About this master
Presentation
Interested on working a full-year on a biomedical engineering research project of your choice?
Biomedical engineering is an exciting and constantly evolving field trying to answer challenging questions in healthcare and support clinicians in their decision-making. To cope with this challenge requires progress in fields such as medicine, biology, engineering, physics, information technologies, applied mathematics, to name only a few. Biomedical engineering is the interface that integrates these fields to jointly solve a given problem, with most interesting tasks strongly involving research and innovation.
The field of biomedical engineering offers a huge variety of interesting topics to work on, differently weighting technological, medical and biological concepts depending on the application. However, something in common in most interesting biomedical engineering projects nowadays is the relevant role of computational tools for data processing, interpretation, integration, modelling and visualization, to name a few. Examples of these computational tools include medical data analysis with classical image/signal processing or machine learning techniques, the different modelling phases involved in the development of medical devices, multi-scale computational models to simulate human organs and systems and for synthetic biology or advanced visualization techniques such as 3D printing and augmented/virtual reality interfaces, etc.; these can be used for biomarker extraction, improve diagnosis, guide minimally-invasive interventions, perform population-based statistics or give treatment recommendations in key clinical fields such as in neurology, cardiology or oncology, among others.
This vast amount of possibilities defines the philosophy behind the CBEM MSc, empowering and giving flexibility to the student to choose and work on the research topic of her/his interest, with the academic team supporting and helping to find a student-tailored project to work during the whole year duration of the MSc.
Who is it for?
(Almost) Anyone interested on biomedical engineering research can enrol
The CBEM MSc is focused on excellent research in biomedical engineering, which can easily be misinterpreted if not properly explained and discourage potential interested students. As a few clarifying points, the CBEM MSc:
- is not only for biomedical engineering graduates: biomedical engineering graduates from any national and international university, including UPF, should find the CBEM MSc attractive if they are interested on learning advanced concepts on a given topic, putting them into practice in the research project for the MSc thesis; in parallel, other engineers and graduates from other scientific fields such as physics, mathematics or biology have successfully followed the CBEM MSc due to its flexibility and individualized projects, choosing elective courses to complement their current skills and are required for the selected research topic;
- is not only for students interested on pursuing a PhD after the MSc: although half of the CBEM MSc alumni are currently pursuing PhDs in excellent national and international labs, including at UPF (PhD positions often offered after the MSc), the other half started their professional careers directly in industry, showing that the skills learned during the MSc were also useful and attractive to companies;
- is not only for full-time students with own economical support: the MSc allows part-time schemes (two years) so that students can combine it with other activities such as work in companies (potentially related to the MSc project). Additionally, every year there are several fellowships available for our MSc students such as the Fundación Carolina to support some of our students. They can also be potentially hired as research assistants in on-going projects of the investigators.
Admission requirements
MANDATORY DOCUMENTS
- Official university bachelor's or master's degree from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) or equivalent foreign degree allowing access to a postgraduate degree in the country that issued the degree. Should the applicant have not finished yet their studies at the time of application, they will be asked to sign a statement certifying that they will have completed them before the start of the master degree program.
Qualifications can be in the following academic areas: biomedical engineering or other areas of engineering o basic scienes. - Academic transcript of the accredited official training with the average grade at the university of origin.
The following can access the master programme:
- Degree graduates in Biomedical Engineering;
- Graduates in other areas of engineering or basic sciences, with knowledge in programming and comparable to graduates in Biomedical Engineering (engineering in the fields of IT, Telecommunications, Telematics,Audiovisual Systems, Mechanics, Aerospace, Sound and Image, Electronics, Materials, Nanoscience andNanotechnology), also graduates in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics. These students must take complementary undergraduate courses in life sciences, such as physiology of the human body and basic molecular biology. The background of each individual student and the specific master thesis project the student wants to carry out will influence which exact courses will be required.
- Graduates in Life Sciences with knowledge of the physiology of the human body and cell biology, comparable to graduates in Biomedical Engineering (Medicine, Biotechnology, Biomedical Sciences, Biological Systems,Biochemistry, Biology and Microbiology). These students must take complementary undergraduate courses in maths, basic science, programming and computational techniques. The background of each individual student and the specific master thesis project the student wants to carry out will influence which exact courses will be required.
- Curriculum Vitae in English with the description of any training and activities undertaken by the candidate related with the master.
- Covering letter in English stating the candidate's interest (academic and professional) in undertaking the master and their professional ambitions (400 to 600 words). In particular this letter should answer the following questions: Why do you want to do this particular master? Why is your background adequate to carry out the master? Which is the research area you are most interested in? Which of the proposed master thesis projects are you interested in and why?
- A (professional or academic) letter of recommendation signed by someone who really knows the candidate and who can assess them. Besides, the presentation of a second letter of a different kind (professional or academic) than the first one will be positively assessed.
In order to optimise the handling and security of the letters of recommendation, the candidate will have to request them via the online application system, where he/she will need to indicate the e-mail address of the person/people he/she wishes to be recommended by. That person will receive an e-mail indicating that the candidate wishes to have a letter of recommendation from him/her. Non-institutional addresses such as *yahoo, *gmail, *hotmail, etc... will not be accepted.
- It is required to prove sufficient knowledge of English equivalent to a B2 level.
- Identity Document or Passport.
OPTIONAL DOCUMENTS
- Professional experience in any of the fields related to the master's programme.
- Research experience.
- Teaching experience.
- Additional academic training in areas related to the master's programme.
- Additional professional experience.
In addition, the Departments' selection committee may decide to interview the candidate.
The undergraduate degree/diploma and the academic transcript
If you have finished your Bachelor degree when you formalise your application, you will need to send us the following documents:
- A photocopy of your undergraduate degree/diploma or Certification/proof of degree completion.
- A photocopy of your official final undergraduate transcript.
However, if you have not yet completed your undergraduate studies when formalising application, you will need to provide us with the following documents:
- A signed declaration of obtaining your degree before the commencement of the master's programme.
- A photocopy of the provisional undergraduate transcript.
If the diploma or the academic transcript are not written in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Portuguese or Italian, you will also have to include the respective sworn translations into Catalan or Spanish.
Educational approach: learning (research) by practice (research)
One of the main educational goals of the CBEM MSc is for the enrolled students to learn best practices to perform excellent research in biomedical engineering projects. In consequence, the research project for the graduate master thesis is given a lot of weight (around half of the credits during the whole academic year) since we are convinced that the best way to learn research is by practicing research. To ensure the highest motivation of the student, required to cope with the challenges involved in a typical biomedical engineering research project, the topic will be chosen by the student, being tutored by the academics coordinating the MSc. They also individually assist the students to select the elective subjects in the MSc that best complements the chosen research project, among a large offer of own MSc electives and subjects from other undergraduate and MSc degrees at UPF (e.g. computer science, data science, biology). It is worthy to point out that there are only a few compulsory subjects covering transversal concepts required in any research project such as advanced data science and research communication.
The language of our master is 100% English, including oral and writing communication in the subjects and the MSc thesis. The main goal of the MSc thesis is to write a scientific document summarizing the main points of the research project, with quality standards that would allow submitting it to an international conference or even to a scientific journal, which has been the case for several CBEM MSc students.
Fee
- Students UE: 1,800 €
- Non UE students: 5,749.8 €
Calendar
From September to June, Timetable Afternoons
Duration
1 academic year full time, 2 academic years part time (60 ECTS credits)
Language
English
Places
30
Course type
Research