Lund University’s Luís Oliveira takes home top honor at Researcher’s Grand Prix

This year’s Researcher’s Grand Prix was won by Luís Oliveira from Lund University. In Sweden’s largest science communication competition for researchers, finalists are judged by the audience and an expert jury on the simplicity, engagement, and clarity of their presentations.

It was an emotional rollercoaster, and I was delighted to share my research with a wider audience.” 

Luís Oliveira, cancer researcher

Communicating complex research in an accessible and exciting way is a challenge for most scientists. The Researcher’s Grand Prix pushes this challenge to the limit: participants have just four minutes to present their research.

Luís Oliveira, a PhD student at the Stem Cell Centre at Lund University, described his research as a battle between good and evil, where he works to “hack” cancer cells and turn them into something benign. After the competition, he was inundated with questions from upper secondary school students in the audience.

“Talking with the students afterwards was the absolute highlight. As a researcher, I’m not used to that kind of interest. It gave me a chance to show that research can be cool and, hopefully, to inspire others to become researchers.”

The competition was held on Tuesday 26 November at the Filadelfia Convention Center in Stockholm. The expert jury consisted of comedian and actor Ahmed Berhan; Expressen science commentator Amina Manzoor; and Nina Wormbs, Professor of History of Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The event was hosted by comedian Josefin Johansson.

“I really liked how you use metaphors. As researchers, it’s often helpful to translate one concept into another. It aids understanding, but it also helps us see where things differ from what we imagined, leading to new questions,” said jury member Nina Wormbs, commenting on the winning presentation.

Second place went to Erik Andersson from the Karolinska Institute, whose research explores methods for managing obsessive thoughts. Daniel Mensah from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences took third place with a presentation comparing forest research to floorball, a popular indoor hockey sport in Sweden.

The final was attended by over 500 people in person, with an additional 100 viewers watching the livestream.