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Writing a Transfer Report

When you are first registered for a research degree leading to a PhD, youwill typically be registered as an MPhil student. In order to be eligible forregistration for a PhD, you will first need to demonstrate your ability toundertake research (more details of the process). This is achieved by writingand having examined a transfer report.

The transfer report and exam are meant to allow you to demonstratethat you have the ability, initiative and enthusiasm to complete your currentproject to the level required for a PhD within four years. Although theformat of the transfer report is defined by your principal supervisor, you

should aim for a report that is no more than 30 pages long, concentrating ona critique of the relevant literature, possibly as an annotated bibliography,together with an outline of the theoretical or experimental work carried outto date, a statement of the problem to be investigated (your contribution)and a plan of how you want to proceed.

Guideline Assessment Criteria

By way of guidance, to pass the exam you must:

1. Demonstrate the ability to review the literature in the area of yourproject, determine conclusions and justify why your topic is worthy offurther study.

2. Define clearly the aims of your project, identify the key issues andwhich ones you are addressing, appreciating that they may change asthe research progresses.

3. Demonstrate the ability to undertake original research by:

Carrying our experiments, whether they be theoretical or experi-

mental, Analysing the results,

Drawing conclusions from the work, and

Designing and justifying the next set of experiments.

4. Provide a plan to completion of the project to show that you can planthe project on a realistic timescale.

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5. Demonstrate your ability to present your results at a conference/seminar,

at least within the research centre.

6. If appropriate, publish your results in the open literature in high qualityjournals.

7. Undertake a critical appraisal of your achievements to date.

8. Demonstrate that you can structure and present your research in bothwritten and oral form.

StructureAn example of the main structure you might use for your transfer report is:

1. Introduction:

Brief background to the topic.

Motivation for carrying out your research.

Expected contribution.

Structure and overview of the report.

2. Literature Review

A critique of the essential literature for your research.

The critique should provide a focus for your motivation and futurestudies.

The review may be in the form of an annotated bibliography.

3. Proposed Method/Approach

An outline of your proposed method: theoretical, empirical or

both.

Motivation for your approach.

Proposal for future studies, evaluation and developments of yourmethod.

4. Preliminary Evaluation

If appropriate, your report should include details of any prelimi-nary theoretical work or experiments.

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You should demonstrate a systematic approach to evaluating your

proposed method.

5. Conclusion and Future Work

Conclude your proposal and state your expected contribution.

Include a plan of the work to be undertaken with defined mile-stones and completion dates.

Note that this is suggested only and not prescriptive. The exact formatand nature of the report is left to the principal supervisor to define, andmay be as simple as submitting a number of published papers to support thetransfer.

Examples

Two good examples of transfer reports are by Sotiris Moschoyiannis andHayssam Traboulsi. Although both are longer than desired, they receivedgood comments from the external examiners.

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