MSc Research Proposal

As an MSc student, you will be expected to submit a research proposal, based on experimental or theoretical study. The work may be part of a larger project, or an independent one. The scope and subject of your research must be determined in consultation with your advisor. It is possible to include preliminary results in your proposal.

Deadline for your Research Proposal

Your proposal must be submitted to the Feinberg Graduate School, before the end of your first academic year, for the approval procedures. 

Current information concerning the deadline for the submission of your research proposal is available online.

If necessary, you may file a fully detailed request with the Board of Studies to postpone submission of your Research Proposal.

Submitting Your Research Proposal

Your research proposal must be submitted as a PDF file via the online uploading service.

Declaration of specific contributions - for Life Science 

Starting 1/05/2023, All MSc progress reports, Research Proposal and Thesis submitted to the FGS must include a section in the form of a table, after the Abstract, titled ‘Declaration of specific contributions:’.

In this table the student has to declare who collected the experimental data presented and who analyzed it for each table and figure. If this information varies at the level of individual panels, it further needs to be provided on the panel level.

The students are encouraged to include this specific information also at the bottom of each table/figure legend. In the case that ALL the data were both produced and analyzed solely by the student, the aforesaid table can be replaced by a brief statement.

Note that reports will not be approved without including the information mentioned above or if it is only partial.

An example table

Note that reports will not be approved without including the information mentioned above or if it is only partial.

1) Declaration
The student shall declare that the thesis summarizes his/her independent research. If part of the research was performed in collaboration with another investigator(s) and/or students, the collaboration should be explained.

This includes specifying which parts of the thesis describe results from this collaboration, the work done by the collaborators (and not by the student), and the role of the student in the collaboration.

2) List of all publications that you have authored during your PhD studies.

Comments concerning the list of publications:

• Each paper is a primary research paper – not a review, review-style book chapter, or meeting abstract – and was published in a peer-reviewed journal, or as a peer-reviewed abstract in a scientific conference as is customary in mathematics and computer science fields.

• Each paper must be at the published, in press or accepted stage. In other words, you or your advisor is in possession of a formal, final acceptance letter or email from the journal. The following stages do NOT fulfill these threshold requirements: In preparation, submitted, or in revision.
• The "main publications section" should include only those where you are the sole first author or one of up to three equally contributing first authors.
• In addition, you can also have an optional "additional publications" section, which can include any other papers meeting the criteria listed above on which you are listed as one of the authors, as well as review manuscripts, published preprints and review-style book chapters.
• In case of scientific disciplines where a different order of author listing is customary, such as alphabetical order, your advisor and examiners will determine if indeed the paper abides by the spirit of the above-mentioned requirements.