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PHD Thesis Proposal
PHD Thesis Proposal
academic, but also in industrial/social terms, if possible). It should provide a general overview
of the problems solved, the challenges overcome, and the results obtained.
2. Research Context
This section should present a summary survey of the research context in which the work is
taking place, covering the technical background and state of the art. The main goal is to give
the research context, motivate the issues that have been investigated and solved in the thesis,
and justify the relevance and originality of the results.
3. Research Problem and Results
This section should describe the performed research work, including a more detailed
description of the problem(s) addressed and ideas and techniques exploited, and a commented
enumeration of the original contributions. Use examples to illustrate concepts, whenever that
makes sense. This presentation should be anchored in the survey included in the previous
chapter, and in already published articles in conferences and journals.
4. Conclusion and self-assessment
This section should include any additional aspects not covered in the previous ones, including
possible extensions to the research work already done, open issues, and points for discussion
with the Thesis Advisory Committee.
5. References
The list of bibliographic references.
Final Remarks
The assessment of the Thesis Proposal document, its oral presentation, and public discussion
is an important event, the final major milestone of the PhD student progress towards the PhD
degree. As such, you should carefully prepare your Thesis Proposal, working in close
collaboration with the supervisor(s). It is likely that you will need to iterate a few times the
precise form of your document, so you should reserve some time to review and polish it
before submission. Writing the Thesis Proposal should also be a pleasurable and exciting
activity, and it gives you yet another opportunity of presenting your PhD research, and
receive feed-back about it, before writing the final dissertation document.