In practice, we expect students to start thinking about their project in the latter half of Michaelmas term. As mentioned before, all projects must have a department supervisor, and so the first step usually involves discussing your areas of interest with your Course Adviser, and then contacting potential supervisors. Please do not approach potential supervisors until after the Project Briefing lecture. Once you have found a supervisor who has agreed to supervise your project, and you have agreed upon a topic, you will need to complete a Phase 1 form on Moodle. This will need to be complete by no later than Wednesday 4 November.
Project suggestions
Several research groups and members of staff maintain web pages with project suggestions:
- Artificial Intelligence Group
- Accelerate Programme for Scientific Discovery
- Computer Architecture Group
- Digital Technology Group
- Graphics and Interaction Group
- Natural Language and Information Processing Group
- Programming, Logic and Semantics Group
- Suggestions from Prof Alan Mycroft
- Suggestions from Prof Larry Paulson
- Suggestions from Prof Anuj Dawar
- Suggestions from Dr Andrew Rice
- Suggestions from Dr Stephen Herbert
- Suggestions from Dr Jean Pichon
- Suggestions from Peter Sewell and Alasdair Armstrong
- Suggestions from Jeremy Yallop
- Suggestions from Shaun Steenkamp
- CHERI projects
- Security Group
- Systems Research Group
In many cases these are indicative and not final: ideally you, in conjunction with the supervisor, will work on fleshing out the details. This will likely involve doing background reading and preparation in October and early November so that the official project proposal and workplan submitted on 20 November represents an informed and realistic idea of what you will do.
Other project ideas are available on the Part II Projects page. However, the MPhil/Part III project report is different to the Part II dissertation, and as such some Part II project suggestions may not be appropriate for Masters level examination.
Self-proposed projects
If you have a plan for a project of you own devising, and you have already discussed this with a potential supervisor and he or she has agreed to supervise it, you should also submit a Phase 1 form by 4 November. However, as approval for you project will not have been given by the Postgraduate Education Committee and you may need a Plan B, i.e. choosing a project from those published above, you need to submit your full proposal and workplan a week earlier on 13 November. To be clear, a self-proposed project is one that is your own, original idea.
A project idea which is an original proposal made by the supervisor is not a self-proposed project. The proposal should be submitted by 20 November.
A project idea which is a variation of one suggested by a supervisor is not a self-proposed project. The proposal should be submitted by 20 November.
A project idea which was jointly developed by a student and the supervisor is not a self-proposed project. The proposal should be submitted by 20 November.
