A global pitch competition built on a simple bet: if you cannot say it in seven minutes, you do not understand it yet.
Three minutes is barely enough to set up a hypothesis. Eighteen minutes is too long for an audience that did not come to learn your field. Seven minutes is the sweet spot — long enough to lay out the problem, the mechanism, and the consequence, short enough that you have to cut everything that does not matter. It is the same constraint that makes great writing readable and great products useful: the discipline of doing less.
The extra four minutes versus a three-minute thesis teaser are not luxury. They are the space in which a founder can say how the thing works, and in which a researcher can show one number that is not a slogan. Ten minutes invites a second slide. Seven minutes still forbids it. That is the design.
7MT was founded in 2009 by doctoral students and early-stage founders who were tired of interesting work trapped behind impenetrable language. The first year ran across three universities and reached fewer than 200 people. The founders did not invent timed talks. They inherited a culture already forming around severe clocks and almost no slides — the same culture mapped on The Field. What they chose, rather than copied, was the length and the door: seven minutes, and a room that would let a builder in, not only a thesis candidate.
The one-slide, no-props rule is older than our name. It exists because decks become a second speaker, and props become theatre. The seven-minute clock is ours. We kept it because every time we tested eight or ten, speakers brought back a second visual. Every time we tested five, the mechanism vanished. The constraint is empirical, not mystical.
In 2025 the competition spanned 14 countries, 47 host institutions, and over 3,400 entrants. 2026 keeps eight live heats, two semifinals, and a November finale. Entry remains free.
Three Minute Thesis originated at the University of Queensland: research-degree candidates, three minutes, one static slide, no props. Falling Walls Lab is a three-minute pitch programme with local labs and a Berlin global finale around the Science Summit; public figures for 2025 include 2,750+ applicants, 82 labs, and 60 countries, with around 100 people reaching Berlin. MT180 is the Francophone three-minute thesis format. Startup stages such as TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield and LEAP Rocket Fuel are adjacent venture sports with decks and demos.
7MT is not a partner, licensee, or regional organiser of any of those programmes. We describe them because applicants ask, and because pretending we invented the clock would be dishonest. We differ on length (seven, not three), on eligibility (founders and independent builders, not thesis-only), and on geography (eight city heats, Shanghai finale). If Berlin in November is your goal, apply to Falling Walls Lab through their process. If a university 3MT is open, enter it. If you want this stage, apply here by 30 June 2026. Longer map: The Field.
7MT is operated by a small, independent non-profit governed by an academic and industry advisory board. Day-to-day production is run by volunteers from past finalist cohorts. The competition is funded by host-institution partnerships and a small set of long-term technology sponsors. We accept no submission fees. We do not take equity in prize companies.
If your university, lab, or company would like to host a regional heat or support the prize pool, write to partners@7mt.org. Brand rules: Resources.