MPharm research project guide: Project management

Your supervisor will be responsible for guiding the direction of your work and for ensuring safe working. The day-to-day supervision of your work may be delegated to another member of your supervisor’s research group, if appropriate.

If you are having any problems with your supervision, then it is imperative that you let the module convenor know straight away.

Your supervisor is a valuable resource when working on your research project but they will not tell you how to do your project. You need to take charge and ‘own’ your project as you will be the one who has to stand by it and will receive the marks for it. Owning your project means being pro-active and thinking of the ideas and direction of the project yourself. This does not mean you have to do everything alone as your supervisor can give valuable advice and act as a sounding board for your ideas. Consider your supervisor’s advice carefully as they have the experience to know what is likely to work and not work in a research project.

Working with your supervisor is a partnership and you need to negotiate a way to work that suits both of you. Things to find out are:

• How many meetings with your supervisor you can have
• The best methods of communicating with your supervisor – e.g., are they willing to give feedback by email
• When it is appropriate to ask them questions – e.g., only during their office hours for seeing students
• How much of your draft project they are able to look at and provide feedback on
• Any deadlines for handing in drafts for feedback
• Any times they will be away and out of contact

The kinds of things that your supervisor can advise on:

• Whether your project is manageable in the time you have
• If you need to have a more focused title or question
• Whether your project outline is reasonable / workable
• Suggestions for books and resources to get you started
• Design of the research protocol
• The data collection process
• Analysis of the results
• Advice on the structure and plan of your project and report
• Feedback on specific chapters or sections of chapters

Engaging with and completing the final year research project is the student’s responsibility. It is a collaboration between the student and the supervisor, with supervisors providing occasional, but important input in the form of advice and correction. Supervision does not mean intensive coaching (even if supervisors may occasionally provide extra help for students experiencing difficulties). Supervisors will guide, but students must do the research.

Students should meet their supervisor on a regular basis. How often this is will vary depending on the type of project and ability of the student. As general rule, students should expect a formal meeting with their supervisor for one hour every week. At the discretion of the supervisor this might be more frequent for a shorter period of time. Also, if you are performing similar research to another student or supervisor’s research group you might be invited to attend group meetings. Students performing laboratory-based projects might engage with their supervisor or a member of their laboratory more frequently, as they will need to be taught a particular technique. Students should expect replies to email enquiries within 48 hours (not including weekends/public holidays), although a complete answer to complex questions may take longer. Although many supervisors will be pro-active in arranging meetings, it is ultimately the students’ responsibility to arrange meetings to discuss their research. In this regard, it might be beneficial to the supervisor and student to set meetings for the whole semester.

Students cannot expect that a supervisor is able to provide immediate and substantial assistance within a few days of a deadline: supervisors have multiple students and many other duties. It is the student's responsibility to be fully aware of any deadlines and manage their time and progress so that they do not need such assistance at the last minute. Supervisors are not available for meetings outside of normal office hours and certainly not at weekends. Students should contact their supervisors by email in the first instance and not turn up at the supervisor's office unannounced.

Meeting with your supervisor

It is important that you plan appropriately when meeting with your supervisor to make sure that you make the best of the time. You should always be punctual for meetings and if, for any reason, you are going to be late, then you should let your supervisor know via university email. You cannot expect your supervisor to wait for you or rearrange the meeting if you are late.

You should prepare an agenda for your meeting, this may include:

• Results – a summary of how your project is progressing
• Questions - A top tip is don't be afraid to put questions to your supervisor, but it is often better to ask specific questions that you have attempted to find answers to first. Instead of asking "How am I doing?" you are more likely to get the detailed answer you need if you ask, "What do you think of the methodology I am using? Is this the best way to address this question?"
• Your research plan until the next meeting

People are different and supervisors have different styles of supervision. For example, some supervisors tend to be more hands-on, scrutinizing the details of students’ work and progress, whereas others tend to be more hands-off and let students get on with things by themselves. There is no consensus about which style is pedagogically best. Both styles are liable to have advantages and disadvantages.

Students with a more hands-on supervisor may receive more corrective feedback. However, this may lead to the student becoming less independent. In contrast, a less hands-on supervisory style may help students to learn how to become independent researchers, but students will be expected to scrutinize their own work. A supervisors’ style will also differ in other ways e.g., meetings will be more or less formal depending on the supervisor. This is normal and students also have different learning and research styles as well.

The nature (and progression) of the project, and the ability and attitude of the student, will lead supervisors to adjust their supervisory style. In general, supervisors appreciate students who work hard and who come to meetings prepared to talk about their research in an organised way. This will be reflected in the grade they award to the ‘Performance and Engagement’ part of the module.

Students will not be penalized for seeking legitimate assistance from their supervisor e.g., how to perform a complex chemical reaction. However, a supervisor cannot be expected to act in a remedial role, such as teaching a student how to do tasks they have covered in previous years or other parts of the module e.g., like carrying out a simple statistical test such as a t-test.

You are expected to dedicate two days a week for nine weeks of the second Semester to your project. Whilst you can seek guidance from your supervisor the organisation of your project time is your responsibility. The pattern of work may be irregular. For example, you may have a very intensive period of data collection, followed by a longer period of processing and analysing it. You may also find that, at times, your progress is held up while you wait for a variety of services e.g. inter-library loans, chemicals arriving or analyses. You will need to be flexible in your approach and show a greater degree of time management.

For lab-based projects:

• Find out realistically how long experimental procedures take – speak to the researchers in your laboratory. Preparation often takes longer than you think.
• Plan time to clear up after yourself - this is part of the experiment!
• Plan experiments to finish around five - you are not allowed to work out of hours without permission and certainly never on your own.

Manage the tasks associated with your project using a Gantt chart. This will:

• show the time allocated to each task and the dependency between tasks;
• establish the feasibility of your plan and as a baseline against which to measure progress;

The chart may need to be revised at each project planning meeting, in consultation with your supervisor.

Even though you've got several months in which to do your project, the time will soon go. Find tips on making the most of your time in this video from our Study Advice Team:

Be aware of your resources.

Physical resources

• What equipment do I need?
• What access do I get? Do I need to book it?
• Who knows how to drive it?
• Do you need access to additional publications not held by the Library? How do you get them?

Human resources

When are the people you need free to help? Respect their time!

• Who will help in the lab?
• Who runs the Stores?
• Who runs the prep rooms?

Budget

• Be aware of the budget.
• Your supervisor uses his/her own research funding to support your project.
• Minimise wastage - for instance don't order 500 agar plates unless you are definitely going to use them.
• Only order inter-library loans for key publications not available in the Library.