MSc Cardiovascular Health and Disease (Research)

Research project 2 is a major part of the research focussed MSc programmes. The duration of the project is approximately 25 weeks of research work, with 3-4 weeks of additional writing-up time. This is a full-time project, and students are expected to spend 5 full days per week working on it with the exception of attendance at other timetabled taught sessions which may still be running in the initial part of the project. The research project may be laboratory or clinically based, a ‘dry’ project (e.g. using epidemiological approaches or bioinformatics), or a combination of these. The location of the project may in some cases be away from the main University campus.

Students must achieve ≥50% in one of the pre-requisite units to progress onto the MSc

• Equip students with knowledge and practical skills to pursue a research career focused on medical science or another medically-related discipline.
• Develop academic writing skills for the presentation of research.
• Develop oral presentation skills for communication of research.

•    Regular (approximately weekly) consultations with supervisor(s) starting with project orientation meeting.  
•    Completion of logbook forms to monitor progress.
•    Regular informal contacts with research staff with overlapping interests.
•    Scientific writing: constructive feedback to guide improvement.
•    Oral communication skills: constructive feedback to guide improvement.
 

Students should/will be able to:

Have a detailed and systematic understanding of chosen research area.
 

Students should/will be able to:

• Show critical thinking capacity, including abstraction, analysis and critical judgement.
• Synthesise and analyse data and information.
• Command an appropriate battery of communication skills (including written and spoken word and use of images) to engage in constructive dialogue with peers and supervisor.
• Be able to make a reasoned argument for a particular point of view.
• Be able to draw reasoned conclusions.
   

Students should/will be able to:

• Have acquired practical experience of developing research questions and using research methods to progress to an answer.
• Use effective word processing.
• Use library, electronic and online resources.
• Use reference manager software.
• Develop appropriate illustrative materials for a report.
• Have practical experience in oral presentation of scientific research.

Students should/will be able to:

• Time management and prioritisation skills.
• To use word processing, database, spreadsheet and presentation software.
• Independently gather, sift, synthesise and organise material from various sources (including library, electronic and online resources), and critically evaluate its significance.
• Produce a written report/presentation using language appropriate to a specialist audience.
• Produce a research summary using appropriate language to communicate findings to a scientific audience as well as a lay audience.

Presentation - 15%

Assessment of research performance - 5%

Research Report - 80%

Formative feedback is provided by a supervisor for the presentation (oral/poster), research performance progress, and a section of the final dissertation report. 

Teaching staff:

Elizabeth Cottrell
Mark Dilworth
Ellie Cheadle
Karen Rees-Unwin
Ashraf Kitmitto
Vicky Liu