How to present a successful
3-Minute Research Pitch

 

A three-minute pitch is not a conference talk - it’s your chance to spark curiosity and present your research in a memorable way. Keep it punchy, clear, and engaging. Follow these golden rules:

• Keep to a few slides (max 2-3 slides) They should support your words, not replace them. Keep slides simple and uncrowded. A slide crammed with data and lots of small text is too much to take in.
• Keep your message as simple as possible. Think: what is your research question?; why is it important?; how do you investigate it and what have you learnt
• Assume your audience is intelligent, but not an expert in your field. A dementia researcher won’t necessarily know the details of brain-computer interfaces. A geneticist might not be familiar with deep learning in imaging. You are the expert and only you know your research project.!
• Use abbreviations wisely and avoid jargon. If you say “We used DTI to find differences in AD and PD”, many people will not understand. Instead, say “Using brain imaging, we found changes in the brain structure of people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease.”
• Make it relatable. Instead of “Our model improves disease prediction by 12%”, say “Our method can help doctors diagnose dementia earlier, using everyday medical records.”
• Tell a story. Instead of listing findings, take the audience on a “journey” from set the problem, the challenge and your key discovery. If you study childhood adversity and mental health, start with: “Why do some children who experience trauma develop depression, while others don’t?”
• Give an AI alert! Highlight if AI plays a role in your research. Did it predict dementia risk from GP records? Help analyse brain scans? Speed up large- scale data analysis? Make its impact clear.
• Talk, don’t read. Your slide is not a script. If you read a dense paragraph aloud, people will stop listening. Speak naturally and engage them.
• End with clarity. Instead of trailing off with “...so yeah, that’s it”, leave the audience with one strong takeaway. For example: “This study suggests that differences in dopamine function in 22q11.2 deletion carriers may explain their increased risk of schizophrenia”.
• Practice on a non-expert. If a neuroscientist from another field ̶ or even a smart friend ̶ can’t summarise your pitch in one sentence, you need to simplify it further.

And most importantly: be creative! Feel free to experiment with the format ̶ use a question, a short demo, or a surprising fact to make your pitch stand out. This is a safe space to test new ideas, so have fun with it!

Deadline submission: 12 March 2025, secr-mhens@maastrichtuniversity.nl