Images of Research 2026
An exhibition of images that captures the true essence of our research community
Professor Jill Shawe and Dr Eva McGrath, 2025 winner of best photographic image: Research Staff category
Can you capture the essence of research in an eye-catching photographic image?
The University’s Doctoral College invites postgraduate research students and research staff to submit an eye-catching photographic image and interpretation for the Images of Research competition 2026.
The aim is to capture the true essence of their research through a powerful image, which will then be exhibited online, showcasing the quality and wide-ranging research taking place at the Ƶ.
Prizes will be awarded for:
- Best photographic image – Research Staff category and Postgraduate Research category
First place for each of the two categories will be awarded £150
Second place for each of the two categories will be awarded £100 - Best description of image – all images
First place will be awarded £100
Second place will be awarded £50
Eligibility requirements
- All Ƶ current postgraduate research students including: ResM/MPhil/PhD/Professional Doctorates are eligible to enter.
- All Ƶ research staff are eligible to enter.
Entry details
- You can enter as an individual or a group.
- Each entry must include a photographic image and 150-word description, which will be printed and displayed together on poster boards. Descriptions will explain your image to a public audience.
- An entry can include a single image or a collage of images.
- Up to 3 entries can be submitted from each individual or group.
- Photographic images must be your own original work and not previously published.
- Your photographic images will show, represent or convey the essence of your research.
- Your photographic images and description of images will be reviewed by the Doctoral College to confirm suitability and entry into the competition.
- Photographic images and descriptions will be selected to appear on the Ƶ web pages and other University communications.
How to enter
To be considered in the competition for 2026, entries must be received by 20 January 2026 and include:
- Your photographic image
- 150 word description
- Your name, and your School/department
- Confirmation of whether you're submitting for the Postgraduate Research Student or Research Staff category
- Confirmation of whether you're submitting as an individual or a group
For further information, please contact the Research Skills team at researchskills@plymouth.ac.uk.
Competition voting
Ƶ postgraduate research students and staff will be invited by email to vote for the 2026 Images of Research competition.
Voting will take place online between 23-29 March 2026.
You will be invited to vote for the following categories:
- Best photographic image – postgraduate research student
- Best photographic image – research staff
- Best description of image
2021
Winners: Best PGR Photo – Lolita Singh, Best research staff photo – Madison Milne-Ives, Best description – Stephanie Hartgen-Walker
2020
Winners: Best PGR photo – Charlie Cornforth, Best research staff photo – Sally Rangecroft, Best description – Christopher Thorpe
Images of Research 2020 gallery
1 / 44
Amani Alsaad
Creative approaches in psychotherapy including art, and how this could be a solution for some issues that arise within therapy sessions for multi-cultural Muslim clients receiving therapy in the UK.
2 / 44
Suparna Bagchi
With the proportion of BME population increasing in the UK, the question is how to integrate children belonging to ethnic minorities in the mainstream? I shall evaluate how a cross-cultural curriculum is a candidate for a solution.
3 / 44
Samantha Blampied
Observed during a survey of Jersey’s Marine Protected Areas, this disguised ray provides a perfect metaphor for the challenges scientists face in spotting the patterns in marine processes which drive the biodiversity in our seas.
4 / 44
Samantha Blampied
This series of images shows just a glimpse of the marine landscape within the protected areas around Jersey’s offshore reefs of which this common stingray (Dasyatis pastinaca) resides in.
5 / 44
James Bloor
Here at the Ƶ we have developed these Aerogels to adsorb toxic metals from water at a rate 10 times greater than traditional activated carbon and the Aerogel is fully biodegradable and biocompatible.
6 / 44
James Bloor
Here at the Ƶ we have developed these Aerogels to adsorb toxic metals from water at a rate 10 times greater than traditional activated carbon and the Aerogel is fully biodegradable and biocompatible.
7 / 44
Helen Bowstead
Using texts and images to map ebbs and flows, entangled becomings and space-time matterings, this project troubles traditional approaches to the doctoral thesis. Research is not what we do, but who we are.
8 / 44
Rosie Brave
As a postgraduate researcher and as a research fellow, I have combined honest assessment of the status quo with stimulating the imagination to explore how the design of health and wellbeing products could be more personalised.
