Here you’ll be able to find relevant information about procedures, regulations and other matters related with the Master’s Project.
It is expected that you will regularly meet your project Supervisor during the three terms, in order to discuss the progress of your project on a weekly basis. This might take the form of individual meetings, and/or research group meetings. We recommend you agree on the terms of engagement (i.e. meeting frequency and duration, note-keeping, email communications, etc.) with your Supervisor at the beginning of the project.
You can expect 30m per week or 1h per fortnight individual supervision with your supervisor for this module, but it is up to you to drive this meeting schedule.
(From the School’s Student Project Ethics Procedure)
All studies involving human (or other animal) subjects should have an ethics application. Note that there is a difference between ethical behaviour and an ethical approval. Approval typically deals with reputational risk and legal requirements, but the ethics of your own project is your responsibility. You should apply for a study when you are seeking to learn something specific. You do not need a study if you are simply exploring a topic broadly, e.g., observing someone work.
See the Blackboard Link for the full procedure and further resources.
When you’re ready to apply for ethics approval, use the Student Research Ethics Approval From.
Individuals need to consider the potential hazards associated with their work and assess whether there is a risk to themselves or others. If it is determined that a risk assessment is required, it must be completed before work starts, normally at the start of the module. A review is necessary if any changes are made to the project’s experiments or activities, or if any incidents occur.
The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that work is covered by a risk assessment. This can be an existing risk assessment, but if an existing assessment does not cover the experiment or activity, a new risk assessment must be completed; the supervisor must assist the individual in completing the assessment. All risk assessments must be completed on CoreStream unless the template is unavailable, in which case individuals should refer to the Safety Form’s page.
The risk assessment must be approved by both the supervisor and the School Safety Officer before work commences. Failure to provide a valid risk assessment will result in work being stopped immediately.
If work is being carried out on campus, it must be done in the appropriate spaces, such as 1M08, Basement Labs, or ACE, for example. The Ideas Lab and Advanced Hackspace are not to be used for Master’s projects. Departmental spaces designated for teaching, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, or other areas managed by Imperial (e.g., the Abdus Salam Library) must not be used for laboratory or workshop activities.
For offsite work, any projects conducted off campus that are to be submitted for assessment as part of the degree must be done in accordance with university regulations, rules, and guidelines. Activities that would require a risk assessment on campus must still have a risk assessment conducted, even if work is being carried out at home.
This policy applies to all programmes associated with the School, and all risk assessments must be approved before work begins.
Workshop users must complete the necessary safety training and only use equipment as instructed by the technical team. Failure to comply with workshop health and safety procedures will result in disciplinary action. Further information can be found in the Workshop Handbook.
Students of the Dyson School of Design Engineering are permitted to make use of generative AI tools for the purposes of completing coursework assignments, unless specifically prohibited to do so in the relevant assignment brief.
All work submitted must be expressed in students’ own words, incorporating their own ideas and judgements. Any ideas, text, computer code, images, data, or other resources, generated using generative AI tools, if included in students’ submissions, must be considered as originating from a third party and must thus be appropriately attributed and cited in line with best academic practice. Guidance on how to appropriately reference generative AI tools as sources is available from the Library (under G for Generative AI). Further guidance on the use of such tools, and common issues associated with their use, can be found here.
Failure to properly attribute the origin of 3rd party ideas presented in submitted work, whether from literature or an AI tool, constitutes plagiarism and will be prosecuted under the College’s Academic Misconduct Policy and Procedure.
Where generative AI tools have been used in the process of generating a document or presentation for the purposes of improving the readability, presentations, or language of a student’s original work, a notice of which tools were used, and for what purpose, should appear following the list of references.
Your Supervisor will administer a budget of £200 for your project. Every purchase has to be approved by your Supervisor in advance, and must adhere to Department and Imperial purchasing and expense policy.
Claims are to be sent to depurchasing@imperial.ac.uk no later than 30th June (claims submitted after that date will not be accepted). To claim expenses, please follow this procedure: