HRC PhD Poster Competition

The 2023 HRC PhD Poster Competition is now open for entries. And this year - it’s a bit more special. We will be working alongside students from Trinity College Dublin.

This is an invitation to reflect on, and represent, your doctoral research in a fun new way, and collectively produces an impressive and engaging snapshot of the great variety of research being undertaken here.

What's required?

You are invited to create a poster which captures the essence of your research project, and has dramatic visual impact. You can look at previous years' winning entries to help get you started.

You are also required to provide a piece of text that describes your research in further detail, which will be uploaded to the HRC website. The HRC will then add a QR code to your poster that links to your accompanying text.

The deadline for entries is by 12 noon on Monday 24 April 2023.

On 1 March, we held a workshop where Jon Finch talked through format/submission requirements and offered tips and hints. In case you missed it, you are able to watch the Zoom recording (passcode: GaM1&3^Q).

On Monday 22 May from 10am to 12noon, we will hold a second workshop with the Trinity College Dublin students to discuss the posters, exchange ideas and experiences involved in delivering your research projects as posters.

It will be a great opportunity to make international connections, explore the research ideas of peers and learn more about poster making from a sister institution.

If you missed the initial deadline of 24 April but would like to enter and attend the workshop, please contact hrc-admin@york.ac.uk.

We expect that the discussions at the workshop may spark some new ideas and so we are going to give you one week from the poster competition (Monday 29 May, 12 noon), to make any amendments to your current posters and to resubmit if you would like to.

After this, we will hold our HRC Poster Competition Finals Event on Wednesday 7 June at 1pm at which all poster entries will be printed and displayed in the Treehouse and prizes will be awarded for the top three entries.

Plus the whole HRC community will be invited to come along and see your posters.

Top tips:

think visually
use some (but not too much) text
avoid jargon
aim for the eye-catching
pick enticing detail
target an audience who knows nothing about your specialist area

Why enter?

It is always useful (for all of us, at all stages) to be thinking about new ways to make our research interesting and accessible.

Producing a poster can be a very engaging way of your doctoral project. It will also give you practical experience in communicating your research to different audiences. And there are also cash prizes for winners.

Format and submission requirements

There are two parts to this submission:

Part one: Poster

PDF file format
A2 sized
Can be portrait or landscape

You may find it helpful to have a look at previous winning entries to the HRC Poster Competition

Part two: Text

Please provide this text in an email
Word limit: 400 words

You may find it helpful to look at example texts produced by Trinity College Dublin students

Both the poster and text should be submitted together in the same email to Megan Russell (hrc-admin@york.ac.uk) by 12 noon on Monday 24 April 2023.

Who is eligible to enter?

Any current PhD student or MRes from the Departments of Archaeology, English, History, History of Art, Philosophy, Language and Linguistic Science, Music, School of Arts and Creative Technologies and the Centre for Medieval Studies may enter. The only students not eligible are the winners from last year's poster competition.

Judging and exhibition

The competition will be judged by a panel chaired by the HRC Deputy Director, Jonathan Finch, and we will display the printed posters at a celebratory event towards the end of May (exact date to be confirmed). There will also be a joint virtual exhibition with the Trinity students.

Prizes

The winners of the competition will receive cash prizes as follows:

First prize: £100
Second prize: £80
Third prize: £40

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy rethinking and reshaping your doctoral project into a new and bold design configuration.

We look forward to receiving your entries.