- U of T Home
- ECE Internal
Electrical & Computer Engineering
- X social media
PhD Thesis Proposal
Each student who successfully completes the PhD qualifying examination is required to write a PhD thesis proposal, and present and defend the proposal orally before a committee.
As indicated on the Schedule for Timely PhD Completion , ECE doctoral students are expected to achieve candidacy before the end of their fifteenth month of studies.
- May starters must complete the PhD thesis proposal by July of the following year.
- September starters must complete the PhD thesis proposal by November of the following year.
- January starts must complete the PhD thesis proposal by March of the following year.
Format and Content of the Proposal
Please review the following guidelines and suggestions for the format and content of the PhD thesis proposal. The PhD thesis proposal should contain two fundamental components:
- review of the “state of the art” in a reasonably focused contemporary area of electrical and computer engineering research;
- outline of known problems to be solved or original developments that might be anticipated, accompanied by a line of approach to these problems or developments.
The “state of the art” review must refer explicitly to the relevant literature, with all references listed at the end of the proposal. The list of references need not be long, but it should be carefully considered. The list and review should show clear evidence that the student has sufficient knowledge to continue immediately into doctoral level research that will potentially lead to new results, without needing to do further background preparation in the area.
The outline of problems or developments must show that the student can formulate a line of research, including initial methodologies to be used, which should lead to significant contributions and new knowledge.
It is neither necessary nor expected that the PhD thesis proposal contain new research results, though such would be welcome. It is only necessary to be convincing that the chosen proposed area and topic of research has a very good chance of leading to new results.
PhD Thesis Proposal Committee
The supervisor will select professors to serve on the PhD thesis proposal committee according to the following regulations:
- The committee must consist of at least three professors, including the supervisor.
- Ideally, all committee members will hold a graduate faculty membership in ECE.
- One of the committee members may hold a graduate faculty membership in a unit other than ECE, where appropriate for the thesis topic.
PhD Thesis Proposal Presentation
- The supervisor will schedule the presentation. All members of the PhD thesis proposal committee must attend the presentation.
- The written proposal must be submitted to the committee at least two weeks prior to the presentation.
- The student will make a presentation at the meeting and orally defend the PhD thesis proposal.
- If the committee does not consider the proposal to be satisfactory, the student must present and defend a new PhD thesis proposal within four months. If the new proposal is also unsatisfactory, the student’s registration in the PhD program will be terminated.
- The supervisor must submit the PhD Thesis Proposal Report to the ECE Graduate Office within one week of the presentation.
- Upon the successful completion of the PhD thesis proposal, the student will have achieved “PhD candidacy.” The date of PhD candidacy will be recorded on the student’s U of T transcript.
© 2024 Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
- Accessibility
- Student Data Practices
- Website Feedback
Thesis Proposal
Criteria for success.
A thesis proposal should allow your audience to understand the topic of your project, the goals of the work, and the expected timeline to completion. To be successful, a thesis proposal should:
- follow departmental guidelines for thesis proposal content, structure, and formatting.
- provide necessary background for understanding the work that you propose.
- answer the Heilmeier questions to concretely explain what you are trying to do and how you will achieve it.
- include a timeline for the expected remaining work in the thesis, including tasks and dates of completion.
Structure Diagram
As with all communication projects, the right length for a thesis proposal is “however long it takes to convey your message effectively.” While the goal should be effectiveness rather than length, a general rule of thumb is to consider 8-12 pages for an MEng or SM proposal and 10-20 pages for a PhD proposal.
The main components of a thesis proposal are:
- title and abstract,
- introduction that motivates the proposed work,
- related and/or preliminary work, and
- proposed future work, including a timeline to complete that work.
There should also be a references section that contains all necessary citations. The following diagrams provide examples of potential thesis proposal organizations and their relative size. Note that the section headings as well as the size and ordering of the sections may be flexible.
Always be sure to follow the most up-to-date department guidelines.
MEng/SM Proposal
For MEng thesis proposals, the MIT EECS guidelines for MEng thesis proposals suggest that these documents should be between 1500-2500 words.
