5.1 Preparation

Choose a field of study and topic

Make up your mind and choose a field and a few topics of your liking. What do you want to do and why? What gets you excited and motivated during the next months? Is it a 'one-off' or do you want to be busy with it after graduation? Focus on (potential) problems and be specific. The risk of rejection increases substantially if you contact a potential commissioner or (potential) TU Delft supervisor saying: I like to something with data or build a model or carry out a policy analysis, without a clue about the topic. Research always starts with a practical or theoretical problem, not with selecting a tool and then looking for potential problems.

Cont(r)acting supervisors and commissioners

Let's start with the two basic options:

a. Contract an external commissioner

You can start with finding and contracting a commissioner and a topic yourself. If you are successful, then you can contact two TU Delft lecturers who are willing and have time to supervise you.

b. Contact a TIL lecturer

Check who is teaching in your area of choice. What do you remember from lectures? Is there an interesting study in the TU Delft repository? Then contact the supervisor of that project. Alternatively, a lecturer may be advertising a project (Brightspace, notice board, personal webpage) of your liking and is willing to accept you. The project can be purely academic or have an external commissioner.
Sometimes a lecturer refers you to a commissioner she or he recently spoke with, but had no student available or lacked the time to go after it. Follow that lead and see whether the project/idea suits you.
If the lecturer has no project, but you still want her or him as weekly supervisor (or chair), then you have to go out and see if there are interesting/interested companies or government agencies willing to commission a study to you. Then find the second supervisor as described in a. or ask the lecturer for references.

⋅ The Supervision tab contains the requirements for TIL Graduation Committee members.

Special cases

a. Foreign students

The Dutch language may be a barrier to contract a commissioner. Local governments usually communicate in Dutch, also for legal reasons. In many Dutch companies you should be fluent in Dutch. If you also have a limited contact network, then go after an internal TU Delft project.

b. Thesis project abroad

A graduation project may be even more interesting if carried out in a foreign (or if you are a foreign student: familiar) country.
It is however more challenging and complicated than a project in the Netherlands.
Supervision will rely on remote communication, which is less effective and technically sometimes challenging. You may also experience a language/cultural barrier, physical and mental health problems. These may deter you from having the best results. 

A good preparation is key to make such an adventure a success. You have to arrange all practicalities; visa, accommodation, registration, vaccinations, a work permit, a permit for the project you are going to carry out, communication with TU Delft, and a place to work and probably local supervision (foreign company or university). This takes a lot of time before and during your stay. If you want to do a graduation project abroad, you must know exactly what you want and you must be very self-sufficient. You must also start very early, in some cases a year in advance.

The Studying Abroad page is a good reference if you are thinking (dreaming) about such a project. For content-related questions, you may contact the MSc TIL Programme Coordinator. He can be asked by the International Student Office to approve your plans before you go. Acceptance depends on many factors; quality of your proposal, feasibility/planning, our experience with the foreign supervising organisation, etc.
Inform all other relevant staff (International Student Office, secretary of your professor) timely and regularly about your plans, activities and whereabouts. You are the link between these staff members. Do not assume any active/direct communication between them unless you initiated this.

c. Changing country of stay during project

It can happen that foreign students, for personal reasons, decide to go back to their country of origin and continue their thesis project from abroad. This is allowed. Of course you have to inform your graduation committee and arrange the remaining meetings online. Communication from a distance is less effective than local or in person communication. Commissioners and other experts may be (even) less responsive to questions than you were used to. You have to ask permission from the Board of Examiners in case you want to have your final defense meeting also online.

Several forms guide you through your thesis process. You can find them here.

  • TIL-0: Graduation process. Check regularly to prevent issues;
  • TIL-1 - Entry requirements and composition of Graduation Committee. Signed (digitally) by the chair in or after your kick-off meeting;
  • TIL-1a: Change of Graduation Committee. Members may be replaced or added during the process;
  • Mystudyplanning (MSP) (former TIL-2 form) - Compiling and approval of your individual exam programme. All open issues should be solved here (in particular 'courses passed, but EC not yet allocated').

When you email your TIL-1 form, SPA will respond as follows:

a. Acceptance email
This means that your graduation committee is composed according to the regulations. You have also passed all courses belonging to your chosen Specialisation and your Electives are also accepted. Finally, you have the required 90 (80) EC.

b. Rejection email
This can have many reasons:
First, your graduation committee does not have the correct composition. Read Educational Rules and Regulations Master 2023-2024, RGBoE, Article 23 sections 6. and 7.

Solution: Search for the correct supervisors. This can also be necessary after the kick-off meeting, for instance if a supervisor objects the topic or direction.

Second, you miss more than 10 EC of your individual programme. This can be because you have not passed these courses. Or that the lecturer involved was too late entering EC in OSIRIS. Or that you took a major break in your study and upon return you realise that certain courses have changed completely and you missed the opportunity to take the final exams of that course. Sometimes the number of EC has changed, which may mean that you have too litte EC at the end. Maybe you changed Specialisation during your study, as a result of which you have many Electives, yet not fulfill all requirements. You end up with a blend of courses from different study years.

Solutions: Formally you are not allowed to start. Discuss options with a study advisor, then talk with your graduation committee.
You can decide to replan your thesis and focus on the missing courses. Reserve time to study for the missing EC and continue later with your thesis project.
Contact the course instructor of the missing course(s) for help. Sometimes an additional written or oral exam can be arranged. Or you can ask for a 1:1 meeting to elaborate topics you have difficulty with and then do a resit.

