Information for the student – Ecology, Environmental Management and Restoration

The Final Master Project (TFM) can be carried out in research centers and universities, or in private companies, or through public administration departments. Students who will spend supervised periods in companies or external research institutions must be approved by their TFM academic coordinator. The specific tasks performed by the students will be determined by the host center of the company or institution.

To complete the Master's Thesis, students will carry out a project in a specific thematic area related to the lines of research covered by the master's degree, under the supervision of a member of the teaching staff of the master's degree.

2 types of modalities of TFM are contemplated, one modality can be structured as a research paper; and the other modality can be structured as a typical restoration or management project but competitive enough to be submitted to any public administration (see TFM’s regulations)

Students of the specialty of ECOLOGY (a specialty aimed for future researchers) are recommended to perform the first modality, making a TFM as a scientific publication. Their research work can be based on:

• Experimental work: on data collection with hypotheses and objectives; methodology and data processing; and with a discussion of the results and conclusions.
• Working with experimental data from previous experiments, or with a compilation of published works, or using public data.

Students of Management and Restoration specialty (a specialty aimed for future professionals who want to work as environmental consultants) have different options on how to present the Master's Thesis:

• Making a TFM as a tangible Management or Restoration project, which can be hypothetically implemented
• Working with published works or public data to review different restoration or management projects implemented.
• Monitoring previous restoration works already executed

The TFMs will be defended at the end of the course (the last week of September) in front of a committee formed by 3 professors of the Master for 20 minutes plus 15 minutes of questions.

The evaluation of the TFM is based on the part of the written report plus its oral defense. The report must be written in accordance with the TFM Regulation of the Faculty of Biology for this Master (see TFM’s regulations).

To standardize the evaluation criteria among different evaluation committees and their respective supervisors, the evaluation is based on a system of rubrics that includes different items (see Rubrics TFM ).

The TFM’s Module coordinator is Dr. Martí Orta Martínez, and for any questions contact: marti.orta@ub.edu.

Please, consult  Master's Thesis proposals for the 2022-23 academic year:

The Master's degree in Ecology, Environmental Management and Restoration is a Master's degree who spends many hours in the field. Most of the subjects of this Master incorporate practical contents and experimental work to be developed throughout the course; especially those elective subjects that have an important applied component.

This Master does not contemplate external curricular practices, since all efforts are concentrated on the practical work associated with the Master's Thesis (TFM) in collaborating companies and public administrations.

Most of the practical work is focused during the execution of the Final Project of master’s degree or Master's Thesis (TFM), which is carried out in research laboratories of universities or research centres; or also in collaborating companies who offer TFM proposals. For more information, go to the TFM's offers section (published at the beginning of the course) where it contains total information related to the type of study to be carried out and the specific place where the practical work will be carried out.

In addition, students for Management and Restoration specialty have a compulsory subject, "Description, evaluation and diagnosis of ecosystems" with 100% of field work, given that they have to stay for a whole week in a Natural Park carrying out assessment and diagnosis tasks on different ecosystems. Of the 30 students, who can take this specialty at most, students can choose between 2 Natural Parks, one located in  Medes Islands and Baix Ter Natural Park (marine environment); and the other in Sant Llorenç i la Serra del Obac Natural Park (terrestrial environment). In each of them, the attendance of more than 16 students is not admitted for logistical and security reasons. This subject is done at the end of the entire school period since it is designed for students to apply all those tools and skills they have learned with the different subjects. Specifically, it is a completely transversal subject in which different academics from different disciplines (in geology, botany, edaphology, ecology and in social subjects) participate.