Favour’s research focus on cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM), a neurovascular dysplasia affecting about 0.5% of the entire human population. Her thesis aims to study novel mechanisms in the pathogenesis and progression of CCM and identify novel therapeutic targets. Whereas with a presentation titled “Lighting the Way for Lost Robots”, Robin explained to our audience how his research work aims to help indoor robots localise themselves.

The performances of Dounia, Favour and Robin were assessed by a judging panel of five members from Coimbra Group universities on the basis of comprehension, content, engagement and communication. This year’s Coimbra Group 3MT jury included:

Maria Francesca Di Filippo: Winner of the 2020 Coimbra Group 3MT Competition, University of Bologna
Giulia Licini: Chair of Coimbra Group STEM Working Group and Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Padova
Gerald Lind: Senior Professional, Doctoral Education/Early-Stage Researcher Development, University of Graz
Bevin Mcgeever: Chair of Coimbra Group Research Support Officers Working Group and ERC Research Projects Officer, Research Development Office, Trinity College Dublin
Riitta Pyykkö: Emerita Vice-Rector, University of Turku (Science Communication expert)

After the pitches of the three finalists, we had the pleasure to welcome, as guest speaker, the President of the European Council for Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (EURODOC), Giulia Malaguarnera. She presented the perspective of early-career researchers on Open Science, a timely topic the importance of which has been brought to the fore by the Covid-19 crisis.

“Open Science is just good science” – said the EURODOC’s president – “It is nothing new; it is a way to make research processes transparent”.

In a conversation with the hosts of the event, Ludovic Thilly and Stephan Schröder-Köhne, on the opportunities that Open Science can bring, Giulia Malaguarnera highlighted the barriers to embracing Open Science practices, from the point of view of early-career researchers. According to the latest EURODOC’s findings, there is still little awareness of Open Science and more training would be beneficial. When asked about the key recommendations with regard to a smooth and fast transition to Open Science, Ms Malaguarnera said “We need increased awareness. Don’t be afraid of training people in Open Science practices and don’t be afraid of sharing negative results. We do have the instruments – we just need to use them”. She concluded her talk by suggesting to set a date by which we decide to switch to Open Science.

The recording of the event is available here.

For further information about the 3MT competition.

2020 EDITION

Congratulations to Maria Francesca Di Filippo on winning the 2020 edition of the Coimbra Group Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition!

With a presentation titled “Functional properties of chitosan films modified by snail mucus extract”, Maria Francesca, a PhD candidate in biomimetic and material chemistry at the University of Bologna, talked to our audience about how her research work attempts to improve the properties of bioplastic to make it more competitive when it comes to replacing plastic. Her presentation is available on our YouTube channel.

Speaking on behalf of the competition’s judging panel, Riitta Pyykkö, Emerita Vice-Rector at the University of Turku, said that Maria Francesca’s presentation had the best “balance between science, research and communication (…) on an interesting topic – not just for science, but for the whole world – and about which we want to find out more.”

“Being able to communicate science is very important and, in the context of the European Commission’s policy developments, the European Research Area and the Horizon Europe programme, it has become one of the highest priorities as well as one of the most important aspects we have to tackle in the years to come”, said Anna Panagopoulou, Acting Director for Research & Innovation Outreach at the Directorate General for Research & Innovation of the European Commission, who attended the event and gave a talk about the newly launched Communication on the European Research Area.

A judging panel of five members from Coimbra Group universities assessed the finalists’ performances on the basis of comprehension, content, engagement and communication. This year’s gender- and discipline-balanced jury included:

Claudia Cavadas, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Coimbra and Member of the Executive Board of the Coimbra Group (Pharmacology)
Pedro Garcia Sanchez, Faculty of Sciences, Algebra Dept., University of Granada (Mathematics)
Mr Jean-Marie Pincemin, Head International Office, University of Poitiers and Vice-Chair of the Doctoral Studies Working Group of the Coimbra Group (Humanities/Social Sciences)
Riitta Pyykkö, Emerita Vice-Rector, University of Turku (Science Communication expert)
Adriana Zait, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi (Economics)

Selina Bruns (University of Göttingen) and Vicente Artola Arita (University of Groningen) were the runners-up of this year’s final.

Selina, a PhD candidate in agricultural economics and rural development, presented her research about sustainable economic development of smallholder farmers in the larger Mekong Region. Her work aims to address what determines the differences in farm performance. You can watch Selina’s presentation here.

Whereas with a presentation titled “One size does not fit our hearts”, Vicente, a PhD candidate in medicine, explained how the aim of his thesis is to better characterize patients with atrial fibrillation to improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment in order to provide personalized counselling to the needs of each person. Vicente’s presentation is available here.

The three finalists gave an excellent performance – they were, after all, the winners of their own universities’ internal 3MT competitions.

The event was streamed live on our YouTube channel and the recording is available here.

