Project Requirements 23.24
Project Requirements 23.24
This comprehensive document outlines each of our master’s programmes and what their thesis
requires/entails. This document will provide a description of the thesis, areas of research, examples
of past project titles and the requirements of the thesis for each of the programmes. We hope that
this document will answer any questions you may have, as well as allow you to submit project
proposals more easily and correctly.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].
Time/duration
● Duration of project: depends on the programme and ranges from 3 months to 8 months
Language
● Project submission language: the project proposal submission needs to be in English, but you
can indicate that the language of the project will be Dutch. Please make sure to clearly
indicate this with the project proposal submission
● The final project submission must be in English
Supervision
● Every student will require a dedicated daily supervisor/mentor at your organisation.
Workspace
● Throughout the project, you will need to give the student will time and space to be able to
conduct their research
● Students will be required to attend meetings with their UvA supervisor and other MSc thesis
meetings. Please give the student the flexibility to attend these meetings.
Compensation
● Compensation is not required.
● Students are not expecting compensation but would be a nice benefit and this can be
discussed individually with the student.
The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description.
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Thesis projects for the AI Master should focus on research. Hence the main project requirement is an
interesting and novel research question the student can dive into.
The final grade of the thesis project is determined by one thing: the thesis manuscript. The entire
thesis project should be geared towards this manuscript.
Successful examples:
1. Greedy InfoMax for Self-Supervised Representation Learning
2. Deep Learning Methods for Deconvolution in Radio Astronomy
3. Deep Reinforcement Learning for Coordination in Traffic Light Control
A good proposal includes a solid and new research question, an interesting research problem, and
relevant context (which includes motivation for the research question and optional references).
An AI MSc student undertaking their thesis will be a 2nd year master's student. The student has a
solid foundation in machine learning theory and application, with specialties ranging from computer
vision and natural language processing to reinforcement learning and traditional AI.
● Machine learning
● Computer vision
● Natural language processing
● Reinforcement learning
● AI
● Information retrieval
As of the 2023/2024 Academic Year, our internship program follows the UNL model agreement,
ensuring the collaboration between universities and businesses while safeguarding trade secrets and
intellectual property rights. Non-disclosure agreements are not accepted. Internships are limited to
the Netherlands, and internship providers have a two-week response period to request the removal
of confidential information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can
be requested in the internship agreement form.
• The UNL model internship agreement is established in consultation with the business
community.
• It considers the duty of care and educational task of universities, as well as the competitive
position of companies.
• The agreement is applicable to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands and is
exclusively for internships within the country.
• No additional Non-Disclosure Agreements or other agreements are accepted.
• Trade secrets and intellectual property rights are adequately protected through the model
internship agreement and the national collective labor agreement.
• There is a two-week response period for the removal of confidential information in the thesis
or presentation.
• If the internship provider does not respond within this period, the internship report may be
published in full and the presentation will continue.
• Exceptions to the agreement, such as longer embargo periods or confidential appendices,
must be indicated in the internship agreement form.
For any questions please contact [email protected]
Timeline of the thesis
The thesis project is either 6 or 8 months long. Please be mindful of this and submit projects for both
lengths if possible. A rough expected timeline is as follows:
● 1 month: developing and understanding
● 2-4 months for developing method for developing
● 2 months: finalising
● 1 month: writing
A thesis manuscript should contain relevant analyses, methods, and experiments to support the
research question.
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The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description.
The graduate in Computational Science has a thorough knowledge of modelling and simulation of
complex systems, computational methods and techniques, and the application of computational
methodologies in application fields (ranging from e.g. physics or biology to medical sciences or
engineered systems to complex social systems).
The computational science thesis should include one or more of the following broad aspects:
(i) developing computational models, that implement causal mechanisms to understand and predict
the behaviour of any system. This could be any system such as social, technical, engineered,
biological, physical etc. or
(ii) computational or mathematical techniques to analyze the behaviour of such models. These
include strategies for sensitivity analysis, calibration and validation of models. or
(iii) developing computing techniques (e.g. distributed algorithms) to enable large scale,
computational models.
