General provisions

The course is offered within the Master's Programme in Humanitarian Action and Conflict, 60 credits.

Entry requirements

The course is offered within the Master Programme in Humanitarian Action and Conflict, 60 ECTS credits.

Students must have obtained at least 15 credits from first-semester programme courses.

Learning outcomes

The aim of the Master's Thesis is to provide the students with an ability to develop a scientific approach to a problem of relevance for Humanitarian Action and Conflict from a multidisciplinary perspective. After successful completion of the course the students are expected to have the following competences:

• the capacity to formulate a research question or questions within the field of humanitarian action and conflict research;
• an ability to independently carry out a scientific research task within the field with the help of relevant methods and theories;
• an ability to develop and present a credible answer to the research question(s) in a systematic way and support it/them with relevant empirical and theoretical material;
• a capacity to understand and acknowledge relevant and valid critique of one's thesis;
• an ability to make constructive criticism of another student's thesis;
• an ability to write and present a thesis in the allotted time.

The course also aims to strengthen students' ability to present and reason about relevant topics and concepts in English in both oral and written form.

Content

The thesis can either be based on field studies or be a literature research on a chosen topic that the student and supervisor have jointly agreed upon. The research is an individual task. It is expected that the student actively explores and pursues his/her chosen topic in an independent manner and conducts the research according to academic and ethical standards.

Instruction

Students will follow thesis seminars. A supervisor will be assigned to each student with the obligation to supervise according to a given schedule. Supervision will be given individually as well as in a group during the research period.

Assessment

The Master's thesis will be presented and discussed at a thesis seminar.

Grades: Fail (F), Sufficient (E), Satisfactory (D), Good (C), Very Good (B) and Excellent (A).

If the thesis is given an F (Fail) at the seminar, it can be approved after complementary assignments and improvements.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.

All work to be assessed must be in English.

Transitional provisions

Should the course cease to be given or change significantly, examination will be offered according to this syllabus on a further 3 occasions over 3 semesters. Under special circumstances, such an examination may also be offered later.