Master’s projects

Yes, but only under conditional admission. To be eligible, all three of the following conditions must be met:

• You are missing no more than 8 ECTS from your Master’s cycle (90 ECTS total).
• You have not reached the maximum duration of the Master’s cycle (6 semesters).
• You have successfully completed the mandatory research project (12 ECTS).

If all three conditions are met, you may begin your Master’s project conditionally. Otherwise, you must complete your Master’s cycle first. 

Important: If you begin your Master’s project conditionally before completing the 90 ECTS of the Master’s cycle, the period during which both are ongoing counts towards the maximum duration of both the Master’s cycle and the Master’s project. Your Master’s project grade cannot be communicated until you have successfully completed the Master’s cycle.

If you plan to carry out your Master’s project at EPFL or at another university, your mandatory industry internship must have been successfully completed and validated beforehand.

You do not need to have completed a separate internship beforehand if you carry out your Master’s project in industry and use it to fulfil the mandatory internship requirement. In this case, the Master’s project in industry may begin only once you have successfully completed the Master’s cycle, or conditionally if you meet the requirements for conditional admission and have no more than 8 ECTS remaining.

No. The mandatory industry internship must be successfully completed and validated before you can begin your Master’s project.

The only exception is if you combine the internship with the Master’s project by carrying out your Master’s project in industry, but this is only allowed upon full completion of your Master’s cycle, or conditionally if you have up to 8 ECTS of missing credits.

Yes. You cannot begin your Master’s project until successful completion of the Master’s cycle, or your eligibility for conditional admission, has been confirmed following the exam session. This verification takes place on the first Monday of the spring semester following the winter exam session, or on the last Monday of July following the summer exam session.

A Master’s project topic can be proposed by:

• an EPFL lab, provided you have already successfully completed your mandatory industry internship;
• you, the student;
• a company; or
• another university, provided you have already successfully completed your mandatory industry internship.

Your EPFL academic supervisor must approve the final topic in all cases. You are responsible for obtaining this approval.

For projects carried out outside EPFL, in industry or at another university, you must first submit the topic to the IC Section via the Master’s project pre-approval form. Once the Section has given its pre-approval, you must find an EPFL academic supervisor who agrees to supervise the project.

Important: You must not make any commitment to a company or another institution before obtaining both the IC Section’s pre-approval and the agreement of an EPFL academic supervisor.

Regardless of where the Master’s project is carried out, at EPFL, in a company, or at another university, the official academic supervisor must be internal to EPFL and accredited with the IC Section. A faculty member accredited with another EPFL Section may also supervise the project with the IC Section’s approval.

For projects outside EPFL, the external supervisor is responsible for monitoring your day-to-day progress and serves as the main contact for your EPFL academic supervisor, who remains responsible for the academic supervision and evaluation of the project.

You can consult the Projects by Laboratory page for your Master’s program. It lists the laboratories and the IC-accredited supervisors authorized to supervise Master’s projects.

• Computer Science
• Cyber Security
• Data Science
• Digital Humanities
• Communication Systems

No. Master’s students in Cyber Security must carry out their Master’s project in the field of cyber security.

You may carry out your Master’s project:

• at EPFL in a laboratory, provided your mandatory industry internship has already been successfully completed and validated;
• in a company, in Switzerland or abroad;
• at another university, in Switzerland or abroad, provided your mandatory industry internship has already been successfully completed and validated; or
• in your own startup, subject to the conditions of the EPFL startup incubation program and provided your mandatory industry internship has already been successfully completed and validated.

• your mandatory industry internship must have been validated beforehand;
• you must find both an EPFL academic supervisor and a supervisor at the host university; and
• you are responsible for organizing the administrative arrangements required by the host institution.

More information: Master’s project in a university abroad or in Switzerland

Remote work is neither recommended nor encouraged, as one of the objectives of the Master’s project is to provide immersion in a professional or laboratory environment. In justified cases, a limited amount of remote work may be authorized upon request, up to a maximum of 40% of the working time and no more than two days per week.

Working remotely from Switzerland for a company or a university based abroad is strictly prohibited.

IC reserves the right to refuse a remote-work arrangement if it is not compatible with the educational objectives of the Master’s project.

If you plan to carry out your Master’s project outside the Lausanne area and need to take a course in parallel, you must first discuss the feasibility of remote course participation with the IC Section.

You will also need to obtain the course teacher’s approval. Remote participation remains at the teacher’s discretion, and the teacher may decline such an arrangement.

