Communicating the impact and day-to-day relevance of scientific research to the public is an important skill to develop and an something to consider as you train to become a well-rounded researcher. Public engagement can provide fresh perspectives on your work, increase your profile as a researcher, and in some cases can help to foster new research collaborations.

The Health Sciences Doctoral Training Centre (HSDTC) Public Engagement Competitions for 2023 aim to encourage and reward Health Sciences PGR Students for communicating their research in an engaging and accessible way to the general public. We run two annual competitions that aim to encourage this:

• Science Communication Competition - write a short ‘newspaper style’ article on your research topic

• Science Image Competition - submit an image which tells your research story

Details about the 2023 competitions will be announced later this year. You can find out more and see previous entries for both competitions below.

Congratulations to the winners and shortlisted entries for the 2022 HSDTC Public Engagement Competitions. View all the shortlisted entries on the Centre for Doctoral Studies Blog.

Science Communication Prize

Doctoral students at King’s doing research in a Health Sciences-related subject were invited to submit entries to the HSDTC Science Communication Prize. First Prize: £300; Second Prize: £150.

We invited doctoral researchers to submit a short ‘newspaper style’ article on their research topic. The article had to be based on the research they were currently engaged with, or that their group was doing, whether that be the whole project or one aspect of it. The article had to be aimed at a non-specialist audience and be understandable to an interested member of the public.

Science Image Prize

Doctoral research students at King’s doing research in a Health Sciences-related subject were invited to submit entries for the HSDTC Science Image Prize. First Prize: £300; Second Prize: £150.

We invited doctoral researchers to submit an image which tells their research story. Submitted images had to convey the totality or an aspect of the research that you do. Images could show, for example, the subject matter of their research, such as an image of cells or the brain, or research in action, for example the methods, equipment or facilities used in your research.

The winners of the HSDTC Public Engagement Competitions 2021 were announced at an Awards Ceremony at the close of the HSDTC Annual Research Symposium 2021 which was held online on 29 and 30 April 2021.

HSDTC Science Image Competition 2021

An annual contest to find the best images that represent the excellent doctoral research that goes on across the Health Faculties at King’s, with the chance to win £300 and culminating in the shortlisted submissions being displayed in the 2021 Symposium Brochure (pdf), and an awards ceremony. You can view all of the shortlisted images on our Centre for Doctoral Studies blog post, 'Shortlisted Submissions for the HSDTC Public Engagement Competitions 2021'.

Five submissions were shortlisted, including our winner, Lea Lortal, and runner-up, Andrew Doel:

• Lea Lortal (winner), Centre for Host-Microbiome Interactions, Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, with Doing a Lab-based PhD during a pandemic

• Andrew Doel (runner-up), Department of Women & Children’s Health, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, with New mother Breastfeeding, The Gambia

• Cathleen Hagemann from Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, Melanie Le Sayec from Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, and Nicholas Merrild from Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences were also shortlisted.

HSDTC Science Communication Competition 2021

How well can you communicate your research and its significance to non-experts? Last year, participants submitted newspaper style articles for the chance to win £300 and be featured on our website and blog.

To help the participants, we ran a workshop called Science Communication: Writing for a Lay Audience (information can be found on skillsforge, King's log in required). This offered an opportunity to learn how to summarise doctoral research and write great articles for a general audience: an invaluable resource for communicating your science to the public and for entering the HSDTC Science Communication Competition!

Five fascinating submissions were shortlisted, including the winning submission by Elisa Brann, and the runner-up, Simon Lam:

• Elisa Brann (winner), Forensic & Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, with A little magic in science: exploring psychosis using hypnosis

• Simon Lam (runner-up), Centre for Host-Microbiome Interactions, Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, with Fishing for an Alzheimer’s cure – how researchers use zebrafish to study the brain

• William Edwards from Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, Melanie Le Sayec from Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, and Lea Lortal from Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences were also shortlisted.

You can view all of the shortlisted articles on our Centre for Doctoral Studies blog post, 'Shortlisted Submissions for the HSDTC Public Engagement Competitions 2021'.

Read and view our 2021 shortlisted entries and winners to both HSDTC Public Engagement Competitions on our blog page.