Final of the My Thesis in 180 seconds (MT180) competition at Université Paris-Saclay
Fourteen of the university’s PhD candidates took on the exciting challenge of explaining complex thesis research work in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes during the final of the My Thesis in 180 seconds (MT180) competition at Université Paris-Saclay on Thursday 13 March 2025.
Inès Doublier, a PhD candidate at the MICALIS laboratory (Université Paris-Saclay/Inrae/AgroParisTech), was awarded the Jury’s 1st Prize and the Audience Award for her thesis “Construction of new genetic engineering tools in Bacillus subtilis”. This double distinction marks a first for the competition at the university.
Nicolas Bienville, a PhD candidate at the Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE - Université Paris-Saclay/CEA/UVSQ/CNRS), was awarded the Jury’s 2nd Prize for his thesis “Determination of biological oxygen fractionation coefficients and application to the reconstruction of biospheric productivity fluxes”.
Presenting three years of research clearly and concisely in just three minutes, with the help of just one PowerPoint slide, is no easy feat and certainly not one that can be improvised. Each year, approximately fifty PhD candidates from Université Paris-Saclay take on this challenge in the hope of making it to the final organised by the university, and then on to the national and even international finals.
Once they have registered, candidates are supported by the university’s Doctoral centre, the Maison du Doctorat, with several half-day training sessions, during which they are able to practice public speaking, persuasiveness, stage presence and more. The aim is to give candidates the tools they need to make their subject as understandable as possible to a non-specialist audience and offer them a unique practical experience.
The training sessions start with theatrical techniques, public speaking, how to make use of space and manage stress, before looking at how to prepare the speech, with several opportunities to practice and support from trainers and feedback. These courses are part of one of the doctoral career paths provided by the Maison du Doctorat in ‘Doctoral careers: outreach, communication and science journalism’. Once they have completed the first three modules, candidates audition and approximately fifteen finalists are selected.