Research project

All our courses offer significant opportunities for conducting research, and your research project is one of the most important and potentially fulfilling parts of the degree. 

Your project will give you the chance to engage with the area you’re most passionate about and develop specialist knowledge in that area.

Projects cover a wide range of topics. MSc projects are typically 3 months of research project work and longer for MRes programmes. A significant number of students for our Conservation-type Masers are based overseas for their project. 

The first step in any project is to choose and develop a research topic. A list of suggestions for MRes students is circulated shortly after arrival in September and for MSc students before Christmas, students are also encouraged to develop research topics of their own. During your project you will have access to the University of Leeds’ state-of-the-art research facilities.

You’ll have a supervisor for your project and, if conducting your project overseas, you’ll usually have a second in-country supervisor.

At the end of the summer, you will write a report on your project, and also present your work orally.

Example research projects

Students have undertaken a huge range of research projects on a number of topics. Some titles have included:

• Competition and parasitism in the native White Clawed Crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes and the invasive Signal Crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus in the UK 
• Dispersal of fig seeds in the Cook Islands: introduced frugivores are no substitutes for natives 
• Hitchhiking and the removal of microbial contaminants by the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica 
• Waste management in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior: the role of worker size, age and plasticity 
• The effects of different predator species on antipredator behavior in the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata