‘Research Images as Art / Art Images as Research’

Cross-Disciplinary Competition 2020

The Doctoral School would like to thank everyone for entering our competition.

This year we had 305 images entered. From this poll, the judges selected about 100 images and then, from this selection, the overall winners. As usual we had an extraordinary range of beautiful and interesting images.

Many congratulations to the winners!

Regrettably, we did not hold the research images exhibition in person in 2020. This decision was made owing to the coronavirus restrictions that are still in place. The top images of the competition are presented in an online gallery.

We plan to hold the next Research as Art competition in the new academic year either online or in person and we are looking forward to seeing more great images from our entrants.

This year has been unusual in many ways and having to hold the Research Images Competition online was no exception – it was just one of the many in-person events which sadly had to be cancelled this year. However, despite this, I believe we still managed to have as high a quality and diverse a result as ever, and seeing the collection of winners online now, I am very pleased with the vast range in both the style of art and the research areas captured. Along with the rest of the judging panel, I was asked to initially review the images alone – I ended up doing this on my sofa, under a blanket, glass of wine in hand, images projected from my widescreen TV – the ‘new normal’ for a Friday night. I think the fact that I had not seen much besides my own four walls for quite some time made seeing these extraordinary images from across the world even more inspiring than they would have been otherwise. It was such an honour to be given the opportunity by all the contestants to view these pieces of work and also to eventually be able to come together with the other judges (over Teams!) and discuss them. A big thank you to all who participated – you truly brightened my lockdown experience and I hope others continue to benefit now that the top 100 images are online!

— Elizabeth Halton, Doctoral School, member of the judging panel