Can you explain your PhD in a pub?
We have an idea for a new event, hopefully starting up in Nottingham in 2014.
Summary
Can you explain your PhD in a pub?
Format
A monthly event at which 3 local PhD student speakers, from any discipline from Art History to Quantum Mechanics, explain their work in a pub to the general public.
We also welcome Engineering Doctorates (EngDs), Doctorate in Education students (EdDs), etc. Basically – anyone doing any research that they would like to talk about!
The talks would be about 10 minutes long and would be followed by up to 20 minutes of (friendly!) Q&A.
The “friendly” aspect is important. This isn’t about bringing students into a “lion’s den” to be grilled about their studies. The audience, we hope, will be genuinely interested in hearing about a wide variety of academic areas.
The same event could also host post-docs.
What the students get out of it
A pint or two!
Plus public speaking and public engagement practice.
What the audience gets out of it
Something interesting to listen to on a Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday night.
Cost
We want to make this as cheap as possible. We’d get in touch with local universities for the students (so the travel costs will be low). And we would just have a whip-round to buy each of the speakers a pint or two. Perhaps, £1 into a pint glass passed around?
Next steps
The first step was to ensure that there is an audience that would be interested in this sort of event. From various Tweets and Facebook comments we’ve received, we think there is an audience for this sort of event.
The next step is to approach the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University to see if we can find some willing students! Contact Us!
And looking further ahead, we’d hope PubhD events start happening at various university towns and cities around the country.
Contact Us
If you are a PhD, EngD or EdD student, or post-doc (or involved in any research that you can talk about), and are interested in explaining your work to an interested audience in a pub in exchange for a pint or two, please contact us!
Follow @_PubhD
Image adapted from images created by Wiki Commons users Will Murray (Willscrlt) and Stannered.
Thanks to Xamonas Chegwé for the name: PubhD
PubhD 
I’d do it. But I think Nottingham has seen enough of me lately!
There’s always the latter half of next year, Jonny. And I’m sure you said you had some more research to do / people to interview – we’re waiting with anticipation!
This is simply brilliant! I want to live in the UK 🙂
Lisa – We have a friend in NYC who got excited and wants to start her own. I don’t know where you are but there are Interesting and Interested people EVERYWHERE!
Yes, you can set your own up!
You can read sciency event reports and interviews on the Notingham Science Blog :
http://nottinghamscience.blogspot.com/p/interviews.html http://nottinghamscience.blogspot.com/p/calendar-and-past-event-reports.html
And humanities event reports and interviews on the Building For The Future Blog :
http://bftfblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/more-stuff-here.html#14