The Big Think | 2023 Winners

Winners announced! 

Our Big Think Competition invites students across the UK to tackle one of our academics’ ‘big’, tutorial-style questions. The high standard of entries blew us all away with so many creative and clever responses! Our panel of tutors had a tough time choosing our prizewinners, but we are delighted to announce the winning entries…

First prize: Naheed Akbari (Medical Sciences)

Naheed answered the question ‘How does the environment influence our brain?’. Professor David Dupret praised Naheed’s thoughtful method of presentation, along with a strong conclusion and strong sections on polymorphism of alleles and physical exercise.

Second prize: Erin McGurk (Maths)

Erin answered the question ‘Can important decisions be made on the basis of mathematical models only?’. Dr Tom Crawford commented that Erin’s video was very engaging and used key examples to bring the discussion to life.

Subject Winners

Law

Law

Tanya answers the question ‘Is privacy dead? Should it be?’

Languages

Languages

Olivia answers the question ‘Does language influence society or society influence language?’.

Chemistry

Chemistry

Jacob answers the question ‘To what extent can Chemistry solve the greatest problems facing our times?’.

English

English

Eloise answers the questions ‘What can we learn from reading books whose attitudes we dislike?’.

E&M

Economics & Management

Srinivas answers the question ‘Are CEOs overpaid?’.

History

History

Faith answers the question ‘How can we retrieve the ideas of people who left no written records?’.

Politics

Politics

Fateha answers the question ‘If I have less money than you, am I less free than you?’.

Medical Sciences

Medical Sciences

George answers the question ‘How does the environment influence our brain?’.

Physics

Physics

Aanya answers the question ‘Will we ever discover extraterrestrial life?’.

Psychology

Psychology

Mariam answers the question ‘Is social media making us unhappy?’.

Earth Sciences

Earth Sciences

Evelyn answers the question ‘How unique is Earth as a habitable planet?’.

Engineering

Engineering

Alexandra answers the question ‘Are device longevity and repairability important when designing consumer electronics (eg. smartphones)?’.

Mathematics

Maths

Freya answers the question ‘Can important decisions be made on the basis of mathematical models only?’.

Runners-Up

We’re also delighted to have launched a new category for this year to mark the wealth of fantastic entries we received. We gave Special Commendations to the following Runners-Up:

A huge congratulations to all our winners, but also a massive thank you to all our entrants this year! Our tutors were thoroughly impressed and hope to see many of you at university (and maybe even at St Edmund Hall…) in the future.