The thesis aims to enable the student to develop more in-depth knowledge, understanding,
capabilities, and attitudes in the study programme. A Master of Computational Science thesis should
emphasize the scientific and modelling (computational ) aspects of the specific system under
investigation. The thesis’s overall goal is to display the knowledge and capability required for
independent work as a computational scientist.
Computational models are intended to implement causal processes in a single mechanism, which sets
them apart from traditional data analysis techniques (such as machine learning) which are applied
directly to available data. Without incorporating the same causal mechanisms either explicitly or
implicitly (on which research indeed is taking place), in general, data analysis should be restricted to
make inferences or predictions 'within the data (e.g., clustering, regression, interpolation) or perhaps
'near extrapolation' (hypothetical scenarios which are still close to that of the data). The outcome of
'far extrapolation', however, requires incorporating the relevant causal processes (since their validity
extends beyond any data set), which is by definition the goal of computational modelling.
This distinction can also be seen by comparing the ‘inductive capability’ of the learning algorithms
(from past data, one can identify patterns) with the deductive capability of computational
(mechanistic) models.
information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can be requested
in the internship agreement form.
A detailed description of the new policy can be found here. You may also find a sample internship
agreement form here.
As of the 2023/2024 Academic Year, our internship program follows the UNL model agreement,
ensuring the collaboration between universities and businesses while safeguarding trade secrets and
intellectual property rights. Non-disclosure agreements are not accepted. Internships are limited to
the Netherlands, and internship providers have a two-week response period to request the removal
of confidential information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can
be requested in the internship agreement form.
• The UNL model internship agreement is established in consultation with the business
community.
• It considers the duty of care and educational task of universities, as well as the competitive
position of companies.
• The agreement is applicable to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands and is
exclusively for internships within the country.
• No additional Non-Disclosure Agreements or other agreements are accepted.
• Trade secrets and intellectual property rights are adequately protected through the model
internship agreement and the national collective labor agreement.
• There is a two-week response period for the removal of confidential information in the thesis
or presentation.
• If the internship provider does not respond within this period, the internship report may be
published in full and the presentation will continue.
• Exceptions to the agreement, such as longer embargo periods or confidential appendices,
must be indicated in the internship agreement form.
For any questions please contact [email protected]
1. Clearly highlight the novelty of the proposed research and how it builds on the current state-
of-art?
2. Clearly highlights the significance of the research. Why now?
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3. Clearly highlight the data availability (if applicable) and how data will be accessed.
4. Computational techniques that will be applied in the research.
5. Planned research outcome.
The programme is oriented to prepare students for entry into a PhD programme in Computational
Science or related disciplines, or into research positions outside academia. This is mainly triggered by
the strong need in science and society for computationally trained researchers, in academia, industry
and business.
A number of core and constrained courses (in the first year) help develop students with an
independent and scientific mindset.
1) A CLS student is an expert in modelling and simulation as the third pillar of science and is capable
of applying abstract models to understand societal questions. Courses such as Agent-Based Modelling
and Complex System Simulation (in addition to teaching knowledge and skills) ask students to
develop their own research questions and models by themselves on a diverse set of topics.
2) Students can apply models to Implement and study interventions and what-if scenarios to
improve/optimize with respect to a practical application.
3) The student has basic knowledge about different techniques for modelling biochemical reactions,
metabolic pathways, regulatory networks and cells (Boolean networks, coupled with ordinary
differential equations, examples of partial differential equations, optimization techniques, and cell-
based models)
4) Students obtain insight into distributed algorithms - concurrency concepts and are offered a bird's-
eye view of a wide range of algorithms for basic and important challenges in
distributed systems
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graduation research (a remaining 36EC). The final scheduling should be discussed with the supervisor
of the graduation thesis and typically lasts 7 months.
The projects are not limited to any systems and context as long as they adhere to the requirements.
The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description.
Non-disclosure agreements are not accepted. Internships are limited to the Netherlands, and
internship providers have a two-week response period to request the removal of confidential
information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can be requested
in the internship agreement form.
