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Licentiate and PhD Proposals

Well in time before the planned date of a (Lic/Ph.D) thesis defence, the student should write and present a thesis proposal. The proposal should normally be presented between 6 and 9 months before a Licentiate thesis defence, and between 9 and 12 months before a Ph. D. thesis defence. The proposal has to, in some way, address the following items:

1. Background, motivation and statement of the proposed problem
2. Previous work in this and related areas (short literature review, most important work only, to display knowledge of the field)
3. The candidate's ideas and preliminary results
4. Action / Time plan / Milestones
5. Rough outline of the thesis

The proposal is a checkpoint in our quality assurance systems for theses. Thus, it should be written and presented in such a way that it makes viable that the thesis will hold, and that the candidate will be able to complete it according to the given time plan.

The written proposal should normally be 5-10 pages long. Preferrably, it can be written in such a way that it is easy to later extend it into a "kappa" (the introductory part of a thesis that is a collection of papers, "sammanläggningsavhandling"). The oral presentation should be around 30 minutes long.

The proposal should be announced as a regular seminar, by email to idegrupp#mdh.se and through our web event announcement system, at least a week in advance. The announcement should contain time, place, name of candidate, proposed title of thesis, and abstract for the presentation.

The proposal is judged by a committee consisting of main advisor, at least one assistant advisor, plus an independent third person not directly involved in the project. The independent person should either be an expert in the field or a main advisor ("docent") in some related field. The committee checks whether the topic of research is original and suitable for a Lic/Ph.D thesis, and whether the time table set forth is realistic. After the oral presentation, the committee decides whether the proposal is approved or not. If approved, and if the candidate has a PhD student position (doktorandtjänst), then the level in "doktorandstegen" is adjusted accordingly (from "A" to "B" for Lic proposal, and from "C" to "D" for Ph.D. proposal).

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