You will join your supervisor's research group and laboratory, and enjoy day-to-day contact with your supervisor, post-doctoral researchers, and other research students working on broadly similar research themes.

In the first year, you will develop research skills in two ways. Firstly, you will read the current literature, often in reading groups, and attend research seminars, relevant lectures and training courses. Secondly, you will design and build apparatus, develop software, or both to address your own research topic. Often there is external involvement and you will develop your work in collaboration with researchers from industry and other research organisations.

As well as ongoing assessment by your supervisor, you will be required to write a report and give a presentation on your research at the end of the first year, and to present a detailed and coherent plan for the second and final phase in the second year of your masterÕs.

At the end of the second year, you will be required to submit a thesis which is read and examined viva voce by experts in the field, one from the department and one from elsewhere. The thesis is likely to result in the publication of one or more journal papers.