For SM proposals, the MIT EECS guidelines for SM and PhD thesis proposals indicate that the research plan should also include a list of principal equipment and facilities needs and the places which will supply these needs.
PhD Proposal
For a PhD thesis proposal, it is important to think about how the work that will go into your thesis ties together. What is the main idea that your work supports?
A thesis proposal serves as a contract between you and your thesis committee. The document should demonstrate the feasibility and merit of your proposed project and clearly define the work you will have to accomplish to complete your degree. This assures your committee that you have agreed to an acceptable level of research and protects you against future attempts to increase your workload. For this reason, it is advisable to have a thesis proposal written and signed relatively early in the degree process.
Thesis proposals also provide an opportunity for you to sharpen your research by stepping back and looking at the big picture. By carefully planning your research, you will focus on the most important questions and the most effective ways to answer them.
Analyze Your Audience
The primary audience of your thesis proposal is your thesis committee (for SM and MEng students, the committee is simply your advisor), who will serve multiple roles: they are coaches who support your success and gatekeepers who ensure that degrees are only granted for sufficient quality of work. In their role as coaches, committee members want to know that your project is feasible and worth pursuing and that you are prepared to undertake it. In their role as gatekeepers, committee members want to see that your project showcases mastery of a subject and solves an important and novel problem.
In the future, other students may also read your proposal as a reference to build on your work or use it as a model for their own. Therefore, your proposal should include both a concrete description of your work and the necessary background to understand the topic.
Answer the Heilmeier Questions
Before you start writing your thesis, consider the main motivations of the work and your approach. One great way to start brainstorming for your thesis proposal is to answer the Heilmeier questions for your own work.
In the 1970’s, the director of DARPA (George Heilmeier) developed a list of questions, known as the Heilmeier Catechism , to produce and select productive research proposals. To outline the content of your proposal, start by answering the following questions:
- What problem needs solving? What are you trying to do?
- How is it done today? What are the limitations of the current practice?
- What is new in your approach and why do you think it can succeed?
- Assuming you are successful, what difference does it make? Who cares and why?
- How much time/money/risk will it take?
- How will you (periodically) measure success?
You have many available resources for answering the Heilmeier questions. Start with your research advisor; they can point you to the most relevant literature, help identify productive research directions, and refine your plan for feasibility and scope. Other group members as well as past papers and theses from your group may also be able to help.
Emphasize your contribution
A thesis proposal should emphasize the problem and proposed work. Try to spend about 25% of your proposal on background and 75% on what you propose to do and a timeline to completion.
Include a timeline for completion
A timeline is a required component of almost any project proposal and should show that you have thought through the overall project goals and how to achieve them in accomplishable steps. The timeline should be granular enough to be meaningful (typically, a few months at a time) but not so granular to be vulnerable to small perturbations. Your timeline should allow your advisor or another evaluator to determine credibility, feasibility, and worthiness of the project steps.
Demonstrate creativity while maintaining credibility
In any research proposal, there is a tradeoff between risk/reward, and credibility. Low risk projects, like obvious, simple extensions of previous work, tend to be very credible; it’s clear that you can do them. They also tend to be low reward. Projects that are very ambitious and have huge rewards tend to be unbelievable and impossible for a single grad student. A successful proposal involves balancing the two: find a problem that you can probably solve that demonstrates creativity, initiative, and understanding.
Include details and preliminary results in your plan
Thesis proposals should do more than merely promise to “investigate” something. Your proposal must describe how you plan to accomplish your goals, why you think those approaches will be successful, and why you believe these approaches have been overlooked or unsuccessful before. Initial experiments, calculations, or simulations can be crucial to convincing the proposal readers that your project will be successful.
MIT EECS affiliates can make an appointment with an EECS Comm Lab Fellow to get feedback on their proposal at any stage.
Resources and Annotated Examples
Meng thesis proposal example 1.
Thesis proposal submitted by MIT EECS MEng student 1 MB
MEng thesis proposal example 2
Thesis proposal submitted by MIT EECS MEng student 2 MB
IMAGES
VIDEO