By Barbora Volková
Congratulations! You have made it almost until the end of your Euroculture journey and it is time to cross one of the last big obstacles standing between you and the diploma – the Master thesis. I am sure that everyone has somehow struggled in their own way with the thesis, be it with a topic idea, methodology or just a simple structure. Well let’s be honest, it is definitely not easy. And so we thought that some inspiration would definitely come in handy. In this article, we will provide you with a guide to the past MA theses of Euroculture students. And if you don´t look for inspiration, well you can use this as a therapy session of its kind. Because if so many people managed to write and pass their MA thesis, so can you!
As you probably already know, the MA Euroculture is run by a Consortium of 8 universities responsible for the whole programme. Despite this, there is no common platform publishing all theses of the Master´s students. Each university is responsible for its own database and therefore can decide whether to publish dissertation theses for the open public or not. And because it may seem quite confusing, we have decided to create an overview of such databases. Speaking from my personal experience, when it comes to methodology and theoretical framework it is always useful to have a look at the works of people with a similar topic, to see what kind of research approaches they used and figure out whether they could be similarly applied to your study. We also believe that checking completed theses can help you to think about the structure better and will give you some ideas of what exactly you are working towards.
We remind you that there are two options when it comes to the deadline for MA thesis submission – the 1st of June and the 1st of August. This is applied to all Consortium universities.
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen provides an amazing database of MA theses that is very easy to access once you figure out how to use it.
First, you need to access the website: Theses and placement reports Faculty of Arts – Theses and placement reports Faculty of Arts (rug.nl) – click on “Search Repository” and filter for the Euroculture section. You can see that there are all Masters programmes at the University of Groningen present in one place so you can always search through also other programmes such as International Relations or Arts & Culture.
Apart from the Master theses of past students, you can also access third-semester and Erasmus+ reports in the same database. This is also a great opportunity to read about the experience of other fellow Euroculture students (especially about their work placement and exchange semester outside Europe) and maybe get inspiration for a possible future internship opportunity.
Uppsala University
To access past MA theses in Uppsala, enter their DiVA website. You can search through various Master’s and Bachelor’s programmes, but for Euroculture specifically, write down “Master Programme in Euroculture” in the “Educational Programme” field. You can further filter according to the preferred focus of the theses such as “Humanities and the Arts” or according to the chosen year of graduation.
For example, you can access 15 Master theses from 2021 and further filter them according to their focus. What I like about Uppsala´s database is that it nicely reflects the specific diversity of Euroculture. You can see that students have written their dissertation works in the various categories of Social Science, Political Science, but also in Sociology, Law and Social Anthropology.
Theses examples:
- Justine Le Floch (2021) – “How to make Museums fit for crisis? The Response of European Art Museums to the COVID-19 Global Pandemic”
- Yvonne Moholt van Reeuwijk (2018) – “Enhancing the European security and defence policy: European integration and the Norwegian and the Swedish security identities”
- Catherina Burkinshaw (2015) – “Intangible heritage in multicultural Brussels: A case study of identity and performance”
Palacký University Olomouc
To access the Master theses of the students that attended Palacký University in Olomouc, you first need to do a little research on their Euroculture website and download the “List of defended Euroculture theses titles” document. Wait a moment, have you noticed that right at the same place there are other three documents that could really come in handy for your writing? Make sure you also check the available guidelines for MA thesis writing and research ethics guidelines provided by Palacký University.
Now back to the database. As the “List of defended Euroculture theses titles” does not include the whole theses for viewing, additional steps are required. You will further need to enter the STAG university system, click on Browse – Theses – and enter the name of the thesis that you are interested in reading.
Another option is to search through Theses.cz, a Czech national register that gathers Master’s and Bachelor’s theses from Czech universities and is very easy to use. You just type in the title that you are interested in into the search engine.
Other Euroculture universities
The above-mentioned universities are the only three that provide extensive open access to Euroculture Master theses. The University of Strasbourg and the University of Udine do not provide any database of such kind. The University of Göttingen explained that for legal reasons, they do not provide a public database of dissertation works. Titles of selected theses are uploaded on their website but contact with the alumni author needs to be established through the university coordinator. Also, the University of Deusto informed us that they cannot allow access to its Master´s theses. However, if a current student is interested in a specific thesis, the Deusto coordinator can contact the author to check if the owner would be willing to share their dissertation. We have not received an answer from the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, however, as their database only includes the titles and abstracts of Jagiellonian theses, we estimate that approval and connection through the university coordinator will be also needed in this case.
Defence of Euroculture Master theses in 2023
Please note that all requirements regarding the final theses are not united among Consortium universities, such is the case of the MA thesis defence. Groningen, Göttingen, Udine and Uppsala universities DO NOT require you to defend your thesis. The rest of the universities require thesis defence. This applies if you attended them either in the 1st or 2nd semester.
At the University of Deusto, the defence takes place the first two weeks of July at the latest and can be done online. If you opt for the August 1st deadline, the defence will be realized at the end of September.
The defence at the Palacký University in Olomouc cannot be done online and will take place the two last weeks of June at the latest. The second option is the end of August/beginning of September in case of the August 1st deadline.
If you are a student of the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, your thesis defence will take between the first week of June and the first week of July. Alternatively, in September or October in case of the August 1st deadline. Please note that online defences are possible only in special cases.
As for the University of Strasbourg, theses should be defended before July 10th and, in case of the August 1st deadline, before the 21st of September. It is possible to do the defence online.
You should be careful not to miss the August 1st submission deadline. As it is possible to do a late submission in Uppsala without any financial consequences and in Udine and Strasbourg for free until December, this is not the case with the rest of the universities. In Deusto, a re-registration is required which will cost 2500 EUR for the thesis alone (100 EUR per each ECTS credit). For Göttingen, re-registration for hand-in after 30 September requires the payment of the full regular national tuition fees (1400 EUR for EU, 4000 EUR for non-EU). In Groningen, you will pay 184 EUR for every extended month. Krakow allows an extension until September 30 without extra fees, however further delay will require payment calculated by the university. Palacký also requires enrolment for the next academic year with a regular tuition fee payment (but with a possible waiver).
The Euroculturer 