9 month Progression
By 9 months after registration all PhD and MD(Res) students must submit a written report and attend a presentation. It is necessary that the student pass the 9 month exam in order to be allowed to proceed.
Process:
Your supervisor will receive an automated email from MySIS reminding them that the 9- month progression window is open and that they need to set up a panel for you. The supervisor should suggest an examination panel, comprising at least two people, at least one of whom must be independent of the student’s supervisory team. External members may be appointed to the panel. In such cases, one member of the panel must be a member of Queen Mary staff who is independent of the student’s supervisory team. Once the panel has been agreed, they should contact the PGR administrator to set up the panel on MySIS to be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. The supervisor, student and examiners then liaise to find a date and location for the viva to take place. The student is responsible for providing all of the associated paperwork to the examiners and ensuring the report is given on time. The student is also responsible for booking a meeting room for the examination to take place in.
1) Main report: In general, it should be structured like a short research paper and follow a similar standard. Thus it should have an introduction that leads to an hypothesis, a list of aims for the thesis, a brief description of the methodology in sufficient detail that another scientist could reasonably understand what was done and how. It is not necessary to show all the results achieved to date in the report, but whatever data is shown should be labelled clearly with detailed accurate legends. In the event that no data has been generated by this time, include clear evidence of experimental work e.g. method development and validation. These results should be described and discussed. A brief plan for future work should finish the report. The whole report should be referenced appropriately. The report should be 1200 words approximately, excluding title, abstract, tables, figures, legends and references.
2) Critical Review of a Method: This should describe the positive and negative aspects of a technique used in the thesis, and should refer to published data. If the technique has various strategies e.g. immunochemistry, the variety could be described, compared and discussed, indicting the limitations of each method. The advantages and disadvantages of the different techniques is expected. It should be appropriately referenced. The critical review should be approximately 800 words, excluding title, tables, figures, legends and references.
3) Transferrable skills: The student is expected to show evidence of at least 70h/12 months of transferrable skills. These are expected to be made up of attendance of lab meetings, group meetings, seminars, scientific meetings, training sessions. Suitable evidence might be a list of dates of events, title of seminar/conference/meeting/course, hours spent. It is recommended that student begin to establish a diary of such events once they have registered.
Submitting your 9 month report
The report (which should have been approved by your supervisors) should be sent to your examiners two weeks ahead of the meeting together with the completed Student Update (include a list of itemised Transferrable Skills for the last 12 months). Please also forward this report to the institute PGR administrator (p.mullan@qmul.ac.uk) so that there is a record of it.
The viva
Students will have to give a 10-15 minute presentation usually by PowerPoint. The talk should introduce the subject matter and clearly develop and set out the hypothesis for the study. Any data shown, which can be more than that shown in the written report, should be logical and present a cohesive story addressing the hypothesis. Candidates should include controls to show the accuracy of their data. All slides must be accurately and clearly labelled. The student will be expected to defend the work presented and to be able to answer questions related to the project accurately.
The decision of the examiners
At the end of the viva the examiners, based on the submitted report and the oral presentation, should be convinced that the work has been performed to a high standard and that the interpretation of the data is reasonable. They must also be convinced that the student is fully aware of the hypothesis, understands and has performed the scientific procedures associated with the aims and has read and can ably discuss the previous literature associated with the project. If these criteria are fulfilled and a clear and achievable plan is presented for completion of the thesis within 39 months, the examiners will recommend that the student can progress with their PhD.