General Information

The 15 ECTS of the Master's Final Project have to be passed through the submission of a work in order to show the student's research skills. The project has also to be presented in a public dissertation session in front of a Committee made up of three doctor lecturers. 

Dissertation Guidelines.

Objective

The Master's Final Project has the objective to prove the intellectual maturity and the research skills of the student. It has to be an original project, as a result of the personal work of the student under the guidance of a supervisor.

Dedication of the student

The dedication of the student for the Master's Final Project is of 375 hours. These hours include the work of literature review, sample collection if required, research time, the discussion with the supervisor and the writing of the project. 

The Supervisor

The Master's Final Project is carried out under the monitoring of a supervisor which is assigned to the student by the coordinator during the second term.

Eligible supervisor are the doctors who give teaching in the Master, the doctors of the Department, doctors of UPF as co-supervisor with a doctor from the Department, doctors outside UPF as co-supervisor with a doctor from the Department.

Submission's Deadline

The Master's Final Project must be delivered within the deadline fixed by the regulation.

The project must be submitted by 22 June 2026 (the time limit is midnight). We encourage early submissions.

Delays won't be admitted. All the students which won't deliver or pass the Master's Final Project will be able to register it in the next academic year, with the related surcharge provided that they fulfil the requirements about continuity and number of calls. Please note this involves a fees surcharge.

Language

The project can be written in English, Spanish or Catalan. The oral presentations can be conducted also in any of these three languages.

Dissertation's Deadline

The Project will be defended publicly in front of an assessment made up of three doctor lecturers.

The D issertation Defences will take place on 7, 8 and 9 July 2026. The schedule for the public defences will be announced on this page.

You can check the timetable here (pending update on link).  

The period between the delivery and the public dissertation won't be in any case inferior to fifteen calendar days. During this time, the project will be available to all the doctor lecturers of the Department. 

Publication of the Project 

Only for students who are awarded a grade equivalent to A (9 to10). 

Authorization for the paper to be deposited at the Repositori Electrònic de la Recerca de Catalunya (RecerCat). Instructions below according to your situation:

a) Students from Spain (holding a DNI) should deliver it through this link of the Electronic Site. By means of this site you will be able to sign it digitally.
b) Students from abroad who cannot obtain a valid digital certification should sign the document and send it scanned to [email protected]


Submission Documentation

To be delivered to the Secretary of the Department of Communication
  1. Form for the delivery of the Master's Final Project
  2. One PDF copy of the Master's Final Project uploaded to the master's programme moodle, stating in the subject "TFM Name.Family name". (100 MB maximum allowed).
  3. In case of being awarded a 9 or higher, the regulations require the project to be published in RECERCAT, the repository of digital research documents from universities and research centres in Catalonia, with the aim of increasing their reach (see the TFM publishing section).

Assessment

The final evaluation of the dissertation will be done through the presentation and oral defence of it. The examination committee will be made up of three research and teaching members of the Department of Communication at the UPF. The committee will issue a grade that will have to take into account the following elements:

• Quality of the project (75% of the final grade of the tribunal)

• Oral presentation (25% of the final grade of the tribunal)

In the quality of the project, the committee will also take into account the evaluation of the tutor. This includes for each student:

• Participation in tutoring sessions (physical or virtual)

• Compliance to the working plan and timing

In the case of group projects, the final grade will add an individual assessment of each member of the team, regarding the specific part(s) led by each of them, with a weight of 50%. For this to happen, it is compulsory that group final projects make very clear what is the work done by each student, including what section(s) have what student as leading author:

Individual disseratation assessment
Quality of the project 75% Final mark for the student
Oral presentation 25%

 

Group Project assessment
Group assessment Quality of the project 75%  Group grade 50% Final mark for the student
Oral presentation 25%
Individual assessment Quality of the individual work led by the student 100% Individual Grade 50%

 

For the calculation of the final grade, none of the qualifications may be less than 4.

For more details on the criteria used by the committee to assess both the project and the presentation please check the Final Project Guidelines. 


Committee

The Project will be defended publicly in front of an assessment committee made up of three doctor lecturers chosen by the Department.  

Committee Composition

- The supervisor of the project (as chair of the committee)

- Two doctors chosen by the coordinator of the programme and the Dept. of Communication.

Formal Requirements

Cover and first page

All types of final project must include:

1. Cover page with:

  • Title of the document
  • Author or authors' name
  • Supervisor
  • Publication date: Academic Year 20--/--
  • The name of the collection: Research Project of the MA in International Studies on Media, Power, and Difference
  • Name of the sub-community: Department of Communication  
  • Name of the University: Universitat Pompeu Fabra
     

Cover Template

2. First page with:

  • Abstract: maximum 150 word length in the same language of the Project
  • Keywords: a list of keywords about the content, with a maximum length of 200 characters
  • Type of the project (Theoretical Dissertation, Research Dissertation, Applied project, Challenge-based project)

 

Digital file

The document must be uploaded in PDF format. If there are some annexes, they must be embedded in the text file. The size limit per file must be inferior to 100MB.
 

A second file can be uploaded if necessary for supplementary material (audio/video recordings, extra images, etc.). Standard formats are recommended.

Types of final master project

See guidelines of the Master final project in the General Master's area in Moodle.

The Regulations

The Master's Final Project is structured according to:

- Regulations about the research project of Postgraduate Courses of the Department of communication 

This regulation has been approved by the Postgraduate Committee of the Department of Communication.