Registration must be completed in IS-Academia between the opening of the academic re-registration form (FRAC) and the Friday of the second week of the semester.

A late registration fee of CHF 50 applies if you register after this deadline. Late registration must be completed in person at the Student Services Desk. Early registration is therefore strongly recommended.

For Master’s projects carried out outside EPFL (in industry or at another university), you must also:

1. Submit the Master’s project pre-approval form to the IC Section by the applicable deadline; and
2. Submit the completed and signed Registration form to the IC Internship Office at [email protected] by the deadline set by the IC Section.

• Master’s project pre-approval form and submission of the signed Registration form to the IC Internship Office: Tuesday, June 30, 2026
• IS-Academia registration opens: opens around the beginning of June.
• IS-Academia registration deadline: Friday, September 18, 2026

If the final project title has not yet been determined when you register, you may enter “To be defined” in the title field in IS-Academia. This should remain exceptional, as the scope of the Master’s project should normally have been agreed with your EPFL academic supervisor before registration.

The title may subsequently be updated by contacting the Student Services Desk.

Important: Once your Master’s project registration has been finalized in IS-Academia, the EPFL academic supervisor and the registered project dates cannot be changed. The report submission deadline may only be postponed under the exceptional circumstances defined by EPFL regulations.

Yes. You must submit monthly progress reports to your EPFL academic supervisor throughout the project.

Regular communication with your EPFL academic supervisor is essential so that they can assess your progress and ensure that the project continues in an appropriate academic direction. Your supervisor may ask you to give an interim presentation. If no presentation is requested, it is your responsibility to arrange an appropriate progress meeting or presentation with your supervisor.

The one-week vacation is compulsory and automatically added to the project duration.

The duration and dates of a Master’s project are strictly regulated at EPFL. Once the project has been registered, the start date, submission deadline and project duration cannot be changed.

The report submission deadline may be postponed only in the exceptional circumstances specifically provided for by EPFL regulations, such as medically attested incapacity or an interruption caused by circumstances genuinely beyond your control. A deadline cannot be extended simply because the project is behind schedule.

To schedule the oral defense, your EPFL academic supervisor must enter the required information in IS-Academia. The oral defense cannot take place before the official report submission deadline, and the system will not allow the final grade to be submitted before that date.

The project must start on a Monday. The IC start windows are:

• Autumn semester
  • Computer Science, Data Science, and Digital Humanities: between August 1 and October 1
  • Cyber Security: between September 1 and October 1
• Spring semester
  • All IC Master’s students: between February 15 and March 1

Note: The IC-specific windows above are narrower than the general EPFL rules. Always follow the IC Section’s dates.

Yes. After successfully completing the Master’s cycle (90 ECTS), you may request a one-semester leave of absence, provided you have not yet reached the six-semester maximum duration of the Master’s cycle.

This leave may be extended by one additional semester, provided the same eligibility condition continues to be met.

A leave-of-absence request must be submitted through FRAC or to the Student Services Desk no later than the second Friday of the semester.

During the leave of absence, you remain matriculated at EPFL. However, the IC Section will not issue or sign documents such as attestations or an EPFL Internship Agreement during this period.

The deadline for successfully completing your Master’s project is recalculated from the end of the approved leave period.

A leave of absence is not permitted once the Master’s project has started or between a first and second attempt at the Master’s project.

For more information, please refer: Interruption of studies during the Master’s program

Your Master’s project must go beyond the acquisition and application of existing knowledge. It must include a clearly defined component addressing a new problem for which no established solution currently exists, and require you to develop and evaluate a solution.

If the project is carried out in industry, this innovative component must extend beyond the company’s specific needs. It must be relevant beyond the boundaries of the company and contribute to the broader technical or scientific community.

Your EPFL academic supervisor is responsible for determining whether the proposed project meets the academic requirements of a Master’s project. 

Throughout the project, you are expected to demonstrate your ability to work independently and to carry out research or advanced engineering development at Master’s level.

For an industry project, the report does not need to cover every task you perform for the company. It should focus on the research or advanced engineering component that demonstrates the formulation of the problem, the development and evaluation of possible solutions, and the conclusions drawn from the work.

Master’s projects carried out at EPFL cannot be remunerated.

For projects in a company or another university, you are subject to that institution’s rules on salary and working hours.

You are expected to work full-time throughout the entire duration of your Master’s project, in accordance with the normal working hours of your host institution or company.

