ERASMUS MUNDUS Master and PhD

Students enroled in the 3^rd semester of the Europhotonics master's degree in Barcelona must take 30 credits ECTS of courses, which can be chosen from a relatively large list of courses that covers different fields of Photonics. Europhotonics students share courses with students of the master's degree in Photonics. Nevertheless, the Course Program for both Masters is different. The 4^th semester of the Europhotonics master's degree is devoted to the Master Thesis (30 credits ECTS).

Academic and organization details of the 3rd semester (30 ECTS of elective courses) and 4th semester (30 ECTS of the Master Thesis) in Barcelona can be found in the following links:

Master Thesis Europhotonics (year 2022-23)

To obtain the master's degree students must complete a MSc Thesis Project of 30 ECTS. Students are expected to develop this project during the last semester and more intensively (full time) from April to September.

Here we summarize the most important aspects of each step of the development, registration, report and presentation of the MSc Thesis Project (further information can be found at: https://telecos.upc.edu/ca/els-serveis/secretaria-oberta/treballs/tfm-treball-de-fi-de-master)

1. Choosing the MSc Thesis subject and supervisor:

   • In november of each academic course, a list of proposals offered by researchers from UPC, UAB, UB and ICFO is published in the master's degree web page.
   • Students have to choose one project and contact the corresponding professor.
   • List of proposals for academic year 2023-2024 (updated 24-jan 2024)
   • If the supervisor is not a professor of the master's degree in Photonics, a co-director from the master's degree Program must be assigned by the Executive Commitee or the tutor. He/She has to certify that the subject of the work, the work done, the way it has been carried out and the supervision are appropriate for a Thesis in the master's degree in Photonics.
   • Remember that, in order to fulfil the German requirements at KIT, you have to ask from a co-supervisor from KIT.

2. Upload of the MSc Thesis proposal (offer) at the ETSETB intranet site:

   • Once student and supervisor have agreed on the subject to be developed, the official Master Thesis proposal has to be made at the Offers site of the ETSETB Intranet. https://www.etsetb.upc.edu/sys/login.html, menu: Docència > Ofertes TFG/PFC/thesis). The steps to be made are:
   • The professor who will act as supervisor (or co-supervisor) has to introduce the description of the MSc Thesis at the above section and assign it to the student.
   • The student has to enter the same site and click on Accept button.

3. Enrolment of MSc Thesis:

   • 24 hours after the upload of the MSc Thesis on the ETSETB Intranet site (step 2) the student will be able to enrol his/her MSc Thesis through a request E-SECRETARIA and pay the corresponding fees.
   • The enrolment has to be done before February 15th 2024.
   • No additional document is needed; only the completion of the step 2.

4. Development of the MSc Thesis:

   • The MSc Thesis is an extended individual research-oriented work and the student is expected to develop a guided work on the proposed topic.
   • The aim of the project is to encourage and reward individual inventiveness and application of effort. Desirably, MSc Thesis should contain some element of original work. This does not mean that the project is expected to obtain publishable research results (although it might do), but the desire that the project covers some new ground and contain some elements of innovation.
   • The MSc Thesis evaluation process has two steps: a report summarizing the work done, and an oral presentation in front of a jury of the main tasks developed and results obtained.

5. MSc Thesis Report:

   • The MSc Thesis Report that you will write and submit must have a maximum length of 20 pages including annexes and must follow the format of the scientific journal Optics Express, which is described in the file Thesis formatting instructions.
   • Word, or LaTex, etc., programs may be used, but the final delivery must be made in pdf format.
   • You must include this front page at the beginning of the document. You may modify the format of the front page, if you wish, but in any case it should include the same information and should contain the Erasmus Mundus and Europhotonics logos.
   • Please feel free to take a look to the non-confidential MSc Reports from previous courses (Be careful since the template has changed this course!) of the Europhotonics master's degree at: http://upcommons.upc.edu/handle/2099.1/16008

6. Registration (Diposit) of the MSc Thesis Report and delivery of documents:

   • Once the Report has reached the final version, it has to be registered and uploaded together with additional information at Diposit site of the ETSETB Intranet (https://www.etsetb.upc.edu/sys/login.html, menu: Acadèmica > Dipòsit TFG/PFC/thesis). The deadlines are: July 15th (July presentation session) and August 30th (August presentation session). The steps to be made are:

     • Bibliographic data:  the student must fill the three fields. The field title must exactly match the title of the cover page of the report..
     • Files: the student must upload the report and the supervisor must validate it. The title of the cover must exactly match the title in the bibliographic data tab. Validation will not be possible if the first and second tabs are not complete. The file cannot exceed 64 MB (For MSc Theses presented abroad in a mobility program, the student will have to send the Supervisor's assessment and the Lecture Certificate to students.mobility@etsetb.upc.edu, so that this unit uploads them at this tab. It is desirable that both documents are uploaded to evaluate the thesis. If you can have one of them, it must be the current assessment, which is posted on the link Tràmits a realitzar abans de tornar a l'ETSETB, banner Mobilitat internacional).

     • Confidentiality.This option is available in the ETSETB Intranet and will show up in the report deposit process. The student and supervisor will be able to select the desired period of confidenciality and have to explain the reason (if needed, a template is available here). The information about the thesis' publication is detailed at the Academic Regulations for UPC BSc and MSc degrees (section 3.1.5).
       

7. Oral presentation of the MSc Thesis:

   • The last step is the oral presentation. The presentation has to be done in English and has a duration of 20 minutes, followed by the questions of the evaluation commission.
   • Two periods are available for the thesis presentation: one in the middle of July and another one in the beginning of September (dates to be defined). You will be informed about the exact date of your presentation.
   • The evaluation is made by a jury composed of three professors of the master's degree, designed by the Executive Committee.
   • The supervisor is expected to be present, but he/she cannot be part of the jury. However, the supervisor will be invited by the jury to give his/her opinion about student’s work and results.
   • The jury of MSc Thesis defense will assess different aspects related with the MSc Thesis work done by the student, like the following ones:
     • Interest of the subject and degree of difficulty of the inherent work.
     • Amount and quality of the work done by the student, and capacity of attainment of results.
     • Quality and clarity of the written report (or memory) of the MSc Thesis work, and in particular, capacity of synthesis.
     • Clarity and quality of the oral presentation: clear introduction of the subject and the aims of the work, description of the work, clear definition and statement of the results obtained and of appropriate conclusions.
     • Satisfactory answers to jury’s questions.

If you are successful, you will be awarded the official master’s degree in Photonics, and in particular you may request the corresponding MSc Degree Diploma. Such request must be made at the ETSETB Academic Office.