9 / 44
Lisa Burrows
I helped set up, and continue to run a memory café in Cornwall. I was so struck by Betty’s words, I was inspired to find out more. Memory cafes provide a community based meeting place for people living with memory problems or dementia.
10 / 44
Catherine Coelho, Jane Collingwood and Daniel Zahra
Our research focuses on exploring the feasibility, impact, and applicability of 3D printing technology in the teaching of clinical skills, the ability to standardise assessments, and the transfer of these skills to real patients.
11 / 44
Charlie Cornforth
Utilizing practice-as-research and autoethnographic methodologies to investigate the formation of hegemonic masculinities.
12 / 44
Charlie Cornforth
Researching how ideal/hegemonic representations of masculinity influence men to engage in practices and subjects of hierarchy, violence, power, domination, control, stoicism and physical/emotional invulnerability.
13 / 44
Gail Flockhart
My practice-led arts research draws on subjective experience to investigate the performance of self and construction of identity in embodied and conceptual modes of self-representation.
14 / 44
Gail Flockhart
My practice-led arts research draws on subjective experience to investigate the performance of self and construction of identity in embodied and conceptual modes of self-representation.
15 / 44
Gail Flockhart
My practice-led arts research draws on subjective experience to investigate the performance of self and construction of identity in embodied and conceptual modes of self-representation.
16 / 44
Jon Gil-Ranedo
In my research, I use Drosophila melanogaster embryonic nervous system to identify new key NSC regulatory genes. In this model, the different NSC types are well known and recapitulate all the major properties of their mammal counterparts.
17 / 44
Katherine Gulliver
My PhD explores participatory and adaptable methodologies, which encourage children with special educational needs and or disabilities (SEN/D) to communicate their thoughts, feelings and ideas in their preferred style.
18 / 44
Sam Kemp
I’m interested in the ways in which the page can create a sense of place. My poetry values the space of the page as a play of textual and visual fragments and I wonder if zooming in on the minutiae of a place is akin to the act of writing a poem.
19 / 44
Benjamin O'Driscoll
Our research focuses on the application of graphene for biosensors paving the way for highly sensitive, rapid and straightforward diagnostic pre-screening sensors with the intention to alleviate strains on health services globally.
20 / 44
Liyam Laraba
This is a microscope image of the inner ear of a mouse taken at 630x the magnification of the naked eye. I use the inner ear of mice to model schwannoma, a type of brain tumour that forms on the auditory nerve in humans.
21 / 44
Llucia Mascorda Cabre
Beneath the ocean surface there is not only plastic and the effects of decades of damaging fishing techniques, there can also be hope. Hope in the form of a mussel farm.
22 / 44
Sabine Pahl, Isabel Richter and Joel Sumeldan
Understanding how coastal communities perceive the future is key to encouraging sustainable development. Sustainable development should, therefore, involve listening to local stories and learning about people’s hopes and fears.
23 / 44
Mary Pearson
The Irish Border. My research is investigating the landscape representation of this border region known locally as a ‘third country’. These inhabitants and region are often overlooked, yet have witnessed horrific violence.
24 / 44
Mary Pearson
Casual conversations are insightful portals to local feelings of the border issue. The free flowing water is a metaphor for the freedom of movement currently available between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
25 / 44
Mary Pearson
The Irish Border. This research investigates how this deeply contentious space has been a battle ground for differing Irish political, religious and cultural Irish identities through photography
26 / 44
Anne Plessis
I study how cereals can face harsh climatic conditions. This kind of research is essential to breed crops that can thrive in drier parts of the world, so that we can keep producing enough food to feed the growing population on our planet.
27 / 44
Anna Prince
The Fluency Trust residential course for teenagers who stammer integrates group speech and language therapy with outdoor activities like surfing and climbing.
28 / 44
Sally Rangecroft
Our current research at Plymouth (SIGMA Peru project) is studying tropical glaciers in Peru, and how their retreat could affect the water, food and energy security of mountain communities and those further downstream.
29 / 44
Sally Rangecroft
In our current research project, SIGMA Peru (Societal Impacts of Glacier Melt in the Andes, Peru), we are seeking to understand the challenges of current and future glacier retreat on water quality and quantity in the Rio Santa, Peru.
