Peter Akor, a PhD researcher at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), has won the Judges’ Choice Award and the People’s Choice Award at the 2026 Vitae Three Minute Thesis (3MT) national final, beating five other finalists from the universities of Oxford, Surrey, Reading and Westminster and King’s College London. The final was streamed on October 1 during Vitae’s International Researcher Development Conference, with results announced on October 5. Akor, who studies in GCU’s School of Science and Engineering, competed with a talk titled “The Minutes That Matter: Transforming Epileptic Seizure Care from Reaction to Prediction.”
His research looks at how technology and data could be used to predict epileptic seizures before they happen, with the aim of improving safety, treatment and quality of life for people living with epilepsy. The 3MT format is deliberately unforgiving: researchers get one slide and three minutes to explain their work to people outside their field. That is why winning both a panel of judges and a public vote matters, since it suggests the talk was both rigorous and clear to a general audience. The People’s Choice Award was decided by public vote, while Rachel Bernasconi of the University of Surrey took the Editor’s Choice Award, selected by The Conversation UK.
Two milestones come with the win, and they are worth reading carefully. GCU has never won the national 3MT final before; the university’s first national finalist, Williams Joshua, reached the final in 2023, so this is the institution’s first national title rather than its first appearance. Akor also says he is only the second researcher in the history of the Vitae competition to take both the Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice awards in the same final. That second claim comes from Akor, and this newsroom could not find a Vitae record confirming it, so it is best read as his account.
The prizes are modest but useful. The Judges’ Choice Award brings a £1,000 grant sponsored by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), mentorship from The Brilliant Club and an engraved trophy. The People’s Choice Award adds a £250 UKRI-sponsored grant, further mentorship and a second trophy. The money is designated for public engagement or professional development, and Akor plans to use it to organise two public events, one in the UK and one in Nigeria, subject to approval. Both would bring together researchers, medical professionals, AI enthusiasts, patients and carers to discuss how AI and research can help people living with neurological conditions manage daily life, and to showcase practical healthcare applications.
Akor’s path runs through Nigerian higher education. He graduated with First Class Honours in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 2012 from what is now Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, Makurdi (JOSTUM), formerly the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, and was named the best graduating student in the College of Engineering. He stayed on as a Graduate Assistant and rose to Lecturer, spending about nine years in academia before moving to the UK for his PhD. He is from Owukpa in Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State. He qualified for the national stage by winning the Judges’ Choice Award at GCU’s own 3MT final in June.
For Nigerian researchers watching from home, the useful detail is the trajectory: a teaching career in Nigeria, a move abroad for doctoral study, and a global audience won by explaining the work simply. If the planned Nigerian event goes ahead, it could also carry some of that benefit home, with patients and carers in the room alongside the researchers.