The Master’s project is a full-time activity and cannot be carried out on a part-time basis.

Confidentiality is an exception in academia, which is based on the dissemination and sharing of knowledge. As the Master’s project is an academic assignment, it should not produce confidential results.

If you carry out your project in a company, you must take care not to disclose confidential information belonging to the company to your EPFL academic supervisor without clearly identifying it as confidential. This applies both to information designated in writing by the company as confidential and to information you may observe within the company, unless it is already in the public domain.

The results of a Master’s project are not confidential and may be freely used by EPFL, the company, and the student, provided that no patent has been filed and that the results are not software. The thesis report should therefore not contain confidential information and should be uploaded to IS-Academia as is.

You should therefore take particular care before signing an employment contract or any other agreement with the company. You must not sign a document that prevents you from sharing the results of your Master’s project with your EPFL academic supervisor. If your EPFL supervisor cannot access the results of your work, the Master’s project cannot be validated.

If the company requires contractual arrangements concerning confidentiality or intellectual property, you must discuss this with your EPFL academic supervisor.

The EPFL academic supervisor may choose to use the official EPFL Master’s Project Agreement (PdME Agreement). This agreement is optional. There is no obligation for the EPFL academic supervisor to enter into such an agreement, and the supervisor may decline to sign it.

The PdME Agreement defines, among other matters, the permitted scope of confidentiality and the applicable intellectual-property arrangements.

Unlike the EPFL Internship Agreement, the PdME Agreement is not publicly available to students or companies. Access is restricted to the relevant EPFL academic supervisors through EPFL’s restricted-access resources, as they are responsible for EPFL’s engagement in the research context and are the only persons authorized to use the agreement.

For EPFL’s engagement in a Master’s project, another company document cannot be used in place of the PdME where that agreement is required. In particular, the following cannot replace the PdME Agreement:

• an NDA;
• a company agreement containing confidentiality provisions broader than those permitted under the PdME Agreement or assigning intellectual-property rights in a manner incompatible with EPFL rules; or
• another form of internship agreement or convention de stage.

The standard text of the PdME Agreement cannot be modified.

Before signing any employment contract, confidentiality agreement or other company document relating to your Master’s project, discuss it with your EPFL academic supervisor.

The PdME Agreement is not directly available to students or companies. The template is available through a restricted-access EPFL page for academic supervisors.

The PdME Agreement is an optional standard contract addressing confidentiality, intellectual property and the academic framework of the Master’s project. It is the contract model validated by EPFL Legal Affairs for this purpose. There is no obligation for an EPFL academic supervisor to enter into the agreement, and they may choose not to sign it.

You may direct your EPFL academic supervisor to the restricted-access page, where the relevant agreement template is available.

No. An NDA only covers confidentiality and does not address academic supervision, publication of results, or intellectual property. NDAs also frequently contain terms broader than EPFL practice. An NDA cannot be signed in place of the PdME Agreement.

In IC, English is the preferred language for the Master’s project report. You may write the report in French if your EPFL academic supervisor agrees.

Your Master’s project report must include:

• the project title;
• your name and contact information;
• the name of the EPFL laboratory, company or university where the project was carried out;
• the name of your EPFL academic supervisor; and
• a clear presentation of the project’s objectives, methodology, implementation, results and conclusions.

Your report should describe the initial objectives of the project, the principal stages of the work and the final results. It should also include a discussion of the lessons learned, alternative approaches identified in hindsight and possible future developments.

If your project is carried out in industry, your report does not need to describe all the work performed for the company. It should focus on the research or advanced engineering component of the project and demonstrate how you identified and formulated the main problem, developed and evaluated solutions, and reached your conclusions.

EPFL has a strict rules on academic integrity. Significant plagiarism may lead to rejection of the work and may have disciplinary consequences.

EPFL library useful links:

• Artificial intelligence and scientific information
• Citation and copyright guidelines

By the deadline set by the Registrar’s Office and confirmed by the Section. Submission is always on a Friday at 12:00 noon, Swiss local time.

Send the final PDF version of your Master’s project report in a single email to:

• your EPFL academic supervisor;
• your EPFL academic supervisor’s lab administrative assistant;
• the administrative specialist for your Master’s program; and
• your company or university supervisor, if applicable.

If your project is not confidential, you must also upload the final report to IS-Academia.

Failure to submit the report by the official deadline constitutes a failure of the Master’s project.