The Coimbra Group 3MT competition was launched in 2017 by the Doctoral Studies Working Group, in line with one of their strategic priorities geared towards professional development of PhD candidates.
The network-wide competition consists of two phases: in the first phase, after holding their institutional 3MT competition, universities are invited to submit the video of the winner from their own internal competitions to the Coimbra Group office, which then launches an online voting procedure. This year, a total of 19 out of the 41 member universities of the Coimbra Group took part in the competition, and this in the context of a semester marked by university lockdowns, as Gunda Huskobla, the Chair of the Doctoral Studies Working Group, recalled when introducing the final. These universities submitted the video of their institutional winner and a total of 26 universities submitted their votes. Voters were requested to assign 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to their preferred top three candidates. The live final is the second and last phase of the competition, where the three shortlisted candidates are assessed by a judging panel for a first, second and third prize of, respectively, € 3000, € 2000 and € 1000.

For further information about the 3MT, please visit: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/home

This document provides the technical guidelines for the 2021 Coimbra Group 3MT competition as well as useful tips for your own institutional competition:

CG 3MT Call 2021

2019 EDITION

We are happy to announce that Ms Claudia Schmidt, a PhD candidate at the University of Goettingen, is the winner of the 2019 CG 3MT live final which took place at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow on 7 June 2019. A biology graduate, Claudia’s research areas are molecular biology and biochemistry, in particular biochemistry of membrane proteins. In just three minutes, she explained to our audience how her research look into the way our cells recycle, which is quite a challenge when the title of your thesis is “Reconstitution of Doa10-mediated ER-associated protein degradation with purified components”! Owen James (University of Edinburgh) and Femke Cnossen (University of Groningen) were the runners-up. Owen’s research work is in the area of regenerative medicine and stem cell biology. He talked to our audience about developing a humanised in vitro model of myelin formation using human pluripotent stem cells. As for Femke, her research is in the field of labour economics and her PhD thesis focuses on the impact of technology on the Dutch labour market. Their performances were outstanding and our audience truly enjoyed not only finding out about their research, but also the way they were able to communicate effectively their work to non-experts. The performances of the three 3MT finalists were assessed by a jury of five people composed by:

Dr Aneta Lipinska, Faculty of Management and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University of Krakow
Mr Jean-Marie Pincemin, Deputy Head International Office at the University of Poitiers and Vice-Chair of the Doctoral Studies Working Group of the Coimbra Group
Prof. Michel Verleysen, Louvain School of Engineering, Université catholique de Louvain
Prof. Adriana Zait, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi.
The jury was chaired by Prof. Patrick Gilli, President of the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3.

For further information about the 3MT, please visit: https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/home

This document provides the technical guidelines for the 2019 Coimbra Group 3MT competition as well as useful tips for your own institutional competition: Call for participation 2019 edition

2018 EDITION

Congratulations to Khalil Shahramian, PhD candidate at the University of Turku on winning the first prize of the 2018 Coimbra Group Three Minute Thesis competition at the final that took place at the University of Salamanca last 1 June. Congratulations also to Jason Dydynski (University of Tartu) and to Nicola Seitz (University of Würzburg) on being the runners-up and to Constantina Theofanopoulou (University of Barcelona) for the participation.

An initiative of the Doctoral Studies Working Group, the CG 3MT competition first round took place in April. All CG Universities were invited to participate by submitting the video of the finalist from their own internal competition. 21 PhD candidates (from 21 CG Universities) took part in the first round. The panel was composed by the members of the Doctoral Studies WG, and, in the case of those universities with no representative in the Doctoral Studies WG, the CG Representative was invited to cast the vote on behalf of his/her university.

A total of 22 CG Universities submitted their vote. Voters were requested to assign 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to their preferred top three candidates.

2017 EDITION

The Coimbra Group held its first 3-Minute-Thesis (3MT) competition in 2017.

We are happy to announce that Mr Oisin McCormack (University of Padova, left on the photo) is the winner of the 2017 CG 3MT competition!

Ms Tanvi Butola (University of Göttingen, to the right) won the second prize while Ms Maddie Long (University of Edinburgh, in the middle) won the third prize. We wish to thank all three finalists for their outstanding performance!

Developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), the competition consists of effectively explain one’s research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Competitors are allowed one PowerPoint slide, but no other resources.

An initiative of the Doctoral Studies Working Group, the CG 3MT competition first round took place in April. All CG Universities were invited to participate by submitting the video of the finalist from their own internal competition. 20 PhD candidates (from 20 CG Universities) took part in the first round. The panel was composed by the members of the Doctoral Studies WG, and, in the case of those universities with no representative in the Doctoral Studies WG, the CG Representative was invited to cast the vote on behalf of his/her university.

A total of 21 CG Universities submitted their vote. Voters were requested to assign 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to their preferred top three candidates.

Tanvi Butola, Maddie Long and Oisin McCormack were the finalists of the first round. They then competed against each other at the live final which took place during the CG General Assembly at the University of Edinburgh on 9th June 2017.