Category: PhD community

Three Minute Thesis Training sessions

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2023 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 25 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 25 May 2023

Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner up
  • The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.

Training Sessions

As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:

What is it like to take part in 3MT?

Some of last year’s contenders have kindly shared what they gained from partaking.

Marie Houghton said that it ‘helped me to clarify exactly what I think the main message of my PhD is’ and that she ‘would definitely recommend taking part in the 3MT to any other PhD students.’

Hannah Reeves also said that the competition allowed her to ‘think about what matters most about my research – what do I care about, what do the community I’m working with care about, and what will this audience care about.’ She also described herself as nervous about the experience of being on stage but ‘the training helped to develop a mutually supportive atmosphere.’

Doyin Olorunfemi described how ‘the exercise of delivering a concise speech gives you clarity of mind as a researcher and clarifies your contribution.’ She would ‘highly recommend the competition.’

CHASE Feminist Network: Open Forum Meeting 2023

Join us in this open discussion to find your place in the CHASE Feminist Network, now rescheduled for 12 January 2023, 16:00 GMT.

The CHASE Feminist Network invites you to an open forum meeting to discuss the future of the network. Help shape this important and impactful network and come discuss what events you’d like to attend, participate in or organise. 

On the agenda: We will be reviving the CHASE Feminist Network Conference this year, a popular and successful in-person event in pre-pandemic years. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see for this conference, ideas for themes or any other suggestions, please bring them with you to the Open Forum.

Beyond that, we’re looking for input on how the network should be run, what kind of events you’d like to see, and most importantly, how we can bridge the incredible programmes of CFN’s past archives with our promising next chapter.

About CFN: The CHASE Feminist Network has been facilitating incredible events and projects since 2016. From small project grants to interdisciplinary conferences, this inclusive space offers a breadth of opportunities to explore new ways to engage with and advocate for feminism in all its varieties. Now, after a short hiatus, we’re starting afresh with new ideas and a new cohort. And we want you to be a part of it.

All are welcome, see you there!

Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – call for lightning talks: Tuesday 1 November 1-5pm

Birkbeck Library is pleased to announce its first Birkbeck Open Research Symposium which this year is themed “Open for Climate Justice”, in line with International Open Access Week

The event features a keynote from Dr Caroline Edwards, and an afternoon of speakers and lightning talks, aimed at discussing the crossovers between open access and climate justice. This will be a hybrid event, with attendees both online and in person.

Themes could include but are not restricted to: open access, climate change, environmental and climate justice, environmental issues, climate activism, open climate data, international inequalities in climate action.

  • Talks will last 10 minutes each, with 5 minutes for questions to follow.  
  • Talks should include at least one slide as there may not be a camera for online participants to view the speaker. 
  • Talks can be delivered online (MS Teams) or in-person.

To participate, please submit a brief lightning talk outline with title and all author affiliation(s) and indicate your preference for an in-person or virtual format via the lightning talk submission form. The deadline is Friday 23 September. 

If you have any questions please contact David McElroy, d.mcelroy@bbk.ac.uk  

Submissions will be reviewed by a non-expert panel.  Submission form: Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – lightning talks submission form

This call is open to Birkbeck staff and postgraduate students, and non-Birkbeck colleagues in relevant areas.​​​​​​​

Three Minute Thesis Competition 2022

On Thursday 16 June, Birkbeck doctoral students took part in the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition. Meiyun Meng was the overall winner and received a £500 prize.
From left to right: Hannah Reeves (people’s choice); Carlo Palombo; Meiyun Meng (overall winner); Tom Nealon; Marie Houghton; Doyin Olorunfemi (runner up); Fengzhi Zhao.

2022 3MT Competition

On Thursday 16 June around 60 people attended the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition in the Clore Lecture Theatre. This was the fourth time the competition has been run at Birkbeck and the first time since 2019. The seven contestants displayed excellent presentational skills to convey their research in a concise and engaging manner, all managing to conclude with just a few seconds to spare. As always at Birkbeck, there was a wide range of subjects from how cross-sectional data can help cure cancer to the experience of flat sharing among the over-30s.

Winner: Meiyun Meng

After the judges had watched the candidates make their presentations, Meiyun Meng (Department of Geography) was chosen as the overall winner for her lively and engaging talk ‘Individualising life courses: Home-making of highly educated women in Shenzhen, China’. Meiyun is in her third year as a doctoral researcher in Geography.

Runner up: Doyin Olorunfemi

In addition to the overall winner, the judges awarded a £250 runner up prize to Doyin Olorunfemi (Department of Management) for her talk on ‘From Selling to Venturing’.

People’s Prize Winner

The overall winner and runner up were chosen by a panel of 3 Birkbeck experts but the audience also played a key role and were asked to use their votes to select a People’s Choice winner. This prize was awarded to Hannah Reeves (Department of Psychosocial Studies) for her talk ‘Crossbones Graveyard: remembering the dead, or breathing with them?‘

2022 3MT Talks

A list of all the competitors and their talks is provided below.

Doyin Olorunfemi ‘From Selling to Venturing’
Marie Houghton ‘Can home and happiness be found living in a house share after the age of 30?’
Hannah Reeves ‘Crossbones Graveyard: remembering the dead, or breathing with them?’
Meiyun Meng ‘Individualising life courses: Home-making of highly educated women in Shenzhen, China’
Fengzhi Zhao ‘A Tale of Two Cosmopolitan Shanghai(s)’
Tom Nealon ‘Inferring Time Varying Processes from Cross-Sectional Data’
Carlo Palombo ‘On the prohibition of nudity’

The PhD Network in-person Social

Our very first social since what feels like forever!

