The ins and outs of writing an MSc Dissertation at SoGE

As a part of each of the five SoGE MSc Courses (Biodiversity and Conservation Management; Nature, Society, and Environmental Governance; Environmental Change Management, Water Science Management and Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment) students must undertake their own original research, in order to write an approximately 15,000-word original dissertation, this assignment will be the final and most consequential work of your degree.

The topic of each dissertation will vary widely across the MSc courses and even among students in the same cohort. Students may choose to partner with governments, companies, and organizations to work on specific policy outcomes, while others may decide to follow completely independent personal pursuits.

Throughout Michaelmas term, MSc students will learn more about the research process through core modules like Research Design, Professional and Research Skills, and Research Methods and Practice. Throughout these classes and other dissertation prep sessions, students are exposed to a variety of different research methods, techniques, and theories that will help them come up with topics of interest for their dissertation. While students are not expected to have a dissertation idea at the beginning of the master's programme, they are encouraged to develop their ideas as they connect with new material on their course.

At the end of Hilary term, students submit will submit a draft dissertation proposal. This will also be the deadline at which students will be required to submit their research questions and plans, CUREC applications, and risk assessments forms for their projects.

CUREC, or the Central University Research Ethics Committee, oversees all research that is undertaken within the university. In order to conduct research concerning human subjects, every researcher must submit a CUREC application, which will be evaluated by members of the department and the central university ethics committee.

If you are planning on having human subjects for your research project, you will have to fill out a CUREC form which details all of your research plans. Depending on how intensive or sensitive your research topic is, the CUREC process might be quite extensive. The processing of your CUREC application can take weeks or months, but it is important to remember that you must receive CUREC approval before starting any field research. You also will have to submit a risk assessment to the department for any fieldwork activities or travel.

Each student must choose at least one member of the department to supervise their thesis, this will usually be a professor whose work closely aligns with their chosen topic. If you're not able to find a close match to your topic within the faculty, some students will choose to have multiple informal advisors in addition to their primary advisor, and some also connect with members from other departments or institutions to help guide their research.

Students can expect to receive eight direct contact hours with their advisors, and as per department rules, dissertation advising ends two weeks before the dissertation due date.

All of the dissertations are expected to have to have a component of self-driven, original research, which can vary widely depending on the project. This can mean anything from archival research, to biological sampling, searching online databases, conducting in-person or online interviews, ethnography, and more. Each project will be unique to every individual, so fieldwork can look very different between students.

Some students may choose to go abroad to conduct field work, while some will choose to stay in Oxford or do all of their research online. Field work really depends on your project aims (and funding of course!).

Following the exam period in mid-May, students typically embark on around six weeks of fieldwork depending on their projects. During this time, students will collect and analyze data for their project and start drafting sections of their dissertation.

Funding is arguably the most important part of any dissertation research project. Unfortunately many students think of funding as more of an afterthought when planning their dissertation. Luckily, there are many different pockets of funding located throughout the university or with external organizations that can help students fund their projects. The department provides some funding towards dissertation research costs, and students may be able to apply to different research grants from their college.

It is also important to consider that many funding opportunities have deadlines much earlier in Michaelmas term, which is often before most students have an idea of what they want to research. If you have even a vague idea that you would like to do for your dissertation then, it's a good idea to start looking into these grants as soon as possible!

Now that fieldwork has finished, it's onto the most important (and daunting) part - actually writing the dissertation! This portion of the project is oftentimes very self-driven and students are solely responsible for keeping up with any preliminary deadlines they have agreed upon with their advisors.

Fortunately for SoGE students, Oxford is home to a number of incredible libraries, coffeeshops, and study nooks to help keep motivated while writing. In terms of timeframe, students typically work through the summer of their MSc to submit by the September 1st deadline.

The dissertation assignment is definitely a fast-paced and consuming process, but hopefully by breaking it down into its most essential steps it starts to feel a bit less daunting! Many SoGE students look back on the dissertation process as a highlight of their MSc programme, and have been able to use their research and fieldwork to land publications, internships, jobs, and more!

Emma Schneck (she/her) is a student on the MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Governance course and one of the School of Geography and the Environment’s Science Writers. In addition to her coursework, Emma enjoys working as one of the head editors for the Anthroposphere—a multimedia climate magazine based in the University of Oxford. Her main interests include climate justice, climate-induced migration, environmental politics, and small island state representation in the UNFCCC. Her most recent dissertation research explores ocean conservation governance and liminal political movements in Tenerife, Spain.