News & Achievements

Students Successful at World Debating Championships

(8 February 2013)

Ben Dory, Simon Tuncliffe and Elise Trewick attended the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC). The WUDC is the world's largest debating tournament, and one of the largest annual international student events in the world.

It is a parliamentary debating event, held using the British Parliamentary Debate format. Motions are provided 15 minutes before the debate, the side of the debate teams have to speak on is randomly allocated, and each debate involves 4 teams competing against each other. This year it was hosted by the Berlin Debating Union. There were 387 teams, from 82 different countries. It took place from Dec 27 2012 to Jan 4th 2013. Responsibility for organising the training and competitions programme in Durham is done by the Durham Union Society. As a result of this effort, Durham as an institution is now 11th in the world for debating: http://idebate.org.uk/rankings/rankings/

Durham A: Benjamin Dory (Cuth's/English Literature) and Simon Tunnicliffe (Cuth's/Politics and Economics).

Durham B: Elise Trewick (Cuth's/Politics) and Edward Hauschild (Johns/Law)

Durham C: Joe Mayes (Collingwood/PPE) and Jess Redmond (Mary's/PPE)