Supervised project

The grade obtained for the supervised project does not influence the GPA calculation.

A maximum of 405 hours of work must be dedicated to the project, including writing-up the report.

There are three ways to do your supervised project:

Within an organization

  • Organizational intervention mandate

At the university

  • Academic Case Study
  • Specific research mandate

The definition of each type of supervised project and the requirements are specified in the summary Guidelines and Requirements (PDF, 755.62 KB).

Step 1: Responsible Conduct of Research

Register for the following mandatory workshop:

This workshop is not credited, but it is mandatory and constitutes a prerequisite for registration for the supervised project. An information session is held at the beginning of each term for those registered:

  • Fall 2026: Friday, August 28, 2026, at 8:30 a.m.
  • Winter 2027: Friday, January 8, 2027, at 8:30 a.m.
  • Summer 2027: Thursday, May 6, 2027, at 3:30 p.m.

The following two free workshops are highly recommended:

Step 2: Supervised project subject approval

International students

You must register and complete your project no later than your penultimate term in the program to avoid any problems concerning your international status or future immigration procedures (CAQ or study permit renewal, or post-graduation work permit application).

Conditions

  • Have successfully completed at least 12 course credits in the MSc program (specialization preparation courses are not included);
  • Have successfully completed the ETHI 66200A Responsible Conduct of Research workshop.
  • The project must be completed within a maximum of six months, from the start of the mandate to the final submission of the report. There will only be one registration: the term when your mandate begins.

Submission procedure

  1. Log in to the portal.

  2. Complete the "MSc | Approval of a supervised project" form.

  3. After saving the form, submit it from the “My Requests” page of the portal.

Do not begin your project before it has been approved.

Step 3: Ethics approval

As a researcher member of the HEC Montréal community, you must declare to the Research Ethics Board (REB) (French only) any research project involving the participation of human beings or the use of data concerning human beings. With the collaboration of your project director, use this decision-making tool (PDF, 157.08 KB) to determine if you need to submit your project to the REB.

If REB approval is required, be sure to obtain the following two documents. They will be required at the time of final submission:

  1. The certificate of ethics approval
  2. The attestation of completed ethics approval

Step 4 (optional): Confidentiality agreement (if required for a project in an organization)

The organization where you are carrying out your supervised project may require that you sign a confidentiality agreement. If so, it is recommended that you use the model proposed by the university by completing the Confidentiality agreement form (PDF, 737.93 KB). Submit this completed and signed document in HEC en ligne, under Documents > M. Sc. > Research Essay - Other.

If the organization insists on using their own agreement, please contact the MSc Program Office to have it approved before signing it.

Step 5: Writing your report

You would like to write your supervised project report in English? Justify your demand directly in the approval form of your supervised project. This approval is automatic for specializations in English.

Consult the Guidelines for writing an academic work at a graduate level (PDF, 824 KB) guide to find out how to correctly structure and write your report.

Step 6: Final Submission

Your supervisor's approval must be received by the submission deadline for your report.

The submission process, the evaluation of your report and the graduation process can take up to 10 weeks. Please take this into consideration if you need to renew a study permit, submit a post-diploma permit application or confirm your attendance at convocation.

To submit the final version of your supervised project report:

  1. Log in to the portal.

  2. Complete the "MSc | Submission of a thesis or supervised project" form.

  3. After saving the form, submit it from the “My Requests” page of the portal.

Evaluation

Under article 3.4.1 of the academic rules and regulations, the jury may:

  1. Accept the report and evaluate it according to the letter-grade system;
  2. Return the report and ask you for major corrections to be made. In this case, you must return in your submission request, in the portal, and submit the corrected report for final evaluation by the jury within one month of the date when the student was informed of the decision;
  3. Reject the report.

Guides and tools

Questions?

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