University Master's Degree in Plant Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology

Are you eager to discover how plants work, from the genome, molecular genetics, metabolics and evolutionary levels all the way to the organism as a whole and its interactions with the environment? Then this master’s degree is for you!

Content Official Master's Degree in Plant Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology

Master's dissertation

Regulations for submission and evaluation of the Final Master Thesis.

Students must join a research group where they will develop a research project for acquiring a certain research capacity that, in future, will allow him/her to develop a research project.
Regulations for submission, public oral presentation and evaluation of the “Final Master Thesis” are given below.

Presentation of the written work
The report will be limited to 30 pages, A4, including figures, written in 1.5 or double space. This report shall contain the following aspects:

  • Signature page: There must be a sheet with the signatures of the applicant and the Director of the work. If the director is not a member of the responsible departments, there should be the signature of a tutor or the Coordinator of the research module. 
  • Summary (maximum 200 words)
  • Abbreviation list (if necessary)
  • Introduction
  • Objectives
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References

Language: Report in English

Oral defence of the Final Master Project
Defence will consist of a summary exhibit (10 to 15 minutes) before assessment Commission. Members of the Commission may ask students about scientific and technical aspects of the work to discuss different aspects of the work. The oral defence of the work will be public and, if one of the teaching staff members of the Master wants to ask some related aspects to the student, he/she can do so.

Language: Oral presentation in English.

Evaluation
The research work will be evaluated by a Committee of 3 members. The assessment Committee will be made up of three doctors that are part of the teaching staff of the Master. If the number of work to evaluate is high, the coordinator of the research module can form different of commissions for research projects that have a similar theme or methodology.
The written reports shall be deposited in the Department of Animal Biology Plant Biology and Ecology (BABVE) before the deadline set by the module coordinator. The deadline will be announced with sufficient time (usually the delivery will be the last week of June or the first week of September and defence work during the first half of July and September, respectively). Then, if necessary (high number of presentations), various committees can be established. Each committee will determine the day of the oral presentation (before the official closing deadline). Both the written report and the oral defence of the work will always be evaluated by the same Commission to award a single final mark. The range of qualifications that will be used is:

Not Evaluable, Fail, Pass, Outstanding, Excellent, Honours.

Using as a basis the work presented both the written report and the oral defence, the committee will evaluate the research capacity gained by the student during the semesters in which these research modules have been developed.

  • There are requested 4 copies of the report, which shall be deposited with the secretary of the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Biosciences. There will be a copy for each member of the Commission and the fourth copy will remain in the department.
  • The management Department (BABVE) will keep a record of all submitted reports.