Thesis Proposal (end of I year)

All PhD students towards the end of the first year must present a thesis proposal. This is a precondition for the admission to the second year.
The thesis proposal is a very relevant step in the path towards a PhD in order to evaluate the current status of the research work of the student and to plan the final dissertation. It should be designed as a research project proposal, not as a scientific paper.

Proposal Structure

The thesis proposal should be a 10-20 pages long document (written in English) including:

1. A title and an abstract

2. Motivations and a concise description of the goals of the thesis

3. The identification of the PhD thesis reference research area and discussion of the relevance of the thesis goals

4. A review of the state of the art

5. A presentation of possible preliminary results (obtained during the first year)

6. The description of the expected results and the strategies to be applied for pursuing such results with an informal justification of their feasibility.

7. A work plan for the remaining two years (including a time schedule and a description of the relationships among the proposed activities).

Presentation and Discussion

The presentation of each thesis proposal is public and is done in front of the PhD Program Committee. The presentation should contain an overview of the proposal understandable also to non-experts in the specific topic of the proposal.