Admission requirements
To be admitted to the graduation project, students need to have passed Elective Sustainable City: Biodiversity in the City and Inferential Statistics.
The graduation project is only available for students in the BA Urban Studies, who have obtained 100 EC of the Urban Studies programme, including two Methodological and two Thematic Electives.
Course description
The bachelor research project is the first acquaintance of students with independently designing and performing scientific research. All aspects of scientific research, from reading relevant literature and formulating a research question until the reporting and presenting of the results will be addressed. During the research project, the student is a member of a research group and participates in the common scientific activities of the research group (such as work discussions) and lectures in the host institute (for instance IBL spotlight seminars).
During the course Academische Vaardigheden: General Research Skills (GRS) familiar skills, such as formulating a research idea, experimental design, statistics, data analysis, and report writing, are highlighted again and applied during the Research Project.
GRS starts prior to, and then runs parallel to the research project. The topics attended to in GRS keep pace with the timing of the research project.
The bachelor research project is in principle carried out at one of the biological institutes of Leiden University (IBL, CML, Naturalis), LUMC, Hortus, or other institutes of the Faculty of Science. External research projects, e.g. in companies, other organisations, or abroad need to be approved by the Board of Examiners.
Research projects at IBL/CML/Naturalis are carried out by students in pairs. External research projects can be carried out in pairs or individually.
Course objectives
At the end of the course, the student is able to:
- Acquire in-depth knowledge about a current research project, concepts and approaches in a particular biological research area.
- Carry out relevant literature research
- Use relevant methods and techniques to conduct experiments.
- Formulate a research question and hypothesis.
- Design and implement a research study under supervision.
- Critically evaluate the results of scientific publications.
- Actively report and present research results to a scientific audience.
Mode of instruction
Consultation and feedback (daily supervisor at least once a week; responsible supervisor at least once a month).
Writing a scientific essay/project report.
Assessment method
The final mark for the BSc-research project is calculated as follows:
| Partial grade | Weighing |
|---|---|
| Research proposal | 10% |
| Practical work | 40% |
| Report | 40% |
| Final presentation | 10% |
Reading list
Scientific literature according to supervisor's instructions.
Registration
Registration procedure will be announced.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Urban Studies board.
Remarks
This information is subject to change.