Yes. Any title change must be communicated to the Section and can be updated in IS-Academia up to the day of the report submission. The title appears on your Diploma Supplement.

The oral defense must take place no later than four weeks after the submission of the Master’s project report.

Your EPFL academic supervisor is responsible for organizing the oral defense. They will set the date in consultation with you and appoint an examination expert with appropriate expertise in the project topic.

The date, time and jury composition must be entered by the EPFL academic supervisor in IS-Academia at least one month before the defense.

The oral defense cannot take place before the official report submission deadline.

For detailed information, refer to LEX 2.6.1, particularly Section 4, Art. 12, and Section 5, Arts. 16, 17, and 18.

The jury consists of two members:

1. your EPFL academic supervisor; and
2. an examination expert nominated by the EPFL academic supervisor and approved by the Registrar’s Office.

The examination expert may be an experienced EPFL staff member or a person external to EPFL. The expert cannot be a member of the EPFL academic supervisor’s own unit or a PhD student.

No. The oral defense is not open to the public.

Your EPFL academic supervisor may invite other individuals to attend, but only after discussing this with you and obtaining your agreement. Invited attendees who are not members of the jury have no right to intervene or ask questions during the examination.

The jury considers the following aspects when evaluating the Master’s project:

1. The realization of the project including how you defined the topic, analyzed the different stages, evaluated your progress and handled unforeseen events.
2. The academic content of the report including the analytical, formal and bibliographical approach to the topic.
3. The quality of the written report including structure, clarity, precision, references and language.
4. The quality of the oral defense including the quality of the slides, synthesis, presentation, clarity and relevance of any demonstrations.

The Master’s project is passed with a minimum grade of 4.0 out of 6.0. Grades are awarded in increments of 0.25 points. Both the written report and the oral defense are graded together.

The report submission deadline may be postponed only in two specific types of exceptional circumstances.

Case 1: Illness or medically attested incapacity

You must submit a valid medical certificate to the Student Services and copy the IC Section before the report submission deadline. The deadline may be postponed by a period corresponding to the medically attested interruption. For example, a four-week incapacity at 50% may result in a two-week postponement.

A work incapacity above 50% is considered incompatible with continuing the Master’s project. In such a case, you must interrupt the project for the entire period of incapacity, and the deadline is postponed accordingly.

Case 2: Circumstances beyond your control (not illness)

Your EPFL academic supervisor must send a written email to [email protected] explaining the circumstances, specifying the exact period affected, and stating why it was beyond your control. The possibility of working on other aspects of the project during the interruption must also be considered. This cannot be used to extend a deadline simply because the project is behind schedule. The Registrar’s Office makes the final decision.

No. Neither extension mechanism can be used for a project that is simply behind schedule.

It is not possible to withdraw from a Master’s project once it has begun.

Withdrawal may be accepted only in exceptional circumstances and with the agreement of your EPFL academic supervisor and, where applicable, your company or university supervisor. The IC Section must be informed immediately.

Withdrawal from the Master’s project counts as a failure.

If you fail the first attempt, you may be granted one second attempt, provided that the deadline for successfully completing the Master’s project still allows sufficient time.

For the second attempt, you must choose a significantly different topic. A change of EPFL academic supervisor is not compulsory.

The Master’s project must be successfully completed within two semesters following successful completion of the Master’s cycle, or following conditional admission to the Master’s project where applicable.

If a 25-week Master’s project in industry is used to fulfil the mandatory industry internship requirement, the maximum period for successfully completing the Master’s project is extended to three semesters.

The Master’s project must be successfully completed within two semesters following successful completion of the Master’s cycle, or following conditional admission to the Master’s project where applicable.

Exception: If the Master’s project (of 25+1 weeks, in industry) serves to validate the industry internship, the deadline is extended to three semesters.

Yes. A second failure permanently ends your ability to complete the Master’s degree.

To receive your Master’s degree at the Magistrale:

• you must have successfully completed all 90 ECTS of the Master’s cycle (coursework and project work).
• the grade for your Master’s project must be submitted in IS-Academia at least one week before the graduation ceremony.

Starting in 2027, the graduation ceremony is scheduled to take place on the last Saturday of September.

In the days following the successful completion of your Master’s degree, you will be able to download your final transcript and Diploma Supplement from IS-Academia.

These documents confirm that you have successfully completed the Master’s degree and serve as official confirmation of completion while you await the formal diploma awarded at the graduation ceremony.