1. During the 2nd Semester, all postgraduate students must prepare a preliminary research outline for the elaboration of a dissertation and select a supervising member of teaching staff, with the consent of the latter. The supervisor may be: a) a Professor at the MSc, who has been given a partial or full assignment of teaching a course at the programme, or b) a member of the Teaching Staff of the Departments that participate in the programme, regardless of whether or not it been given a partial or full assignment of teaching a course at the programme. The research outline of the dissertation must specify the topic to be analyzed, the methodology of the scientific approach adopted, as well as an indicative bibliography that will be used. The acceptance of the research proposal by the supervisor is done using criteria on the relevance of the subject with the MSc substance, the expected scientific contribution, and the emerging elements of originality in terms of the approach of the subject under investigation. This acceptance of the research proposal is ratified by SIC, which also appoints the three-member examination committee, one of the members of which is the supervisor, and the other two members must be of the same or relevant scientific field with regard to the subject of the dissertation. 

2. The topic of the dissertation is registered in a special list of postgraduate studies that is kept by the Secretariat of the programme.  The list necessarily includes the names of the student and the supervisor, the date of approval of the topic by the SIC, and the date of completion of the dissertation. 

3. Depending on the dissertation’s progress, the postgraduate student informs the supervisor, who monitors whether the objectives and specifications of the research are met. The size of the dissertation ranges from 15,000 to 25,000 words. 

4. When the dissertation is completed, it is submitted in three (3) copies, to the supervisor and the examiners, with the consent of the supervisor that it meets the conditions to be reviewed. The presentation of the dissertation takes place at the end of the 3rd semester, at the latest, for all postgraduate students, unless an extension has been granted by the SIC. The invitation and the announcement for the public presentation of the dissertation are made by the Director of the programme, after consultation with the supervisor, who coordinates and chairs this process. During the presentation, the student presents the main points of his dissertation with its conclusions and responds to questions posed by the examiners. 

5. In order to be approved by the three-member examination committee, a dissertation must meet the following requirements:

a) The subject and the content of the work should be relevant to the subject of the programme.

b) The discussion and analysis of the topic, without necessarily having completely new data, should be done in such a way of approaching the sources and the bibliography so that the personal research effort and performance of the candidate is presented. 

Plagiarism / Omission of reference to used bibliography 

When submitting any work (assignment) in the courses or the dissertation, a student is required to indicate whether he used the work and the views of others. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Plagiarism is the partial or complete copying or use of data of another, published or not, without the appropriate accurate and clear reference to the specific source, as well as the citation of any documentation, even from studies of the candidate himself, without relative accuracy and clear reference.