Minor research project

The minor research project is intended to teach students to independently perform a research project of 14 weeks (20 EC). Upon completion of the project, you should be able to set up valid experiments, to draw conclusions from the results and to present your results in a concise form. Your research thesis should be formatted like a journal paper.

Research projects can be performed internally (at the Image Sciences Institute or at another department of the UMC Utrecht) or you can go to another hospital, a research institute (e.g. NKI, TNO) or to a company (e.g. Philips Healthcare, Pie Medical), all of those either in the Netherlands or abroad.

All information regarding the minor research project can be found on the GSLS Study Guide. Below, we highlight some Medical Imaging specific details.

Start your research project

Make sure to read the ‘How to start’ steps and the Study Guide pages. Contact the research project coordinator at least two months prior to the start of your minor research project. Consider what you want to do (topic) and where you want to perform your project (UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands, abroad; academia or industry).

You will need a supervisor to guide you. If you have a topic in mind and you know whom to approach for it, feel free to ask that person to be your supervisor. If you have a good idea of some topics that interest you, but you do not know who could be a supervisor for those topics, contact us.

Duration, extension, and delay

Make sure to read the Study Guide pages. The duration of the minor research project is 14 weeks (20 EC) and optionally extended with 6, 9, or 12 EC.

Going abroad

Make sure to read the Study Guide – Going abroad pages. The researchers affiliated with the Medical Imaging programme have numerous international collaborations. Contact us if you would like to perform your minor project in a specific country, or international institute or company. Start at least 6 – 9 months in advance.

Interim assessment

Make sure to read the Study Guide pages. Additionally you should send a copy of the interim assessment to mix@umcutrecht.nl.

Final assessment

Make sure to read the Study Guide pages. Your research thesis must be formatted like a journal paper, with a length between 8 – 12 pages. We advise you to use the IEEE (LaTeX or Word) template for this. Submit your research thesis including the laymen’s summary at  least one week before your concluding presentation to your supervisors, second reviewer, and the Medical Imaging programme committee (mix@umcutrecht.nl).

Your concluding presentation will be given at the Image Sciences Institute, for which all researchers and other Medical Imaging students are invited. You are allowed to ask family and friends to join as well, of course. (It is a public event.) The presentation is to last about 20 minutes (25 minutes maximum), followed by questions from the assessment committee and the audience. To arrange this presentation, contact the research project coordinator at least two weeks in advance. Include the following items, which will be used in the announcement of your presentation:

  • title
  • date, time & location of the presentation (*), contact Renée Allebrandi to arrange the location
  • name, e-mail adress and title of your supervisor(s)
  • name of the institute where the research has been performed
  • abstract of your project

(*) If the presentation can be followed online, please add a link to Teams. To do this, go to the UU Teams environment and add a meeting in Calendar by only adding yourself. The link to the meeting can then be found under Meeting info.

After your concluding presentation, the assessment committee will confer in private to decide on your grade and you will be called in to hear the end result. Directly after, the assessment form needs to be completed following the instructions on that form. Make sure to read the instructions for final assessment on the Study Guide.

After the presentation, your examiner should fill in the assessment part of the assessment form and perform an Urkund plagiarism check. Next, the examiner should send to infobms@umcutrecht.nlmix@umcutrecht.nl, and you (the student) the following:

  • the completed assessment form,
  • the written motivation for the final grade, and
  • the summary of the (Ouriginal) plagiarism check

You, the student, will then be contacted by the administration office to upload your thesis including the laymen’s summary in Osiris.