30 / 44
Madeleine Steer
Grytviken Harbour – October 2016 visit on board RRS James Clark Ross. An unexpected detour on route to the Falklands during a research cruise.
31 / 44
Isabel Richter
This photograph depicts the tragedy under water caused by blast fishing: damaged reefs, coral rubble and a lack of sea life. Researchers from Plymouth collaborate with institutions to build capacity for sustainable interactions with marine ecosystems.
32 / 44
Adam Rees
Scientific monitoring of the European Lobster is being undertaken in the Isles of Scilly supported by the Isles of Scilly Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority to gather evidence from one of the UK’s most biodiverse areas.
33 / 44
Laura Rodriguez Diaz
My PhD focuses on how healthy stem cells transform into tumourigenic cells that drive the formation of tumours. The picture shows a cancer stem cell derived from the brain tumour of a patient, reprogrammed to transform into a healthy glial cell.
34 / 44
Sally Rangecroft
My research focuses on glacier retreat in the South American Andes and the implication on water resources. This photograph shows alpacas in the mountainous region of the Cordillera Real, Bolivia, at around 5,000 meters above sea level.
35 / 44
Thomas Stamp
In an effort to help conserve European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and in collaboration with the local fisheries authority (D&S IFCA), Ƶ scientists have implanted electronic tags within 150 seabass.
36 / 44
Madeleine Steer
RRS James Clark Ross October 2016. A 7 week journey due south, 800 miles, 100 degrees of latitude. You know you are heading into the infamous “roaring forties” when the Albatross arrive.
37 / 44
Madeleine Steer
November 2015 – 12 hour shift sampling the ocean for microplastics off Plymouth. Bitterly cold but treated to the most amazing sunset. Glinting off the water that we are sampling for this hidden pollutant.
38 / 44
Christopher Stokes, Gerd Masselink and Tim Poate
Sea level rise influences the rate of coastal erosion, and the degree of wave overtopping that happens along our coast, and small changes in sea level can dramatically increase both of these coastal hazards.
39 / 44
Christopher John Thorpe
Our UK/Indian collaborative project investigates both the biological restrictions to freshwater crab aquaculture and the socio-economic viability of the venture.
40 / 44
Ellen Tully
My research specifically focuses on the effect of elevated temperature on the survival and physiology of marine embryos in the hope of contributing to our knowledge of the impacts of climate change on marine life.
41 / 44
Emily Vernon
I was provided the opportunity to visit Pripyat, Ukraine during my PhD which focused on environmental radioactivity.
42 / 44
Jie Yan
The increasing exposure of food images led to the impact of ‘visual hunger’ and ‘digital satiation’. By using grounded theory and image analysis, the genera visual characteristics are hoped to link with the particular food perceptions.
43 / 44
Jie Yan
By finding the differences of food perception from horizontal and vertical plating, a perpendicular plate was designed.
44 / 44
Kazuyoshi Yoshida
My project is to create an image of a sustainable community, and it is also everyone’s responsibility to join me. So let’s start by imagining together because the world will surely change someday.
2019
Winners: Best PGR photo – João Alhada Lourenço, Best research staff photo – Professor Rupert Jones, Best description – Jonathan Rhodes
Images of Research 2019 gallery
1 / 10
Oliver Billson – 'Last light'
My research encompasses the impact of storms on our coastlines. This photo was taken at Droskyn headland, Perranporth at last light following a period of high winds. A break in the weather produced this stunning combination.
2 / 10
Gail Flockhart – 'Self-portrait of a Previous Selfie'
In an age of perfectionism with increasing pressure to be ‘liked’, my research uses diverse forms of photographic media to investigate how the curation and comparison of ideal versions of oneself impact on acceptance of the real, unedited self.
3 / 10
Russell Evans – 'Cardiff council estate'
I am writing a book about a murder case involving a teenager I knew growing up on a Cardiff council estate. It describes the difficult lives of the families involved but is also filtered through the skewing of time as it affects how we perceive the truth.
4 / 10
Claudia Pilsl – 'Digital Porosity: 10 Downing Street/ Destruction in Aleppo'
In my PhD I focus on the effects of digital porosity on photography. Digital porosity is an effect of the current internet and impacts on how context and chronological order of an events are perceived by enabling disjunctions between time and space.
