Seminar structure and dates
Seminars last 17 minutes (12 presentation + 5 discussion) and are convened regularly about once a month. The seminar calendar can be found below. The dates of the seminars will be distributed throughout the academic year: generally one month before the various degree sessions. On each date, it will be possible to present any type of seminar. The session will be held if there is at least one registered student. A student may not take more than one seminar on the same date. Until a later date, seminars will be held telematically through the use of Microsoft Teams software. The participation of internal and external speakers and co-speakers in the seminars and discussions is of course welcome. Students are strongly requested to facilitate the participation of external speakers by providing them with connection instructions, dates and times.
Initial seminar
In the initial seminar, the candidate presents the thesis project. The presentation consists of the state of the art, i.e. a critical analysis of the scientific literature on the subject. The motivations and scientific relevance that led to the development of the proposed topic must emerge from the state of the art, in particular the hypotheses and knowledge that can potentially be acquired and that justify the research. The objectives of the thesis and, briefly, the materials and methods that will be used to achieve the proposed objectives must then be explained. Ideally, the thesis should answer questions and thus one should be able, at least hypothetically, to indicate the meaning of the expected results.
Most of the presentation should be devoted to explaining the state of the art and the hypotheses of the study. When planning the work, one must consider that this seminar is usually the most difficult of the three and that its preparation requires adequate time, a demanding study of at least a few dozen scientific articles on the subject. Some of these articles, those most relevant to the thesis, should be presented in detail in the seminar.
Intermediate Seminar (in English)
The intermediate seminar takes place in English and is mainly devoted to the description of the methodological aspects of the work: illustration of the work plan and experimental design, work schedule, sampling, justification of the sample size used, data analysis and appropriateness of the analyses to be carried out. At this stage, both the scientific rationale and the objectives supporting the methodological choices must be reiterated. First results are also recommended. It is desirable, however, that the presentation of materials and methods be set out critically, clearly highlighting the merits and shortcomings of the methods used, the possible alternatives and the reasons for choosing certain methodologies. It is often useful to also highlight concrete problems encountered in the course of the thesis in order to obtain advice that may prove useful.
Final seminar
- Rehearsal of the final presentation
Due to its nature, it will be held approximately one month before the date of the degree examination in order to allow corrections to be made as a result of the discussion. Having recalled the scientific justification and objectives, most of the time will be devoted to the illustration of the results and their interpretation. In structure, this seminar is similar to a presentation at a congress. The state of the art and illustration of materials and methods are usually kept to a minimum.
