Wild Ride: Surviving and Thriving… Through the Doctoral Journey and Beyond
Registration closes on 15 May.
The Postgraduate Research Festival is an annual event for the whole LJMU PGR Community, organised by a committee of PGRs. This year’s ‘wild ride’ theme is all about navigating bumps in the road as a researcher: dealing with adversity, unexpected challenges, and opportunities for growth and resilience. We are delighted to confirm Dr Yvonne Couch as the Festival keynote. Yvonne is an Alzheimer’s Research UK Fellow at the University of Oxford, and regularly blogs about science, research life and career topics for the Dementia Researcher ECR network.
The festival features the LJMU Three Minute Thesis Final, a poster competition, workshops for PGRs on topics from fieldwork and writing to academic careers and failure. Participants can also take part in a raffle for a host of exciting researcher self-care-themed prizes, with all money raised going to The Whitechapel Centre Liverpool.
Register to Attend
Programme
09:00-9:30 Registration
09:30-9:45 Welcome
09:45-11:00 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) University Final
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Parallel Workshops #1: choose from ‘How to Improve your Academic Writing’ with Dr Conan Leavey, or ‘The Doctoral Rollercoaster: the ups and downs of working in academia and the corkscrews in between’ with Dr Maddy Stevens
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Poster Session
14:30-15:30 Parallel Workshops #2: choose from Fieldwork challenges (title tbc) with Dr Luiza Figueirado Passos, or ‘How to be an Academic Failure’ with Prof Joe Moran
15:30-16:00 Break
16:00-17:00 Keynote, Dr Yvonne Couch, Alzheimer’s Research UK Fellow, University of Oxford, ‘Academic Burnout: Signs, Symptoms and Sympathy’
17:00-17:30 Closing remarks, poster, 3MT and raffle prize winners
17:30-18:30 Drinks reception
The PGR Festival is taking place in person, but some elements, including the 3MT and the keynote presentation, will be available to follow remotely via Teams. Please contact PGRFestival@ljmu.ac.uk (opens in a new tab) for the joining link.
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is a communications competition for doctoral researchers, originating at the University of Queensland. It challenges researchers to tell an intelligent, non-specialist audience what the research is about, why they are doing it, and why anyone should care in just three minutes.
Winners of the 3MT Faculty competitions will go on to take part in the final round of the competition at the PGR Festival on 22 May. As well as a prize of £500, the LJMU 3MT overall winner secures a place in the UK 3MT quarter finals!
To take part in the 3MT, look out for communications from your faculty about local competitions, which are taking place during April (APS and BLW) and May (SCS, HEA, FET).
Researchers from all disciplines and all programmes (MPhil, PhD, Prof Docs) are invited to present posters at the PGR Festival. This is an excellent opportunity to use your creative skills to present your research visually, raise your profile, and share your work with a wide audience beyond your school and faculty. There are also several prizes of up to £300 to be won.
Posters will be displayed throughout the festival, and there will be a dedicated poster session for you to talk to delegates about your research. If you are unable to attend the event in person but would like to submit a poster, you can still take part in the virtual strand of the competition for a ‘People’s Choice’ award.
Posters need to work well on a screen as well as in print and should be A1 and landscape orientation. They should have a visual impact, offer a clear taster of your research, and be accessible to a non-specialist academic audience. They should include no more than 500 words of text. Digital posters should take accessibility into account, to ensure they are available to a diverse range of viewers, including those using screen readers (see resources section below).
Key Dates for Poster Presenters
• Friday 5th of April 2024: deadline to submit your details and poster title.
• Friday 3rd of May 2024: deadline to submit digital poster files (A1 landscape) to PGRFestival@ljmu.ac.uk.
• Monday 13th of May 2024: deadline for submitting printed copies to the Doctoral Academy office. A1 poster printing is available in Aldham and Avril Robarts Libraries and the Student Life Building. Please see this guide to printing.
• Wednesday 22nd of May 2024: PGR Festival at the Student Life Building, with a poster session 1.30-2.30pm.
Prizes
There are two categories for prizes: early-stage researcher and mid-later-stage researcher, with Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice winning prizes of £300 and £200 for each category.
• ‘People’s choice’ voting for each category will open before the Festival and will be based on digital posters.
• ‘Judges’ choice’ winners will be decided on the day, based on the poster session.
Prizes will be announced on Wednesday 22nd of May, at the close of the 2024 Postgraduate Research Festival.
Judging Criteria
The posters will be assessed using the following criteria:
1. Visual impact – is the poster visually engaging with a logical flow? Does it use space effectively? Is it easy to read?
2. Content – does it have an engaging title? Is it situated within a relevant field? Are the aims, objectives, methods, and initial findings (if appropriate) clear? Is it clear why the research is being done and what its potential impact might be?
3. Research communication – can the poster be easily understood by a non-specialist academic audience? Does it communicate a clear ‘take home’ message?
4. Presentation (for in-person judging only) – was the researcher able to engage in a discussion about their poster, and elaborate on their ideas effectively?
Poster resources and Accessibility
You can find lots of poster resources and examples on the Researcher Development Programme Canvas site (join here if you’re not already enrolled).
Think about accessibility when planning colours, fonts, size, graphics, images and reading order. This will help to make your poster available to more people, including those who are visually impaired and/or use adaptive technology such as screen readers.
