A thesis earning 30 ECTS
ML-thesis
30 ECTS credit thesis
All students in graduate studies (M.L.) at the RU School of Law shall submit a master thesis qualifying for a minimum of 30 ECTS credits. The thesis shall meet the following requirements:
• Discuss a jurisprudential subject or a subject relating to legal issues in combination with issues in other scholarly fields.
• Involve the use of primary sources and secondary sources for a scholarly purpose to the extent that the subject of the thesis warrants.
• Achieve the goals established by the student and accepted by the advisor before the start of work. The goals should be clearly laid down in the introduction to the thesis.
• It should be clear from the approach taken in dealing with the subject that the thesis is a result of no less than 600 hours of work.
The length of a 30 ECTS credit thesis shall be in the range of 25.000 to 30.000 words, as counted in a word processing programme. The Dean shall appoint an examiner, and the advisor and examiner shall jointly evaluate the student's thesis. If there are more than one advisor, they should jointly assess the thesis, in which case no examiner is needed.
A grade should be awarded for the thesis in the same manner as for courses taken in the School of Law. The School of Law shall co-ordinate advisors' requirements regarding masters theses.
OSCOLA - Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authoritis
A thesis earning 60 ECTS
Students in masters studies may, with the approval of the advisor, apply to the Academic Affairs Council for permission to write a 60 ECTS credit master thesis instead of a 30 ECTS credit thesis.
A 60-credit thesis shall meet the following requirements:
• Discuss a jurisprudential subject or a subject relating to legal issues in combination with issues in other scholarly fields.
• Constitute an intellectual property of the writer and an important and independent contribution to the field or fields it addresses.
• Involve the testing of a theory that the student has proposed as a response to a research question which forms the focal point of the thesis.
• Primary sources and secondary sources should be used to support or refute any theory proposed by the student as a possible response to his or her research question.
• It should be clear from the approach taken in dealing with the subject that the thesis is a result of no less than 1200 hours of work.
A 60 ECTS credit thesis shall be 50,000 to 75.000 words, as counted in a word processing programme.
If an application by a student to write a 60-credit master's thesis has been approved, the Dean of the School of Law will appoint a committee comprising the student's advisor and two specialists in the scholarly field covered by the thesis. The majority of the committee shall have completed a masters degree, comparable studies or a higher university degree. The committee shall assess the student's thesis and subject the student to an oral examination on the subject of the thesis in a public seminar. A grade should be awarded for the thesis in the same manner as for courses taken in the School of Law.
Students' theses will not be graded and awarded credits until students have completed at least 60 other ECTS credits of masters' studies.