A detailed description of the new policy can be found here. You may also find a sample internship
agreement form here.
As of the 2023/2024 Academic Year, our internship program follows the UNL model agreement,
ensuring the collaboration between universities and businesses while safeguarding trade secrets and
intellectual property rights. Non-disclosure agreements are not accepted. Internships are limited to
the Netherlands, and internship providers have a two-week response period to request the removal
of confidential information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can
be requested in the internship agreement form.
• The UNL model internship agreement is established in consultation with the business
community.
• It considers the duty of care and educational task of universities, as well as the competitive
position of companies.
• The agreement is applicable to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands and is
exclusively for internships within the country.
• No additional Non-Disclosure Agreements or other agreements are accepted.
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Updated July 2023
• Trade secrets and intellectual property rights are adequately protected through the model
internship agreement and the national collective labor agreement.
• There is a two-week response period for the removal of confidential information in the thesis
or presentation.
• If the internship provider does not respond within this period, the internship report may be
published in full and the presentation will continue.
• Exceptions to the agreement, such as longer embargo periods or confidential appendices,
must be indicated in the internship agreement form.
Duration
The thesis should be concluded within 5 months with the majority of the students starting in
February.
Course Content
The Master Project is the programme component where scientific and professional skills are trained
most extensively. The Master Project always involves an element of originality or creativity. A student
will use all the knowledge acquired during the studies to perform a design task or to contribute to
solving a scientific problem in the computer science field.
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The project can take place either inside the Department of Computer Science of the VU or the
Informatics Institute of the University of Amsterdam or as an internship in a company. In the case of
an internship, supervision will be in cooperation with a daily supervisor at the company. In both
cases, a detailed project proposal must be written and approved in advance by a staff member, who
in this way agrees to act as project's main supervisor. The proposal must include: the problem
statement, the research question(s), a short description of the proposed method, and a planning that
also states the frequency the student will meet with the daily supervisor/main supervisor. The main
supervisor needs to find a second reader for the thesis, who must also be a staff member.
Project requirements
The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description. The student has to have finished all courses from the 4 blocks of the
programme. The research project’s objective is to give the student an opportunity to acquire practical
experience in quantitative and qualitative scientific research methods and to learn to work
independently. The project requires an implementation that can be validated.
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A typical Data Science thesis requires hand-labelled data, sufficient complexity going beyond simple
approaches such as linear regression and a proper evaluation setup (cross-validation, using more than
1 dataset, train/test, et cetera). For an Information Systems thesis, it is required to have a proper
validation for a quantitative or qualitative study. When interviews are used to get a requirement set,
the set must be validated and this will normally be done by means of a design (interface, small
algorithmic test, outline of a test framework, et cetera).
A master thesis is defined as “an individually written record of the student’s performed original
research or design of a scientific nature”. It is an original, independent piece of work especially
composed for this occasion containing the creative ideas of the student. Claims, hypotheses, policy
recommendations and design choices need to be supported with arguments based on existing theory
or empirical evidence.
The master thesis cannot consist of copied resources (internet, books, and journals), unless properly
quoted, and the material has not already been submitted elsewhere (other courses, study
programmes, universities) with the aim to receive study credits for this. The master thesis can,
however, elaborate on previously submitted work, as long as it is clear which contribution of the
student has been submitted for which study programme component.
The learning objectives of the research project comprise, that after completion of the thesis project,
the student:
● is able to formulate a clear research question in the field of information studies and design a
plan to answer that question
● can show state‐of‐the‐art knowledge in the area of the research project based on the relevant
literature by applying in a practical situation
● is able to process the research data and to critically judge the obtained results in relation to
the goals and the line of research of which the research project is part
● is able to describe and critically discuss the above activities in a written report, in which the
methodology is accounted for and the original phrasing is substantiated
● is able to present and discuss the results to a scientific and non-scientific audience
● is able to function in a professional environment.
of confidential information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can
be requested in the internship agreement form.
A detailed description of the new policy can be found here. You may also find a sample internship
agreement form here.