5 / 10
Sarah Kappel – 'Emotion-driven attention'
When capturing an image of a person, we ask them to focus their attention on the camera, a mental process of selectively focusing on a task whilst ignoring irrelevant stimuli. I am investigating if similar emotion-driven attention biases exist in horses.
6 / 10
Professor Rupert Jones – 'FRESH AIR'
Our research programme FRESH AIR looks into prevention and management of chronic lung disease in global settings. This photo is in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan where we investigated smoke exposure from yak dung fires in people who spent 9 months in yurts.
7 / 10
Dr Daniel Zahra – 'Friends and Colleagues'
The real essence of research is in the people. It’s moments like these, discussing work in a new café, in a new city, after a conference, when you realise how lucky you are being able to call these people friends as well as colleagues.
8 / 10
Rosie Brave – 'Prosthetic'
Realism is the long-held standard in prosthetic breasts, despite a broadening of styles in other prosthetics. I am working with women to design alternative, non-realistic prostheses that they will enjoy wearing because they are beautiful and comfortable.
9 / 10
João Alhada Lourenço
Our eyes are a vital part of our being, are the doorway to our soul, our feelings and emotions. My research aims to improve and develop efficient ways of screening and monitoring age-related macular degeneration, hoping to impact wellbeing for good.
10 / 10
John Tredinnick Rowe – 'Northern Europe in winter'
It is undeniable that working during the winter in Northern Europe and the Arctic region results in a particular aesthetics in the visual materials produced, colouring the way in which the images are captured, and framed.
2018
Competition winners: Best image – Frazer Underwood. Best description of image – Helen Bowstead.
Images of Research 2018 gallery
1 / 30
Magda Kechagia – Perceptions of shale gas fracking in local host communities in the UK.
Strong negative feelings of residents living in proximity to the proposed Roseacre Wood site near Preston, Lancashire.
2 / 30
Rebecca Francis – It’s funny what you find on your desk as a PhD student.
Chirona hameri barnacle samples. These barnacles pose a potential issue for marine energy devices, impacting on their ability to generate electricity and to survive the harsh marine environment over a long period of time.
3 / 30
Helen Bowstead – Disposable bodies. Athens is a city where rubbish collects on corners. Black bags, split open by feral cat claws, spew forth their contents.
The filthy streets are punctuated by human ‘nests’. Sometimes occupied. Often not. I only photograph the empty ones. Enough has been taken already.
4 / 30
Emma Wise took this photograph in Kenema, Sierra Leone, during the recent Ebola virus outbreak.
The image shows a local man making his way down the Moa River in a boat, against the backdrop of the forest.
5 / 30
Emily Churchill – how do changing food sources, temperatures and ranges impact the amount of effort a fruit fly is willing to put in to find and attract a mate?
This is tested by measuring behaviours, the amount of sperm and eggs produced and how well babies survive. This image shows sperm produced by one of the male fruit flies.
6 / 30
Victoria Buswell – Bringing back black bees.
Investigating the genomic and phenotypic basis of local adaptation in the black honey bee.
7 / 30
A photograph of George Shelton on his paddleboarding trip across the English Channel, undertaken with his brother Freddie.
George is examining effortful fundraising experiences as part of his PhD.
8 / 30
Felicity Wynne – Studying the pathogens ‘chytrid’ and Ranavirus in Costa Rican amphibians.
Around the world new diseases are emerging and wildlife is declining. Amphibians – frogs and toads, newts and salamanders, and caecilians – are dramatically disappearing.
9 / 30
Image by Rebecca Francis
A pile of Laminaria digitata kelp. These samples were used in mechanical material testing to aid the process of modelling these kelps with man-made materials. The models are used in lab tests to assess their impact on wave energy devices.
10 / 30
A casque-headed lizard by Felicity Wynne
Felicity's PhD focuses on emerging diseases of wildlife. In particular, two amphibian/reptile diseases that are fatal and have caused population declines. Her field sites are in Costa Rica, where many species have become extinct due to disease.
11 / 30
Christopher John Thorpe – Sky Islands in the hills of the northern Western Ghats, India, local field assistant.
Comparing the amphibians, water beetles and ants that inhabit these island like hilltops in one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots.
