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Are you the next 3MT South Africa winner?

15 July 2021 | Story Lunga Luthuli

The Three-Minute Thesis Competition, also known as the ‘3MT’, is an annual competition held at 200 universities around the world. It is open to PhD and master’s students, challenging participants to present their research in just 180 seconds – in a way that is understood by an audience with no background in the research area.

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The competition originated at the University of Queensland, Australia. The UFS Postgraduate School was the first to bring the ‘Three-Minute Thesis’ (3MT) competition to Africa, and it has now become an annual event at the UFS.

The competition aims to assist participants in the development of presentation, research, and academic communication skills, as well as to support the development of research students.

Each faculty will run the 3MT at faculty level. Winners from each faculty will compete against each other during the institutional competition on 1 October 2021 and will stand a chance to win these awesome cash prizes.

UFS INSTITUTIONAL PRIZES FOR 2021 ARE:

Position	Prizes 2021
Master’s winner	R6 000
Master’s 1^st runner-up	R4 000
Master’s 2^nd runner-up	R2 000
PhD winner	R8 000
PhD 1^st runner-up	R6 000
PhD 2^nd runner-up	R4 000

Winners of the institutional competition will go ahead to compete against other universities on 29 October 2021.

News Archive

Community engagement must be a core function of universities

2009-05-21

Members of the NatCEMF Steering Committee are, from the left: Mr Jerome Slamat, Senior Director: Community Interaction, Stellenbosch University, Ms Beatrix Bouwman, Manager: Community Engagement, North-West University, Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chief Director: Community Service, UFS and chairperson of the committee, Prof. Allan Femi Lana, Director: Institute for Rural Development and Community Engagement, Mangosuthu University of Technology, Prof. Seth Pollack, Fulbright Scholar, University of Western Cape (guest speaker at the meeting), Prof. Denver Hendricks, Director: Community Engagement, University of Pretoria, and Prof. Priscilla Daniels, Chairperson: Human Ecology and Research and CHESP Research Coordinator, University of the Western Cape.
Photo: Lacea Loader

It is important that all tertiary institutions in South Africa should work together and commit themselves to advance the cause of community engagement in the country.

This was one of the main outcomes of the second meeting held by the National Community Engagement Manager’s Forum (NatCEMF) at the South Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein recently. The meeting was attended by 34 representatives of 16 higher education institutions in the country.

“I am astounded at the interest in this matter. The representatives are committed to make community engagement a core function of their institutions and we all agreed that we should get more involved in expanding this across all institutions. A need for a formal structure for us all to work together and have a more collective voice was also identified,” said Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chief Director: Community Service at the UFS and Chairperson of the NatCEMF Steering Committee.

“There is a growing need to expand and develop our engagement with communities – to share our experiences and best practices and to learn from each other. There are universities that are doing excellent work in this field and, by having a formal structure, we can do a lot more towards advancing community engagement,” said Rev Jaftha.

The meeting identified matters such as the coordination of higher education institutions’ involvement in community engagement, the facilitation of research about community engagement, promoting service learning as transformation, the establishment of a community engagement resource centre and the organisation of a national community engagement conference as some of its aims. A national steering committee was also elected.

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