The University of Saskatchewan community continues to showcase its research, scholarly and artistic work through images, demonstrating that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

Images of Research is a photography and imaging competition hosted by the office of the vice-president research and inspired by Thomas Onion, an employee of the office. The competition is the first of its kind in Canada, being the first university-wide research images competition.

The event gives U of S students, staff, faculty and alumni the opportunity to share their ground-breaking research and consists of four research categories: From the Field, More than Meets the Eye, Community and Impact and Research in Action. Two additional categories include Viewer’s Choice and, new this year, Best Description.   

Kathryn Warden, research profile and impact director for the vice-president research office shares how this competition helps people throughout campus learn about the interesting and diverse research taking place across Canada.

The vision of the office is to establish the U of S as one of the top 10 medical-doctoral universities in Canada over the next 10 years “I think it’s so wonderful to see all the different types of research that we’re doing on this campus. We are doing some amazing work that includes the faculty, the students who are graduate students or undergraduate students. Our work is not just important and impactful, but it’s also, in a sense, interesting and exciting, and so this fits with this goal that we have about promoting ‘knowledge is beautiful,’” Warden said.

Interested students can submit their photos from Mar. 24 to Apr. 7. The image should be accompanied by a clearly-written description consisting of 120 words, free of jargon.

Prizes for the runner-up to the grand winner range from $200 to $500. For each individual, only one photo will be accepted in each category. Afterwards, the winners will be selected by a panel of judges consisting of one faculty, one student and one communications representative, excluding the Viewer’s Choice category, which will be determined by public online voting from Apr. 11-20. Winners will be announced in late April or early May.

The first competition was held in 2015 with nearly 90 submissions and almost 50 countries voting online for their favourites. According to Warden, the competition was so successful, it has inspired other institutions to follow suit.

“Other Canadian universities are following our lead: for instance, McMaster [University] is just finishing up its first competition and telling its researchers to look at our winning photos for inspiration,” Warden said.

Ranjan Datta, doctoral student in the school of environment and sustainability, was the winner of three different prizes in the inaugural competition last year and sees Images of Research as a form of action and inspiration.

“When I joined, I was not expecting that I will win, but even if I join, it’s kind of informing people and also my community of what kind of work that I am doing … I see it’s an inspiration, learning and motivational space for researchers, participants, community and also students, faculty, for many people,” Datta said.

Datta encourages all U of S students, faculty, staff and alumni to take part in the competition.

“Showing your passion — what you have done, what you want to do. It is not necessary that you have to win but participate. Create a networking space. Let me know what you are doing. I would like to know what you are doing and you care to have an interest in what I’m doing so that we are connected. We are not disconnected. We want a community that we know each other,” Datta said.

Warden adds that the competition is just one of many ways to show that U of S researchers are engaged in unique and intriguing projects on campus

“I would encourage all students who feel that they are doing interesting work to let my unit know about that because there are ways that we can profile their work.”

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Jaline Broqueza

Photo: Ranjan Datta / Supplied