12 / 30
George and Freddie Shelton taken during their paddleboarding trip across the English Channel, just after the busy shipping lanes.
George is examining effortful fundraising experiences as part of his PhD.
13 / 30
Duncan Cameron – 'Table top discussions with my PhD supervisors about collection and memory'.
As an artist I will develop my ideas in a continuous stream of sketchbook journals as I make notes, draw and experiment with materials and methodologies.
14 / 30
La Sainte Trinité (2016) is a practice research performance by PhD Performing Arts student Natalie Raven which premiered at SPILL Festival of Performance in Ipswich UK.
Image Siobhan Mckeown.
15 / 30
Andy Jones' research involved looking at ‘speciality’ milk products in the UK, meaning milk produced using methods that could be seen as unconventional.
Pictured is the Dorset based Open Air Dairy at milking time.
16 / 30
Frazer Underwood – Fear: a phenomenological theme of confidence, experienced by older people living with frailty.
His research now hopes to expose this hidden life-world, and give hope…
17 / 30
Magda Kechagia – Perceptions of shale gas fracking in local host communities in the UK.
An ongoing protest taking place in October 2017 by local action groups at the entrance of Kirby Misperton fracking site in North Yorkshire.
18 / 30
Kate Paxman – The problem of being the problem. how can artists bear witness through creative practice and record our precarious present, while there is a concurrent becoming aware that doing so can mean adding to the problem?
Sea caves which lie in Torbay’s Marine Conservation Zone.
19 / 30
Ishaka Shitu – The role of port in crude oil export logistics system distribution in Nigeria.
Ishaka on a visit to an oil export terminal in Nigeria.
20 / 30
Leonie Boland – The paradox of home – moving on from homelessness….
This photograph was taken by a participant in Leonie's research study and represents mixed emotions about a new home.
21 / 30
Luisa Greenfield – retracing the paths taken in the driving scenes of the Daniéle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub 1972 film Geschichtsunterricht.
By filming with the same Éclair camera as Huillet and Straub, with myself as researcher driving the most widely used car in Rome in the early 1970’s, and by using direct sound, the experience blurs timeframes.
22 / 30
Emily Churchill is using thousands of fruit flies to try and figure out how changing food sources, temperatures and ranges impact the amount of effort a fruit fly is willing to put in to find and attract a mate.
This image shows the (now working) incubator that I will use to change the temperature that the flies are experiencing.
23 / 30
Laurie Reynolds' research sets out to define Anorganic, an idea that Deleuze and Guattari employ within a Thousand Plateaus.
Process 12 – Copper mines in Devon, where the film is subjected to extraction process of the mine and prolonged exposure to the plates and environment.
24 / 30
Katherine Turner – Dementia Friendly Flying: Understanding barriers and facilitators for people with dementia to improve their participation in air travel.
Photo illustrates the isolation and confusion that people with dementia can experience within an airport environment.
25 / 30
Duncan Cameron – Studio space with work in progress, artwork exploring location, collection and memory.
As an artist it is easy to spend too much time looking inwards but without engaging with critical dialogue ideas can remain unchallenged and artwork undeveloped and worse, unseen.
26 / 30
Francesca Prando – Under the microscope, with the aid of a red filter, minerals come to life and display colourful patterns.
The relationship between the mineral shapes help us geologists to understand the history of the rock we are looking at.
27 / 30
Natalie Raven – #metoo was presented as part of the Ƶ’s Performance.Experience.Presence. research seminar series, November 2017.
Image by Steven Paige.
28 / 30
Katie McBride's entry for the 2018 Images of research competition represents her research into the plethora of harms experienced by transgender individuals which are associated with gender identity.
29 / 30
Natalie Raven – How does it feel to dance, freely without restriction and restraint?
The Ties That Bind forms part of a series of practice research experiments which took place during an artistic residency at Black Mountain School, North Carolina USA in June 2016.
30 / 30
Trevor Grigg's research looks into a radical new approach to pest control, with targeted chemical insecticides that target specified pests.
This confocal microscope image (600x) shows uptake by some insect cells of a fluorescently labelled cell-penetrating peptide.
Doctoral College
Find out more about the Doctoral College and the support it offers students, supervisors and examiners of postgraduate research at the Ƶ.
