The master thesis and the R&D projects are your independent research projects developing entirely new knowledge. It can be performed in a research group at the university or in a company supported by a university supervisor with scientific insights. If you want to do a project in collaboration with a company, it is important that you first go and talk with an AU supervisor about the possibilities.

As inspiration for your projects, you can find inspiration in the project catalogue or at our webpage.

The R&D project can, but is not required to, be closely related to your master project. However, it is not allowed to overlap (including text; plagiarism regulations).

Please notice that individual projects are considered of highest training value; in particularly for diploma students with high experience in group-wise project. Thus, the extra supervisor effort is prioritized at our education. Individual projects are our tradition, and some supervisors will only accept this type of projects. However, we have no regulation on group-wise versus individual master projects.

Supervisor

You can choose to have a permanently employed researcher from the Department of Biological and chemical engineering, but you can also choose to have a main supervisor from the Faculty. When you find a relevant supervisor, just send them an email or go visit them in their offices to have an informal chat on the project idea.

If you wish to perform your project in a company, you must initially make an agreement with a relevant supervisor from our Faculty. Together with the supervisor you will identify the relevant companies; the supervisor typically has valuable in-sights in terms of expected 'smoothness' of stay, and further the collaboration within your supervision team will typically be strong.

Project to-do list

1. For R&D projects, you must enrol at the ‘course’, whereas enrolment at the Master thesis occurs automatically.
2. Consider which topic you find interesting. You are recommended to start in the first half of the semester before - or if you have very specific dreams, then earlier.
3. Chat informally with the researcher(s) that works on this topic.
4. If you would like to perform the project outside AU, talk with the researcher on relevant places.
5. Decide on the aim of the project with the researcher (=main supervisor), and if relevant also the external company/university.
6. A formal contract is required in an online form: kontrakt.scitech.au.dk/login. There is a specific deadline for the contract before project initiation. Further, there are specific deadlines for project initiation (semester start), thesis delivery and latest exam date, which must be inserted correctly in the contract. 
   • For R&D: The date for start-up is the first day in the semester and the report deadline is counted as 1.5 week per ects if at fulltime; if the projects is followed by a the Master thesis in the same semester you must submit project after 7-8 weeks, and you should not initiate the Master work before the submission.
7. In the contract, it is mandatory that you upload one document, containing:
   • (A) A project plan of half to one page, including background on the problem that must be solved; the potential solution; and details on how you will investigate the potential solution, and
   • (B) a supervision plan – two to four sentences on who, where, when and topics for supervisor meetings and feedback.
   • A template for the project description can be found below on this page. 
8. Non-Disclosure-Agreement (NDA): If required by the company or as a part of a research project that you work in, see further information on NDAs here: [Link] Remember to note the NDA in the thesis contract, which will ensure the necessary confidentiality.
9. After contract submission, your internal supervisor and the UA will receive your contract for approval; if it is rejected due to some details, you will just change according to the comment made by one of us and re-submit it.
10. Together with your supervisor you will make agreements on report; this could e.g. be in a normal report format or as a draft for a scientific paper.
11. Deliver the report before 12:00 on the submission date. You must send it online via Digital Exam