  • TIL-3 - Application master degree. Email this asap after you receive a green light for your thesis report. Take care of the 20 working days between green light meeting and final defence meeting; exceptions are not granted;
  • TIL-4 - Use this when you want to stop with your MSc before graduation.

We distinguish between the TIL thesis supervisory team and the TIL thesis assessment committee.

The TIL thesis supervisory team consists of 2 members.

One member is chair and as such fulfils the following requirements:

  • Is a(n) (assistant, associate or full) professor active in the TIL programme.

  • Is an examiner

  • Has supervised a minimum of 5 TIL theses.

  • Is from a main participating faculty (TPM, 3mE, CEG).

  • Is from a different participating faculty than the other member (TPM, 3mE, CEG, BK, AE).

*Section below will change*

The TIL assessment committee (after the green light meeting)

Your TIL supervisory team is extended by a 3rd member (action of the chair). The 3rd member is an examiner and has relevant expertise.

All members receive the report two weeks in advance of the final presentation and defence.

Rules

You can find the new requirements in Rules and Regulations of the Board of Examiners (see article 23 ‘composition of assessment committee Master Thesis’) and Teaching and Examination Regulations Annex (see article 13 ‘thesis’) which you can find on this webpage.

Special cases

a. Annotation student

Example, your project is about railways and accepted for the Rail Annotation. Then you can have a professor from the Railway Engineering department (not part of TIL, but working at CEG) and one (3-weekly) supervisor from T&P, T&L or MME (again 2 out of 3).

b. Change of supervision team (TIL1-a)

This may happen due to an interpersonal mismatch, a change of topic, a team not fulfilling the regulations or a sudden non-availability of one of the committee members (personal reasons).
This change may (severely) delay your thesis process, in particular if the thesis topic also changes.

There are several ways to carry out a thesis project. In any case, you need a good thesis proposal (thesis proposal template, research gap table: 0, 1, 2).

1. In case of an external project, use about 1 month of your internship for pre-research and to become acquainted with the organisation, its interests, challenges, staff, practices and stakeholders.
Split your week into for instance 2,5 days to study the literature, search the repository for useful theories and methods and to scope your project. In parallel, write your proposal with a substantial literature chapter with research gap and how you intend to reduce this gap. Use the remainder of your week to study the company / agency. 
Avoid a full focus on the commissioner. Lack of scientific input from your TUD supervisors may reduce the academic value of your work.

2. In case of an internal scientific project for a professor/lecturer, take again about 1 month for pre-research. There will be even more focus on theory, choice of methods etc. You also work on the practical details, such as how to collect and analyse data, whom to interview, etc. There is a risk that your project becomes too theoretical or that you don't get the necessary data, which may make it impossible to validate your work.

In practice you balance between science and practice until you find a compromise. Uncertainties can be discussed with your supervisors. It is important that all of you feel comfortable with the choices made.

Quality of your proposal

More on this topic in the Q&A tab.

Kick-off meeting

You present and discuss your project here. You will receive many ideas and tips to focus your research: More.

Internship-thesis contracts

A thesis contract is a trilateral agreement. It describes the obligations and rights of you, your commissioner and the TUD before, during and after your thesis project. This includes intellectual property rights (IP), confidentiality of the work and use of commissioner and TUD resources.

The average contract used by a company or agency tends to be good regarding the first topic, but not regarding the second one. Some (commercial) companies have a tendency 'to take it all', while others vary. Yet, both you and the TU Delft contribute seriously to the results, hence a more balanced a approach is called for, preferably standardized.

Since 2019, TU Delft uses a uniform contract. We do not accept (deviating) graduation contracts with NDA from companies or government organisations anymore.

When the HR officer of a commissioner asks you to sign a company contract, then act as follows and ASAP:

  • Share the standard TU Delft document (in General forms) with the HR officer of your commissioner;
  • Also refer to the Confidentiality section below;
  • The format is fixed. No changes to or deletion of any article in the contract will be accepted. Our staff has no authority to do so,
  • If all is clear and completely filled-in, the company and you sign it.
  • Always make a scan/copy of any contract document you sign.
  • You email the partially signed contract to the contract manager of CiTG. Signing does not take much time.
  • Finish this preferably before the kick-off meeting. It is not a regular topic in the kick-off meeting, however.
  • To be clear, if a company/organisation does not accept the TU Delft contract, then you can't graduate there.
  • Your TIL-1 form and the internship-thesis contract are administered independently.

Confidential status of (parts of) your thesis

The TU Delft Graduation Agreement (GA) says that you have to upload your thesis to the TU Delft Repository. The accompanying Graduation conditions document contains exceptions. They include the option of an embargo on publication/upload for a limited period of time. Another option is to anonimize or leave out sensitive material in the public version. In MSc TIL we argue that upload is not mandatory. It is your own choice as owner of your work.
Discuss confidentiality with the chair of your commission if necessary. If this is not sufficient, contact the TIL Programme Coordinator.
Remember that your Graduation Committee always receives the original, unedited, version in order to assess your final thesis, regardless of a later (edited) public version of it.

More information

(In Dutch) about intellectual ownership can be found here.

Comparison with an internship.

[Update on 210124]

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