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External thesis collaborations

Thesis collaborations with companies and other organizations

Starting up on your thesis course, you might consider the possibility to write your thesis in collaboration with a company or other organization outside of the university. This might be a good opportunity for you to acquire useful experiences and valuable connections in the world outside the university. It might also be rewarding to see the scientific knowledge that you produce being directly or indirectly implemented by the external organization. Such collaboration on theses is in line with the university policy of promoting collaborations with the surrounding society.

You need a supervisor at the Department of Psychology

Your supervisor will have to be an academic member of staff at the Department of Psychology, and you need to contact and engage this supervisor early in the process of discussing the possible project. This is because a supervisor has to assess the feasibility of writing a scientific thesis in psychology on a joint project with the external organization (e.g., a company) in question.

More specifically, supervision is absolutely essential in the process of formulating a scientific psychological research question that is possible to answer in a thesis at your academic level, within the research ethical framework that applies, and given the time constraints and resources that you have at your disposal.

Project proposals initiated by companies and other external organizations are presented here on the department homepage. For these projects, the department has already arranged with a supervisor.

You might also initiate an external thesis collaboration yourself. If you are in contact with an external organization with which you would like to cooperate regarding your thesis – or when you know what organization you are interested in – you should start by trying to establish collaboration with an academic member of staff at the Department of Psychology. It is important that you find someone at the department who is interested in the subject matter of your planned project and in becoming your supervisor. Note that the final assignment of supervisors will always be decided by the course leader.

Do not sign an agreement on your own!

It is very important that the external organization is aware of the requirements for your thesis to be approved of/pass as a Master thesis in Psychology. For your thesis to be approved, your results and conclusions have to be based entirely on scientific considerations made independently of the external organization you are cooperating with. Therefore, it is important that an agreement with the organization is in place before your actual cooperation is started.

You should not sign an agreement with an external organization on your own! The agreement must be made between you, your supervisor and the organization. Lund University provides a template for student thesis agreements, which is available to academic staff, and which your potential supervisor can assist with.