Most of us in this PhD Network have only seen and talked to each other virtually – over our shut-up and write group – and while strong bonds have been formed, it is finally time to organise the get together we have all been waiting for and quite frankly deserve.

For our new PhD cohorts, this is a great opportunity to meet some seasoned PhD students and grab as many tips and trick from them as possible! As such alumni are also welcome.

But it’s also a chance to get to know the group and who we are, and what the PhD Network does and how it can help you in your studies. PhD study can be very isolating and lonely and it takes a while to navigate all the hurdles that will inevitably come your way – we all know of this, trialled through it – but thankfully together, we can get through it in one whole-ish piece 🙂

I have chosen Coram’s fields as our location as they run a fully facilitated and supervised under 5’s playgroup from 9:30am- noon weekdays – it gives our PhD parents the option to join without worrying if they can or cannot bring children etc

It is a really nice space, with a cafe, and lots of lovely gardens.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to secure a budget for this picnic – so please do bring your own food and drinks. We will have a large blanket and some bits and bobbins to nibble but nothing substantial. I hope to see lots of you there. I am -fingers crossed – hoping for good weather and I know I will have good company 🙂 

Birkbeck School of Law PGR Conference 2022

Thursday 26th & Friday 27th May
MAL B30

Thursday 26th May
Tea/coffee from 09:30
10:15: Introduction to Conference and Opening Remarks: PGR Reps & Professor Elena Loizidou


10:30 – 12:30: Panel 1 Questioning Law’s Categories, chaired by Oscar
Guardiola-Rivera
Sarah Bekali, Tort law, recovery of damages and the question of race in the Netherlands (virtual presentation)
Kanika Gauba, Law’s Haemopolitics
Allison McKibban, Unsettling the ‘Problem’: Bacchi’s Poststructuralist Policy Analysis Tool and the 2013 Reauthorization of the U.S. Violence Against Women Act
Dorota Krogulewska, Barriers to reporting domestic abuse to the police by Polish women in the UK (virtual presentation)


Lunch 12:30 – 13:30


13:30 – 14:30: Panel 2 Biopolitics and Law in Greece, chair TBC
Eleni Papakonstantinou, The biopolitics of abjection: the persecution of seropositive women in Greece 2012 (virtual presentation)
Athina Michalakea, Legal frame and cultural representations of sex work in modern and contemporary Greece (virtual presentation)


Coffee 14:30 – 15:00

15:00 – 16:30: Panel 3 (Un)Making Gender, chair TBC
Lizzie Hughes, Hearing Gender: reshaping surveillance as human, sensory, and
(en)gendering through an analysis of sound in the public bathroom.
Jenny Logan, Incest and the Family Enclosure (1870s – 1974)
Shomo Basu, Black Biotech: Feminism, Intellectual Property, and the American Imaginary
5pm: We welcome everyone to come along to the College Arms on Store Street, near Birkbeck, for mid-conference drinks.

Friday 27th May
Tea/coffee from 10:00


10:30 – 11:30: Panel 1 Genocide and Border Violence, chaired by Başak Ertur
Nerges Azizi, Legal Interventions against European Border Violence
Ayse Kurul, How Does “the Duty to Prevent”, A Binding Treaty Obligation of States Under the Genocide Convention, Apply to Genocides Committed by Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs)?


Lunch 12:30 – 13:30


13:30 – 15:00: Panel 2 Religion, Philosophy, and Policy Interventions, chaired by Sarah Keenan
Michael Darke, Agricultural paradigm shift or policy evolution?
Gaber Mohamed, Interrogating Two Concepts in Islamic Criminal Jurisprudence: Victim’s Family vs. Offender’s Family (virtual presentation)
Abu Reza, The Influence of Cesare Beccaria on the English Philosophy of Penal Reform (virtual presentation)


Short break (10 minutes)
15:10: Closing remarks from Dr Sarah Keenan and Dr Başak Ertur

2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition: Join the Audience on 16 June

Registration now open for this event

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. On Thursday 16 June, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner-up

As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.

Register now to be part of the audience.

Birkbeck Research Degree Awards: April 2022

Birkbeck awards over 100 research degrees each year. During April, 10 Birkbeck Doctoral Researchers were awarded a PhD or Professional Doctorate for their work in the following areas:

School of Arts

1 PhD in English, Theatre and Creative Writing

1 PhD in History of Art

School of Business, Economics and Informatics

1 PhD in Economics, Mathematics and Statistics

1 DOccPsy in Organisational Psychology

School of Science

1 PhD in Biological Sciences

1 PhD in Psychological Sciences

School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy

2 PhDs in History, Classics and Archaeology

1 PhD in Psychosocial Studies

1 PhD in Politics

PhD Mums Breakfast Club

Sundays 9am-11.30am every 4 weeks, starting 8 May

While this space is primarily designed for PhD mums, to talk about the difficulties in balancing motherhood, work and PhD study, and how we often fall through the gaps of these communities without having a community of our own, this is an all-inclusive group. Thus PhD dads, and other parental carers and those becoming parents or thinking of becoming parents during their university study are welcome.

This is a relaxed space for open conversation and dialogue. I may throw in a few games and some fun activities, we will see how we go. But mostly the space is for getting to know each other, to build a little community of peer support and share experiences unique to PhD mumming. Children are welcome, but equally, if you just need a few mins rest, both are welcome. Come as you are! Looking forward to meeting all of you BBK PhD mums and sharing a few laughs together as we navigate the joys but also perils of managing parenthood and PhD life.

Also, If you are a Birkbeck PhD student, and would like to join the Birkbeck PhD Students WhatsApp group please use the invite link below. It will automatically add you to our WhatsApp group. Or our Facebook group.

Join Zoom Meeting: Meeting ID: 846 1564 6681 Passcode: phdmum