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Research Project

Overview

  • Credit value: 60 credits at Level 7
  • Convenor: Professor Katherine Thompson
  • Assessment: a literature review outline (5%), poster (15%) and 8000-word final report (80%)

Module description

The research project represents the research component of your MSc, complementing the taught component. It offers the opportunity to join an academic research group in the school and/or the Institute of Structural Molecular Biology (ISMB) and to embark on a research project that you will execute independently, and which will be substantially of your own design.

As members of a research group, you will be expected to attend, and actively participate in, all relevant activities of the group, e.g. lab group meetings, attending research seminars relevant to the group's work, preparing internal reports. You will undertake extensive hands-on practical work in the laboratory or computationally and will conduct in-depth research into the literature.

The module will help you to develop core computational and/or laboratory skills relevant to your MSc programme, and scientific judgement, and will give you insight into high-level scientific research as a possible career.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • demonstrate a sound knowledge and understanding of the science in your project area, and its practical applications
  • carry out the appropriate literature and data searches
  • critically assess current literature relevant to the selected topic
  • formulate a suitable plan of work for the project research, selecting the most appropriate methods and experimental designs
  • re-assess and modify the research plan as needed throughout the duration of the project
  • show practical competence in the laboratory, or computationally, by being able competently to perform a variety of manipulations appropriate to the investigation
  • understand the techniques employed by correctly analysing and presenting your data
  • demonstrate a critical and professional approach to the analysis of results and realise when mistakes have occurred and how they may be rectified.