Clarendon Hosts Inaugural Academic Excellence Summit at St John’s College, Oxford

On 28 April 2026, Clarendon Scholars partnered with St John’s College to deliver the first-ever Clarendon–St John’s Academic Excellence Summit, an evening dedicated to celebrating postgraduate research, creativity, and public engagement at the University of Oxford.

Held at St John’s College and attended by more than 130 guests, the summit transformed academic research into a live public experience. The programme featured rapid-fire Three-Minute Thesis presentations, TED-style talks, creative performances, audience voting, and an awards ceremony recognising exceptional communication and originality across disciplines.

The event brought together postgraduate researchers from a wide range of academic backgrounds, demonstrating the diversity of scholarship within the Clarendon community and across Oxford more broadly. Presentations explored topics spanning literature, chemistry, geopolitics, environmental research, and the arts, all delivered in formats designed to make complex ideas engaging and accessible to a broad audience.

Opening the evening, St John’s Vice-President Professor Philip Maini reflected on the importance of creating spaces where postgraduate researchers can share ideas across disciplines while developing new ways of communicating their work beyond academia.

Among the evening’s award recipients was Clarendon Scholar Vida Long, who won the Three-Minute Thesis Prize for The Slippery Beast of Aotearoa New Zealand Literature, a presentation that combined literary analysis with clarity, precision, and wit.

The summit also celebrated outstanding contributions from St John’s students. Jen DeNike (DPhil Fine Art) received the Creative Scholarship Prize for Moon River, an interdisciplinary live performance blending music and artistic reflection, while Nick Parek (DPhil Chemistry) was awarded both the TED-Style Talk Prize and the Audience Choice Award for his presentation exploring Rwanda’s “Land of a Thousand Hills”.

Beyond the prizes themselves, the evening highlighted a broader ambition: to showcase research not only as rigorous scholarship, but also as something capable of inspiring curiosity, dialogue, and public connection. By combining academic presentations with performance and audience participation, the summit created an atmosphere that was intellectually ambitious while remaining energetic, accessible, and collaborative.

The evening concluded with a formal dinner in Hall, followed by drinks at the Lamb and Flag, allowing attendees to continue conversations across colleges and disciplines in a more informal setting.

The summit was organised jointly by Clarendon Scholars and members of the St John’s MCR, with special thanks to Clarendon Scholars Charden Pouo Moutsouka and Sophia Andresen, alongside Magdalena Blincoe-Deval of St John’s College, for leading the initiative.

As the inaugural edition of what organisers hope will become an annual tradition, the Clarendon–St John’s Academic Excellence Summit marked an exciting new platform for celebrating postgraduate scholarship and intellectual community at Oxford.