Each master thesis will be assessed by a master thesis committee.
Thesis committee criteria:
- (for department-specific MSc programmes) the coach must be a member of the academic RSM personnel associated with the department offering the student’s MSc programme, unless otherwise approved by the Examination Board.
- the co-reader is preferably an RSM faculty member from another academic department than the one with which the coach is associated. (This is also the case for cross-departmental MSc programmes, such as MiM, PMiM, BAM, and IM/CEMS)
- at least one of the members of the thesis committee should be a tenured or tenure track RSM examiner. Hence, pairs consisting exclusively of PhD candidates and/or untenured lecturers are not allowed.
- if the student has a coach and a co-reader from within the same department, the MSc programme master thesis coordinator informs the Examination Board.
If, by exception, it is not possible or desirable that coach and co-reader are members of different academic departments, the composition of the thesis committee must ensure that the thesis will be assessed independently, objectively and without bias. Some combinations of coach and co-readers are deemed unsuitable. Specifically:
- coaches and co-readers are not allowed to sit on a thesis committee with their own PhD students;
- supervisors are not allowed to form a committee with their direct reports without a PhD degree.
Experts
Furthermore, at the request of a student, an internal or external expert may be temporarily appointed as a co-reader of a thesis committee. This person must meet the following requirements:
- a completed PhD, or a university master´s degree with demonstrable extensive experience in performing scientific research.
- this examiner may act as co-reader only.
- the student must submit a request to appoint the external co-reader as an examiner to the Examination Board via the web portal.