Music video about the power of synchronisation awarded in the Social Sciences category.
For the 17th time this year, the renowned American science magazine Science has awarded the Dance Your PhD prizes and honoured videos that present complex dissertation topics through dance. The winner in the Social Sciences category is Manisha Biswas, who is currently doing her doctorate at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s graduate school, the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. In her video, she dances together with others on the topic of her doctoral thesis ’The Powerful Outcomes of Collective Synchrony’. She examines how movements that take place in sync with others contribute to identity formation and how collective movements can lead to individuals perceiving themselves differently.In her video, Manisha Biswas shows several examples of movement-based rituals and group dynamics that exist in every society, whether in dancing, sport or overcoming challenges in a group. Explaining dissertation topics in a simple and understandable way is a challenge, explains Manisha Biswas. "But if we can’t explain it, we haven’t finished the job. ’Dance Your PhD’ is a brilliant competition because it challenges researchers to communicate in ways that move people-literally. It’s a reminder that every new way of sharing knowledge brings us closer to a more curious and informed public."
