Master's thesis abroad

Before going abroad

The activities to be performed before going abroad will vary depending on whether or not the topic for the thesis was established before departure.

CASE A) The topic for the thesis was established before going abroad

In this case, the student:

○      identifies the supervisor and has the thesis topic assigned;

○      ensures that the supervisor has agreed this topic with the co-supervisor;

○      contacts the co-supervisor to arrange for them to be available to supervise the student's work in their laboratories.

The student must first obtain approval from the President of the Degree Programme Board (CCS) by email. Only then can the student obtain the President’s signature on the documents. Hence, the student must initially send an email to the CSS's Student Records Committee (pratiche.studenti.LM.IC@dii.unipd.it)  with the following documentation:

○      the proposed learning agreement;

○      a thesis commencement form (the supervisor's signature is not required at this stage);

○      a request for the student's international study plan to be assessed, using this form, in which the student must explicitly specify the proposed N_abroad value; the form must be kept in Microsoft Word format.

The email subject should be: “Learning agreement proposal Last Name First Name”. The name of each file attached to the email must begin with “Last Name_First Name”.

Only when the student has received approval by email may they contact the President to get the documents signed. In this case, however, it is essential that the documents be signed in advance by the Erasmus coordinator and by the thesis supervisor. Any requests that do not comply with this procedure (including the method by which email attachments are transmitted) will be rejected.

CASE B) The topic for the thesis was not established before going abroad

The procedure is similar to the previous case, but the thesis commencement form does not need to be completed and submitted before departure. In addition, with regard to assessing the student's international study plan for determining the N_abroad value, the months abroad must (conventionally) be one less than the actual months spent abroad.

Furthermore, immediately upon reaching the host institution, the student must also:

○      identify a thesis topic along with the co-supervisor and supervisor;

○      ensure that the supervisor and the co-supervisor have agreed the thesis topic;

○      electronically send the signed thesis commencement form to their supervisor; the supervisor will print the form, add the start date and the expected end date, sign it and forward it to the President of the Degree Programme Board. The start date cannot be earlier than the date on which the President receives the form. Work on the thesis may only begin once the student receives email confirmation from the President that the start-up process was completed successfully.

The student will have a maximum of one month (from their departure) to have a thesis project assigned and to start the related work. If the student fails to start working on the thesis within one month of departure, the approval for the learning agreement shall be considered revoked.

Given the many institutional activities in which the members of the Student Records Committee are involved, no requests to process authorisation files “urgently” will be accepted. Students are, therefore, strongly advised to carefully plan the time required to submit their request to the Committee, bearing in mind that, although the Committee generally responds promptly, the process can take up to 10 working days.