As of the 2023/2024 Academic Year, our internship program follows the UNL model agreement,
ensuring the collaboration between universities and businesses while safeguarding trade secrets and
intellectual property rights. Non-disclosure agreements are not accepted. Internships are limited to
the Netherlands, and internship providers have a two-week response period to request the removal
of confidential information. Failure to respond allows for publication of the full report. Exceptions can
be requested in the internship agreement form.
• The UNL model internship agreement is established in consultation with the business
community.
• It considers the duty of care and educational task of universities, as well as the competitive
position of companies.
• The agreement is applicable to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands and is
exclusively for internships within the country.
• No additional Non-Disclosure Agreements or other agreements are accepted.
• Trade secrets and intellectual property rights are adequately protected through the model
internship agreement and the national collective labor agreement.
• There is a two-week response period for the removal of confidential information in the thesis
or presentation.
• If the internship provider does not respond within this period, the internship report may be
published in full and the presentation will continue.
• Exceptions to the agreement, such as longer embargo periods or confidential appendices,
must be indicated in the internship agreement form.
For any questions please contact [email protected]
The students have good analytical skills regarding problem identification. They can identify potential
solutions to the problem and then find in this solution space the answer that best addresses the
problem.
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● Machine Learning
● NLP
● Media analysis
● data analytics
● HCI
As the program is interdisciplinary the students have a broad variety of domains they are
knowledgeable in.
The project runs in two parts - a 3-month thesis design (part-time) and a 3-month project (full-time).
The usual start date of the actual thesis project is the 1st of April to the 30th of June).
The student has addressed a feasible problem through a research question that can be answered
through quantitative or qualitative methods. As the project time is fixed to 3 months the problem
cannot be complex and might address a smaller problem (i.e. the comparison of two machine
learning approaches to identify the applicability of one as superior).
MSc Logic
Project requirements
The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description.
The thesis is a report on a substantial piece of scientific work, usually including a significant amount
of original research that clearly demonstrates the student's capacity to independently conduct
research in an interdisciplinary environment.
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What does a good project proposal look like? What do you want to see included?
Mainly formal-theoretical research skills, background in the theoretical sciences like, e.g., Theoretical
Computer Science, Theoretical Linguistics, Mathematics and Philosophy.
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• The agreement is applicable to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands and is
exclusively for internships within the country.
• No additional Non-Disclosure Agreements or other agreements are accepted.
• Trade secrets and intellectual property rights are adequately protected through the model
internship agreement and the national collective labor agreement.
• There is a two-week response period for the removal of confidential information in the thesis
or presentation.
• If the internship provider does not respond within this period, the internship report may be
published in full and the presentation will continue.
• Exceptions to the agreement, such as longer embargo periods or confidential appendices,
must be indicated in the internship agreement form.
For any questions please contact [email protected]
A rough timeline of the thesis
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The submitted project must be written in English. If the project requires a Dutch speaker please state
that in the project description.
The project requires scientific research contributions. The project should be a mix of theory and
practice.
What does a good project proposal look like? What do you want to see included?
The students from MSc SE are quite heterogenous: different countries, and different previous
education; one thing they have in common: software is their second nature.
● Software engineering
● Software testing
● Software evolution
● Model-based design
● DevOps
● Requirements engineering
● Software process
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● Microservices
● Programming languages
● Cybe-physical systems
● MLOps
● DataOps
● DApps
● Data engineering
Important information
We work a lot of time on co-designing the research proposals. We do not expect companies to be
able to formulate scientific research questions, but we always find very interesting scientific research
problems that could be solved by our students and the solutions validated in the context of these
companies. So, for SE, the companies are lab-like environments where our students conduct real-life
experiments. This is extremely valuable and makes our program attractive and high standard. This
means however a lot of work in the weeks after the Thesis Fair when the thesis coordinator sits down
with students and helps them identify the research gap in these industry projects.
Of course, this is mostly not the case with projects proposed by our former students that are now
working in various companies. They already know what we look for in a project and how to formulate
scientific research questions.
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