Thesis work. The doctoral candidate acknowledges that his/her research work is a full-time activity.
Thesis work. Each Institution will nominate a supervisor for each doctorate student enrolled in the PhD‐DDP. Supervisors hire themselves to fully exert their supervising role over the student. The assessment of the three‐year thesis work activities makes reference to a common baseline of 180 ECTS (TU Wien) = 180 CFU (UNIMORE) according to each Institution’s internal rules. The student activity will be subject to evaluations according to the rules of the Institutions. The preparation of the thesis will take place alternately at UNIMORE and TU Wien in one or more Work Periods for a minimum of 12 months to a maximum of 18 months at each institution. A modulation in the length of these periods has to be duly authorized by both parties depending on practical exigencies or scientific opportunities resulting from work progress. During these periods exchange students will have the rights of regular doctoral students of the host Institution.
Thesis work. AN INTRODUCTION
Thesis work. TIMELINE OVERVIEW * *exact timing is subject to change on a yearly basis ● November Academic year 1: o Partners of the IMBRSea network are invited to send updated research lines in which they would like to receive thesis students to the IMBRSea coordination office (see section 3). o Thesis research lines are checked and approved by the programme board and bundled in a Thesis Research-line catalogue. ● January Academic year 1: o The Thesis Research-line catalogue is provided to the students which enables them to find a thesis topic that matches their interest. Students will contact potential thesis supervisors and negotiate a topic. ● May/June Academic year 1: o Students submit a thesis project to the coordination office making use of an electronic form available on the electronic thesis platform (Matix -xxx.xxxxxx.xxxxx.xx) . Thesis project descriptions include a title, an abstract, a work plan, contact details of supervisor and promoter and an agreement of the promoter to welcome the student for the particular thesis subject. o Students can submit thesis topics at a non-IMBRSea partner, only after approval by the IMBRSea programme board. Therefore, students have to contact the IMBRSea coordination office before May of year 1, in order to discuss the feasibility of the topic, the partner, and other potential issues. ● June Academic year 1: o Research projects are checked and during the programme board organized during the annual symposium. Projects can be approved, rejected or conditionally approved. In the last cases students will get time until end of August to formulate a new project or to improve the original topic. o During the annual symposium, students prepare one slide introducing their proposed thesis subject. The aim of the slides is to inform fellow students about the different topics that will be studied and to give them the chance to discuss and interact (for instance about techniques that will be used during the thesis work).
Thesis work. In the 4th semester, each student must work on and complete a Master thesis, which will draw upon and further specialize on subjects covered in the SMACCs programme courses. The Master thesis topics are presented to the students at the end of the first semester of courses, where all Master thesis topics are placed in a common pool upon agreement among the 4 programme Universities in collaboration with the Associated Partners. Some additional topics can nevertheless be added during the second semester, in order to include topics from industrials partners and/or proposed by the students which may come later. All students must select their thesis topic by the 15th of April of the first academic year. The SMACCs Executive Committee can allow students to change their topic within their 2nd semester of study upon submission of a request by the student including a justification for the change. Thesis topic selection: Each student will choose at least 5 thesis topics, in order of preference. At least two of these five choices must concern a topic mainly supervised by the university of their second semester. The student is also free, among the five thesis choices, to propose a topic on his/her own initiative, helped by the local coordinator of the university in which he/she wants to prepare the thesis. The academic suitability of the proposal will then be evaluated by the SMACCS consortium. The SMACCs consortium communicates the thesis topics attribution to the students by the 15th of May of the first Academic year. In case two or more students select the same thesis topic/internship place and there is only one place available, then purely meritocratic criteria will be applied, based on students’ GPAs of the 1st Semester. Once the students have been assigned their thesis topic, they are allocated (if it is not already the case) a thesis supervisor from one of the four programme Universities proposing the thesis topic, and possibly a co-supervisor from either one of the other three partner institutions or an Associated Partner/Research Institute/Industrial partner related with the thesis project. Thesis proposal: At the end of their first year of studies, during the exam session or during the summer school taking place in July, students present a tentative research proposal for their Master thesis in English, which counts for 3 ECTS credits out of the 30 credits allocated to the Master Thesis. This research proposal shall contain for instance the objective of the wo...
