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Mathematics for Real-World Systems Centre for Doctoral Training

MSc project guidelines for students and supervisors

Guidelines

  • All students will do one project of three months duration starting mid June, with a submission deadline in mid September.
  • Projects should be quantitative in nature and provide an opportunity to do original research in the area of complex systems science, broadly interpreted. Literature reviews, feasibility studies and data acquisition tasks are not suitable. In addition, our students are not trained to do laboratory work.
  • Projects are assessed by a written report (70%) and an oral presentation (30%). The report should be in the style of an academic journal appropriate to the field of study. Letter-style journals are acceptable provided the associated “supplementary material” containing the quantitative details is included.
  • Assessment will be done by appointed members of Complexity Science or MathSys staff to ensure uniformity of grading. Supervisors are expected to provide formal feedback on completion of the project to guide the grading of reports. Feedback should be provided via the webform.
  • Project proposals will be vetted for suitability by MathSys staff before and presented to the students at the end of the week in which they are submitted. If potential supervisors have any doubt about the suitability of their topic, MathSys staff would be very pleased to discuss this in advance.
  • Projects will be allocated on the basis of students' preferences subject to any additional constraints imposed by funding arrangements. If more than one individual wants to do the same project, priority will go to the student with the highest marks on the taught modules.
  • Students are encouraged to be proactive in seeking out supervisors to propose projects in research areas which interest them. Project proposals which are developed collaboratively between particular students and supervisors can be tagged as "reserved" rather than being included in the list of openly available projects. Such bespoke projects are still subject to formal prior approval by MathSys staff.

Assessment

(1) A written project report (70%) in the style of a research paper, which is assessed by CDT staff taking into account supervisor feedback.

Regarding the formatting and structure, the report should be written as a journal article. Where appropriate the style file of a journal in the field of the research can be used (which journal format is most appropriate should be agreed between student and supervisor), but only in the final print style (do not use double spaced draft or submission styles). If the journal you selected has a page limit, it can be ignored but the report should not exceed 8000 words (common sense should be used if there are a lot of equations). Content-wise the report should be understandable by your fellow students, so the introduction and literature review could be more detailed than in a research paper. There is also a key requirement to contextualise and link the work to the real-world application it is either inspired from or intended for.

Have a look at the report assessment form for more details on how the report is assessed.

Submit your report here.


(2) An oral presentation on the project outcomes (30%), which is assessed by CDT staff.

Have a look at the project presentation assessment form for more details on how the presentation is assessed.

Submit your presentation here.