General information about degree project

Here you will find practical information about doing degree projects at Uppsala University's research group in Pharmaceutical Physical Chemistry. Please contact us with your questions.

Supervision

You will be assigned to one or more supervisors. Often, the daily supervisor is a PhD-student or a post.doc. As these are those who perform the practical work of the research groups, while your formal supervisor is often a more experienced researcher you meet occasionally during the project.

Subject examiner

In order to get the best possible support, a subject examiner from the institution's experienced researcher, will be designated to be your contact person. In order to avoid confusion, the subject examiner can not be your supervisor. The subject examiner has expert knowledge in your research area and is the person you can contact for overall questions, if you are worried about your job or, for example, if any problems arise. The subject examiner also approves your mandatory items and communicates the results to the course coordinator. The subject examiner also participates in the oral presentation and leads (as an expert) the discussion of your degree work.

The different moments of the degree project

Introduction

We start each semester with an introductory course. You will there, in addition to a review of the dispopsition of the project period, get information about both practical and more scientific philosophical character. In addition to a review of how to write a test plan, a report and how to perform an oral presentation, you will gain insight into, for example, experimental planning, research methodology and computer programs for statistical calculations. You also have the opportunity to consider patent protection, research ethics and differences and similarities between academic and commercial research.

Study Plan

The first two weeks of the project period are used to get involved in the project by reviewing current literature, discussing the project with your supervisor and writing a project plan. The purpose of the plan is to get the project's goals ready for you before you begin to prepare into the background of the project by summarizing current literature, that you should be aware of and be able to describe what methods to use, to know how the results to be analyzed, as well as to collect and review not only the background literature but also the method literature.

A well-written project plan can be used as the starting material for the report. From experience, we know that you have the most time over at the start of the project period, while the end of master projects usually becomes hectic because you then master devices and methods and are busy to complete your project. Therefore, it is important to spend a lot of time on the trial plan in the first instance. In addition, it is more stimulating to work on a project about you have good knowledge.

Report

By the end of the project period, it is time to compile a report. Within Pharmaceutics and bio-pharmacy, we want to train you to write a short, clear report structured as a scientific article. Since you have written a project plan, you do not have to spend much time to formulate the target and aims of the project. In addition, you have the background of the project ready for you, as you have already summarized the appropriate current literature and described which methods you used as well as compiled and reviewed not just the background literature but also the method literature.

Oral presentation

You will also report your profound project orally. We want you to get training in making a clear and structured presentation where you have good support from a high quality image material. The image part of the presentation is usually done with aid of the Power Point presentation program.

Examination

The work done is presented in a written report, which is discussed at a seminar. As a grade of the course, the expressions accepted or rejected are used. To get the grade approved also an approved test plan and report and participation in all compulsory subjects are required.