In just four minutes, each participant will present their research in an easily understandable and relevant manner. They present their research in English and come from six universities in the European university alliance, FORTHEM.
It is the first time the alliance organises a final for PhD candidates, and the participants come from the University of Burgundy in France, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, University of Opole in Poland, University of Jyväskylä in Finland, University of Latvia in Riga and the University of Agder.
Learning and competing together
The two best research communicators from each university will gather in Kristiansand to learn more about communication and take part in a friendly competition. The participants were selected through individual finals at each of the universities during the autumn.
The final will be streamed from the student venue, BARE, and the audience is welcome to follow the competition live. At the other participating universities, colleagues, friends and supporters will gather to watch the broadcast together, vote and cheer for their candidates.
Here are this year's finalists:
From Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, comes Annika Djolai. She is part of the research group Evolutionary Genomics at the university's Institute for Organismic and Molecular Evolution. Her research focuses on sex and sex determination systems.
Elena Suárez Cronauer also comes from Mainz. She belongs to the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. Her research focuses on digital humanities and data feminism through 19th-century correspondences.
Wiktoria Grabalska og Robert Radziej come from the University of Opole, Poland. Grabalska is from the Institute of Law and will talk about sharenting and children's privacy. Radziej from the Doctoral School in linguistics will talk about media narratives and imagineries of Artificial Intelligence.
Anne Kristine Aase Ugland, nasjonal finale i Forsker Grand Prix
Photo: Stine Østby, Forskningsdagene
Annika Djolai, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Photo: Astrid Garth
Elena Suárez Cronauer, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Photo: Astrid Garth
Robert Radziej
Photo: Universitetet i Opole, Polen
Wiktoria Grabalska
Photo: Universitetet i Opole, Polen
French participant Houda Rafi from the University of Burgundy, France. She is pursuing a PhD in computer science. Rafi was one of this year’s contenders in the "My thesis in 180 seconds" competition organised in Bourgougne.
Alina Arti and Mari Koistinen come from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. Arti's research focuses on misinformation in the corporate realm, aiming to understand its impact on society and provide solutions to its threats.
Koistinen's topic is "Sing and get healthy!" Her research is about teaching singing in a group context and about well-being. She designed an intervention where she combined the fundamentals of singing which at the same time are the fundamentals of well-being.
Riga is where the University of Latvia is located. From there comes Imants Krēziņš, who has worked on measuring the efficiency of Business Incubator and Ineta Liepiņa, whose field of research is the ecology of cyanobacteria in the Gulf of Riga.
Local heroes
UiA's two participants are Anne Kristine Aase Ugland and Henrik Brådland. They were the top performers in the local final held in Kristiansand in September and represented UiA in this year's national final in Oslo.
Aase Ugland is pursuing her PhD at the Department of Psychosocial Health and is researching Youth Exclusion - among young people themselves and in institutional processes. Brådland works at Norkart and is doing an Industrial PhD at UiA's Department of ICT. He is looking at how artificial intelligence technology can simplify planning and construction work in Norwegian municipalities.