Life Sciences (excluding Chemistry)
Final Year Research Project (C7127)
Course convener: Dr Michelle West
m.j.west@sussex.ac.uk
• All students* in the School of Life
Sciences carry out a final year research
project.
• * Human Sciences students may choose to do one as
an option.
• You will have the opportunity to:
– undertake an individual piece of original
research.
– work independently (with guidance and
support).
Life Science Final Year Research
Project (C7127)
• The project is a core course and will
appear on your final year options form
already- you must fill in the options form
to choose your other courses and
submit as normal.
• You then choose a specific project
through a separate procedure (see later
slides) and submit your project choice
form next term.
Project Assessment
• Oral presentation of approx 10-15 mins
in week 1 or 2 of the spring term (10%).
• Project report of approximately 6000
words due in week 5 of the spring term
(90%).
How Much Time Will I
Spend On My Project?
• 30 credit course (1/4 of final year).
• 1 credit roughly equates to 10 hours of study
time.
• You will therefore be expected to spend
approx 300 hours working on your project.
• A rough guide:
– 50 hours writing report / talk.
– 250 hours doing research work and analysing data.
• Assuming a 7 hour day this is roughly
– 3.5 days a week for 10 weeks
Is Project Time
Timetabled?
• You are expected to manage your own time
spent on research- lab/research time will not
be on your timetable.
• The research for your project must be
completed in the autumn term.
• You need to fit your project work around your
lectures and course reading.
• Your project should NOT require you to skip
lectures and neglect course reading!
What kinds of projects are
available?
• In general a research project involves testing
a hypothesis or analysing a research
question. Projects can include:
– Experimental work e.g. field work, data collection,
lab-based research.
– Analysis of existing data e.g. bioinformatics, data
mining, population/behaviour analysis.
– Extraction and analysis of data and information
from published literature.
Where can I find project
details ?
• Teaching and research faculty will provide
project titles and descriptions.
• These are displayed on the school website as
PDF files covering the four main subject areas
of the school (excluding chemistry)
– Evolution behaviour and environment
– Genome damage and stability
– Biochemistry and molecular biology
– Neuroscience.
What type of project shall I
choose?
• If you are considering a career in Medicine or
a non-experimental science-based career,
then a critical review or data analysis project
may be a good choice.
• If you are considering a career in academic/
lab-based research then a lab-based or data
analysis project would be a good choice.
Choosing projects
• You are expected to contact supervisors to
discuss projects you are interested in (arrange
an appointment by e-mail do not just turn up!).
• Please obtain their signatures on the form
available on the school website.
• After discussions with supervisors please rank
your choices (1-6).
Choosing projects-tips!
• Do not leave it until the day forms are due in
(week 3 of summer term) to approach
supervisors.
– They may not have time to talk to you.
– This doesn’t give them a very good impression of
your organisational skills.
• Think outside of the box!
– Try not to only pick supervisors you know- many
research faculty offer very good projects.
– Try to be open-minded about the area of research-
many projects offer training in widely applicable
techniques.