Wednesday June 10th 2020

Research Poster Competition 2020

About the Competition

Now in its fifteenth year the Poster Competition is the perfect opportunity for students to showcase their research and demonstrate the important contribution which all research students make to the research community at the Open University.

Due to the uncertainty created by the continuing spread of coronavirus, the competition will take place completely online this year. This means that everyone who would like to participate should upload their poster or multimedia entries by 12, noon on Friday 15 May. We will host an online get-together on 10 June to announce and congratulate the winners, with plans to hold a campus-based celebration later in the year; we’ll release further details nearer the time.

Research students had the opportunity to take part in one or both of the categories below:

Online research poster competition(Judges' Choice, Community Choice)
- Judges Choice: judging will take place from 1–5 June. First prize £100 Amazon (or similar equivalent) vouchers, second prize £50 Amazon (or similar equivalent) vouchers.
- Community Choice Poster (online) - voting from 12pm, Monday 18 May to 12pm, Tuesday 9 June - Prize £100 Amazon (or similar equivalent) vouchers.
- Best use of Imagery in a poster: judging will take place from 1–5 June. Prize £50 Amazon (or similar equivalent) vouchers.
Community Choice Multimedia (online) - voting from 12pm, Monday 18 May to 12pm, Tuesday 9 June - First prize £50 Amazon vouchers

Note about the Multimedia option: This will need to be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. The rules are otherwise very flexible here: anything goes (as long as it’s shareable and legal). But, to get you started, you might choose to do a podcast, video, or animation. Have a look to see the the entries for 2019 to inspire you.

Note about the Best Use of Image in a Poster: This is a new category for 2020. It rewards the use of original images within poster design to be eye-catching and communicate the essence of the research discussed. Please consider copyright when choosing your images.

Benefits of participation
21st century researchers need to be able to convey their research ideas to a broad audience. This competition, judged by senior staff representing major activities across the Open University, gives you the opportunity to practise these skills.

You will have an opportunity to make useful contacts while raising your profile across the University by displaying your research poster online. You will gain useful experience in creating a poster for a non-specialist audience and when the competition is finished your posters can be used at networking events, conferences and displayed in your department.

The Library team will also be in touch once the competition has ended to request your permission to include your entry on ORO, the Open University's research repository. This is an Open Access repository, and as such can be a great platform for letting your work reach a wider audience. Another benefit of having your work in ORO is that you would receive a digital object identifier (DOI), which gives you a permanent, citeable web link to help you to get recognition for your work.

If you require any further information please contact academic-professional-development@open.ac.uk

"Community Choice" Voting

Researcher students taking part in the People's Choice (on-line) competition can upload their entries (poster or multimedia presentation) to this website, where members of the Open University community will be able to vote for the poster and/or presentation they believe to be the most engaging.

Online voting is now closed; view the results of the Peoples' Choice Poster vote and Peoples' Choice Multimedia vote.

View the results of the peoples' vote.