Springer Nature supports the 2019 Three Minute Thesis competition at Hiroshima
15 October 2019
PhD students in Japan compete in communicating their research vision in three minutes
Tokyo, 15 October 2019
Jade Dhapnee Zarate Compendio (on the right) with Noriaki Horiuchi (on the left). Image: © Springer Nature
On September 14, 2019, the HIRAKU 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) Competition 2019 took place at Hiroshima, where an international group of PhD students from various disciplines explained about their research vision in three minutes using a single slide. A poster session also took place during the event, where high school students had a chance to present and discuss their original research projects with academics and the general public.
25 PhD students from 6 universities located mainly in the western part of Japan, including Hiroshima, Ehime, Tokushima, Gifu, Yamaguchi, and Hiroshima City University, presented their research in either English or Japanese towards nearly 300 people, which included the general public. Awards were granted to extraordinary presentations, judged by both the jury panel and the audience. The jury panel judged the research presentations according to criteria such as vision, attractiveness, novelty, and clarity.
A total of 15 awards were given to the students, and Jade Dhapnee Zarate Compendio, a postgraduate student at Hiroshima University received the Audience Award (English presentation) and the Springer Nature Award for her presentation titled “Are there still wild chickens in the Philippines?”.
Jade Dhapnee Zarate Compendio, the winner of 2 awards commented, “Overflowing with happiness, I am greatly honored and grateful to be given the Springer Nature and the Audience Award during the recently conducted 3MT Competition. Joining that competition has been one of the greatest milestones in my life and receiving two awards during that event made it more priceless. Heartwarming, I am thankful beyond words to Springer Nature as well as to the people who voted for me. Overwhelmed, these awards have strengthened my self-belief thus, making me more determined to continue my Philippine wild chicken research work with great enthusiasm. In addition, I am also thankful to the people behind the 3MT competition and to my research supervisor, Dr. Masahide Nishibori for giving me their confidence and the chance to share my research to people of different race, culture and language as well as to inspire young students. True indeed that going the extra mile is worth doing. Again, my heartfelt gratitude to Springer Nature and to the people who supported me during my 3MT journey.”
Noriaki Horiuchi, Senior Editor of the Nature Photonics journal at Springer Nature and a jury member of the 3MT competition said, “Jade's speech totally removed my unsure feeling that I had when I first read her presentation title “Are there still wild chickens in the Philippines?”, because the research topic sounded very niche. However, as her speech continued, it was unfolded to a ecosystem of wild animals in general, and explained that it also covered the issues of environment, food and so on. At the end of her speech, I realized that she was going to address humanity’s grand challenges in the near future. Her speech based on her real experience was logical and her explanation was easy to follow. I totally felt empathy for the attitude of Jade who was going to address challenging research subjects. In the hope of further progress of her research, I selected her as a recipient of Springer Nature Award. Through this competition, Springer Nature would like to encourage young researchers who are working on ambitious research topics in interdisciplinary areas.””
Yoshihisa Kawahara, Executive Vice-President of Hiroshima University and chair of the jury panel commented, “The ‘HIRAKU 3MT Competition’ is designed to provide PhD candidates with an opportunity to share their research visions and achievements with a non-specialist audience in a short time of 3 minutes. It aims to improve the communication skills of PhD candidates and to make the audience fully aware of their excellence and usefulness of their research.” “All presentations were well prepared. Many of them demonstrated new findings in the fields of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and agriculture, showing their significant contributions to the enhancement of our health and quality of life. It was enlightening and exciting to hear that the live voices in refugee camps have requested a new support system different from the present one,” he continues.
Springer Nature is honored to be able to support this event where all presenters of the competition took part with passion. The 3MT is considered to be very insightful, especially for high school students who are looking into careers as a researcher.
Developed by the University of Queensland in 2008, 3MT® events are now held in over 400 institutions across six continents. The 2019 Asia-Pacific 3MT Competition sponsored by Springer Nature has been held at the beginning of October in Australia, and brings together the 2018 university 3MT finalists from across countries including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan.
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About HIRAKU (Home for Innovative Researchers and Academic Knowledge Users) program
The HIRAKU program is promoted as part of the “Program for Developing Next Generation Researchers” of the “Building of Consortia for the Development of Human Resources in Science and Technology,” implemented by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Focusing on “Home for Innovative Researchers and Academic Knowledge Users (HIRAKU)” as its main theme, the program is jointly operated by Hiroshima University (Lead Partner Organization), Yamaguchi University, and Tokushima University in collaboration with national, prefectural, municipal, and private universities in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions, Ritsumeikan University in the Kansai region, as well as a large number of institutions/corporations in public and private sectors. The word, ‘Hiraku’ means to ‘open-up’ or ‘bloom’ in Japanese. For more information, please visit here.
About Springer Nature
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