Imaginative research to be showcased at upcoming festival

Research into how air pollution is affecting the bacteria in our lungs, how an ageing heart can potentially be made young again and the ornate majesty of Julius Caesar’s Rome are among the many projects to be showcased by Leicester research students on Monday 6 July at the Festival of Postgraduate Research.

The Festival, which is free and open to the public, takes place between 11:00am-2:00pm in the Charles Wilson Building. 50 research students, who have been elected from 1,600 members of the postgraduate research community at the University, will present their work in the form of a poster to high-profile judges from research funding bodies, government and industry.

Research showcased at the event spans multiple periods of time, from class literature to futuristic virtual reality, and will explore topics such as how blood testing can help to diagnose cancer and how cliffs in the United Kingdom are being eroded due to climate change.

For those taking part, the Festival, which is hosted by the Graduate School, offers an opportunity to meet employers and others in their field and develop their own profile as a researcher. For the University, it is an opportunity to celebrate the strength of its postgraduate research community.

The Festival will conclude with an awards ceremony - with winners for the best presentation in four broad discipline areas, a number of specialist prizes, and the Graduate Dean's prize for the best presentation overall.

As well as the annual poster competition, the festival includes the PhDepictions photography competition which requires entrants to create an image that communicates their research, their findings, and their passion for their subject and the Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) which requires postgraduate researchers to distil their thesis and communicate it orally in no more than three minutes and using no more than one slide. The winners of this competition go on to compete at a national 3MT competition.