Project 1 linked to Sustainability, Development and Inequality

E2025

Global and Development Studies / European Master in Global Studies

Project

Mandatory

English

Read about the Master Programme and find the Study Regulations at ruc.dk

You register for activities through stads selvbetjening during the announced registration period, which you can see on the Study administration homepage.

Registration for project-exam: Please remember to confirm your registration by signing up for exam as a group when the group formation is final. The registration is through STADS Online Student Service

When registering for courses, please be aware of the potential conflicts and overlaps between course and exam time and dates. The planning of course activities at Roskilde University is based on the recommended study programmes, which should not overlap. However, if you choose optional courses and/or study plans that goes beyond the recommended study programmes, an overlap of lectures or exam dates may occur depending on which courses you choose.

10

Mette Fog Olwig (mettefo@ruc.dk)

Markus-Michael Müller (muellerm@ruc.dk)

ISE Registration & Exams (ise-exams@ruc.dk)

U60118

The objective of the project is to enable and equip students to make an in-depth problem-based study of a research area related to the course in Sustainability, Development, and Inequality. The object of study is developed by the students, but the topic must be associated with the taught course.

In researching for and writing the project, the active application of academic knowledge and theory will provide students with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the chosen problem area.

Working in groups of minimum 3 students, the project will allow students to build upon the knowledge they acquired in the course on Sustainability, Development, and Inequality. Through their independent research and supervision by academic staff, the project groups will learn to select a relevant research problem, formulate an appropriate research question, identify theory and method(s), provide a literature review summarising different analytical approaches, search for existing data and analyse the research problem. Students are not expected to create their own data by doing surveys, interviews, or observations, for example.

Students will learn to present the main points of the analysis and the overall results and arguments both in an abstract aimed at a wider nonacademic audience and in an academic project report.

The starting point for the project is to articulate a problem formulation related to the causes and consequences of sustainability, development and inequality.

The students will then review and compare relevant literature, and write a state-of-the-art section for the project, building on the literature from the Sustainability, Development and Inequality course.

After formulating a research design, including methods and analytical approach, the students will identify or generate relevant data for the analysis.

The students will finally conduct their analysis, discuss their findings and situate them in relation to the broader debates on Sustainability, Development and Inequality that have been introduced in the course. The hand-in product for the oral examination is an academic project report including an abstract that conveys the main points of the analysis to a wider non-academic audience.

Guidance on the use of quantitative methods in projects and theses

If you and your group find quantitative analyses relevant to answer your research question, and your supervisor cannot help, here is an offer of assistance. We offer a workshop where a group of researchers will talk about how to use quantitative data in projects and theses. We will present an overview of publicly available data sets, as well as the possibilities, if you wish to collect your own data. We expect you to have taken a course in basic quantitative methods (BC 8 or equivalent).

The workshop is held on October 9th, 2025, 2-4 pm, in theory room 07.1-033

After the workshop you/your group will have the opportunity to book an appointment with a skilled student, who will help with downloading and preparing data for analysis and interpretation. If you need extra guidance on any particular issue, you will be referred to a relevant researcher.

Students create their own curriculum.

Students new to RUC can acquaint themselves with the role of group project work in RUC's pedagogical profile:

• For a short introduction: https://ruc.dk/en/problemoriented-project-learning-pedagogical-model-roskilde-university

• 'The red book': Petersen, E. B., & Sørensen, K. A. (2020). The Group Project: How to do it. A handbook for university students. Samfundslitteratur. (https://moodle.ruc.dk/course/view.php?id=23141§ionid=203036).

The majority of the activity takes place as self-study, where the group of 3-5 students works independently with a problem-oriented project.

Project group formation will consist of several rounds of brainstorming concerning problem formulations related to the Sustainability, Development and Inequality course, which gradually will result in a narrowing down of the scope for each project topic and formation of groups in relation to each topic. By the end of project group formation each student must be part of a group and each group must have a preliminary problem formulation.

Study intensity Outline

• The proposed study intensity for a student in this activity: 270 hours

The proposed distribution of hours

• Project group formation incl introduction to problem-orientated project learning (PPL) (20 hours); group-based individual project work incl project group meetings (225 hours); supervisor meetings incl preparation and debriefing (10 hours); exam incl preparation (15 hours)

Teaching and learning activities:

• Introduction to PPL

• Project group formation

• Group-based project work

• Supervision meetings

Campus

The activity is evaluated regularly based on the study board's evaluation procedure. The responsible for the activity will be informed of any evaluation of the activity at the start of the semester. See link to the study board's evaluation practice here: https://intra.ruc.dk/fileadmin/assets/ise/Undervisning/Evaluation_procedures_at_ISE.pdf

Programme will be available on Moodle.

• Students will learn to develop a research problem, select, and justify their choice of theory and method, design and implement data collection, and analyse the problem academically and social scientifically.

Oral project exam in groups with individual assessment


Permitted group size: 3-5 students.

The character limits of the project report are:
For 3 students: 96,000-132000 characters, including spaces.
For 4 students: 120,000-156000 characters, including spaces.
For 5 students: 132,000-180000 characters, including spaces.
The character limits include the cover, table of contents, abstract, bibliography, figures and other illustrations, but exclude appendices.

The project report must include an abstract, that is part of the assessment. The abstract can either be written in English or Danish.

Time allowed for the exam including time used for assessment is for:
3 students: 75 minutes.
4 students: 90 minutes.
5 students: 105 minutes.



Permitted support and preparation materials at the oral exam: All

Assessment: 7-point grading scale
Moderation: External examiner.

Samme som ordinær eksamen / same form as ordinary exam

About the oral exam The exam is based on the students’ project report. The exam includes individual presentations on a topic of the students’ own choice. The topic must be relevant to the issues highlighted in the project report. Each individual presentation lasts up to 5 minutes. The individual presentations are followed by a dialogue between the students and the assessors based on the project report.

Assessment criteria - Students can identify a relevant problem area and formulate a pertinent and coherent research question - Students engage with and critically review relevant literature - Students select, compare and apply a relevant theoretical framework
- Students reflect, select and apply relevant methodological tools - Students can justify their analytical choices and findings - Resume in English or Danish is part of the assessment

Oral presentation - assessment criteria Same criteria as for the project, but the student is also able to: - Present and communicate - Take part in dialogue and discussion about the written project report

The assessment is a collective assessment of all of the above