Doctoral School Competitions 2026
The Doctoral School is pleased to announce five annual competitions running this spring.
Entrants can participate in as many of the competitions as they want; we hope that everyone will find something that appeals to them.
The prize pool remains unchanged for each competition:
- First prize: £400
- £100 for runners up
– the number of runner up prizes will be decided based on the quality and number of entries.
We are also pleased to announce that the UCL Student Funding Office will be offering two additional prizes of 1 x £400 and 1 x £100 for entries from current recipients of the following UCL scholarships:
- UCL’s Research Excellence Scholarship (RES)
- Research Opportunity Scholarships (ROS)
- Graduate Research Scholarship (GRS)
- Overseas Research Scholarship (ORS)
- Cross Disciplinary Scholarship (GXD or RXD).
Entries to all Doctoral School competitions are included. Please note, the additional Student Funding Office prize is for one winner and one runner up chosen from across all 5 competitions.
All competitions have a single prize-giving ceremony. This will take place at the Competitions Showcase in June (date to be released shortly).
We look forward to seeing your entries.
Research Images as Art / Art Images as Research Competition
An annual competition open to all current UCL postgraduate researchers and staff, across disciplines. Entrants are invited to submit images associated with their research which have aesthetic appeal. The competition has been running since 2001 and is our most popular competition!
Deadline for entries: 17 April 2026
How To Enter →
Research Poster Competition
The annual Research Poster Competition encourages you to think more broadly about how your research fits into the wider world and how it might innovatively impact other research areas.
Conference posters can be repurposed and entered into this competition, however, they must be adapted for a wider audience, i.e. an academic lay audience. The judges reviewing your entry will not necessarily be experts in your research area.
Deadline for entries: 17 April 2026
How To Enter →
Blog Competition
The Blog Competition recognises researchers who use blogs to express their research ideas and journey to reach a wider/lay audience.
Blog submissions can be about your research or something more personal and/or funny relating to your experience as a researcher, like a research ‘failure’.
Deadline for entries: 17 April 2026
How To Enter →
Vlog Competition
The Vlog Competition celebrates research vlogging through social media platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and TikTok, and the researchers who use this form to present their research ideas and journey to a wider/lay audience.
Vlog submissions can be about your research or something more personal and/or funny relating to your experience as a researcher, like a research ‘failure’.
Deadline for entries: 17 April 2026
How To Enter →
Podcast Competition
The Podcast Competition is open to all doctoral researchers and post-doctorates/early career researchers and celebrates the ever growing popularity of podcasts and how researchers use this form to make their research and research journey more accessible to the general public.
Podcast submissions can be about your research or something more personal and/or funny relating to your experience as a researcher, like a research ‘failure’.
