M1 General Physics

Research Project and Internship

In this page you can find information about Research Project and the Internship.

• Research Project (RP) is a training period from January 16 to April 7, during which you visit once a week (on Thursday) a research group and get acquainted with the research activity. In most cases, the RP continues into the Internship (see following point), though this is not compulsory. To start a RP in a Lab you may need to sign with them a Pedagogical Agreement (find it here), unless the research group propose you to sign an Internship Agreement already (see following point). At the end of this period you will have to provide a 10-page report to your "enseignant référent" evangelos.papalazarou@universite-paris-saclay.fr and iolanda.matea@ijclab.in2p3.fr .

This report should contain a short introduction to the field, describe the open questions and challenges, describe the research activity of the team where you are conducting this project, what you have done or could do in order to address some interesting question, possibly in preparation for the internship. Temporary conclusions should be provided (together with a complete bibliography). This report should should be an open scientific work, accessible to a physicist who is not expert of the field (but still a physicist!).  Your supervisor must guide you in the writing of the report, this is part of the research project activity. An example of RP report is provided here.

The deadline to submit the report by e-mail is April 14. Your RP supervisor (Tutor) will hand in an evaluation report, which account for 30% of the grade.  Find the RP evaluation form for your Tutor here.

• Internship is a full-time research activity lasting roughly from April 24 to the end of June (exact dates appear on your Intership Agreement form), during which you work within a research group. At the end of the Internship you are expected to provide a 20-page research report and an oral presentation. Deadline to submit your report by e-mail is July 1. Oral exams, which consist of oral presentations of 15 minutes, will take place on July 7-8. In this case too your Internship supervisor (Tutor) hands in an evaluation report, that accounts for 30% of the grade. Find the Internship evaluation form for your Tutor here.

• Agreement (Convention): this is an important document that must be prepared before starting to work with a research group. It may be not required for the RP (it depends on the lab and the hosting group), for which a Pedagogical Agreement is often enough. The agreement is mandatory for the Internship. This depends on the constraints about a possible gratification (see following points). When you have identified a Research Project/Internship supervisor, you should right away fill in the a Proposition Agreement Form and brig it (or send it by e-mail) to the M1 GP secretary Loeva Remita (loeva.remita@universite-paris-saclay.fr) to have the Convention Agreement prepared. 

• Pecuniary Gratification: By French law, if your Agreement (Convention) displays more than 2 months of work within a lab, you must receive a pecuniary gratification. The amount is also fixed by the law. Not all research groups have funding available to pay for M1 RP/Internship. In this case your Convention cannot last more than 2 months in total. Attention: as the minimal required period for the Internship duration is exactly 2 months, if you sign a Convention for the Internship period and your hosting group does not have the means to pay you the gratification, you cannot sign a Convention also for the RP period. You should sign in this case a Pedagogical Agreement for the RP. There is no problem of course if the hosting group can pay you the gratification, and in this case the Internship can also last longer (but you will have in any case to hand in the report and pass the oral examination in due time).  Attention: Special rules about the hosting research labs and the amount of Internship gratification may apply for the Paris-Saclay fellowship holders. Check this with your fellowship granter.

• Internship Prolongation: In case you need to continue the internship  beyond the date that you originally prevented in the Agreement, you may need to have an "Avenant"signed, i.e. a form that extends the Agreement. 

• Suggestions: Do not waist time to start looking for a the RP/Internship. This requires time and effort, and in particular the RP starts already after Christmas vacations. It is most useful if you could introduce yourself to the research groups providing a short CV and a motivation statement. Focus this statement on the research activity of the specific groups, to show your genuine interest. Here you find an example of contact letter and an introducing letter from the M1 GP responsibles, presenting this Master Program. Join these documents to your contact e-mails. Try to get appointments with different potential supervisors and discuss with them directly what they can propose you, the working condition, the exceptions and goals, also the eventual gratification. Here you find a list of possible contacts.

• The responsibles of the Internships are evangelos.papalazarou@universite-paris-saclay.fr and iolanda.matea@ijclab.in2p3.fr  . Get in contact with them for any issue and to sign the conventions (when the moment comes). Let them know by e-mail as soon as you identify a RP/Internship, providing name and e-mail of the supervisor and the title of the subject.

• Stage subjects proposed by some groups are posted in the following section and updated regularly. Check often this page.

Good luck!

People and Research groups you can contact 

Intership Subject Proposals

• Various proposals @ the "Solid State Physics Lab" (LPS)

• Proposals at the IJClab

• Various proposals @ ISMO (ISMO)

• "Surface freezing in foam" @ the "Solid State Physics Lab" (LPS).

• "Microlasers & geodesics (Quantum Chaos)" @ LuMIn / C2N.

• "Single graphene quantum dots: A new tool for quantum technologies" @ ENS Paris-Saclay.

• "Modeling the effect of the interaction between field emission and microparticle on high voltage in vacuum" @ "Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas"