In 2021 the Maastricht Observatory on Responsible, Resilient and Sustainable Societies, Economies and Enterprises (MORSE) was launched with a mission to promote science for a more responsible, resilient and sustainable future. As part of its activities to promote more research and education on these important themes, the MORSE initiative will award an annual student thesis prize, for the second time in 2022.

Enter the competition

In the period September 1st to December 24th (23:59:59 PM) supervisors are invited to enter excellent theses (8.0 and higher) for consideration to the MORSE general email address: /morse-sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl. The submission will be considered if there is the complete thesis (including appendices) in a single .pdf document and a short recommendation letter of the supervisor indicating for which prize the thesis is submitted (BSc. or MSc.) and how the supervisor sees the link to the MORSE themes.

Eligibility

Eligible are all theses written and graded at UM on MORSE related topics in the academic year before.

Prize

There will be a prize for the best BSc. and the best MSc.-thesis (500 and 1000 euro and a certificate).

Supervisors can enter a thesis in the competition, the prize is awarded to the student(s).

The prizes will be announced and awarded in January.

Jury

Depending on the number of submissions, a jury will be drafted from the pool of MORSE members who have NOT entered a thesis. 

These jury members read 3 thesis each (so the jury consists of #submissions/3 members) and fill out a short assessment form. 

If the jury deems the quality of all submitted theses insufficient to warrant a prize, none will be awarded.

The president of the jury collects the forms and creates a shortlist of 3 based on the assessments. 

The complete jury then votes on these 3.