Dissertation

This section provides information on the dissertation component of Alliance Manchester Business School’s Postgraduate Taught Masters Programmes. You should read this section carefully in conjunction with the details specific to your programme. In particular, My Student Support contains important information about plagiarism, assessment, and personal mitigating circumstances.

Please also refer to the following University documents for further policy information with particular emphasis on plagiarism and academic malpractice:

The library provides a number of resources useful for writing your dissertation, including workshops and drop-in sessions.

Dissertation calendar 2024/25

The dissertation deadline is Monday, 1 September 2025 by 2pm.

Please note that your supervisor(s) should give you further information regarding exact dates for meetings and deadlines for submitting written work etc.

AMBS MSc Student Guidance on Dissertation Ethical Approval

Key information:

  • You cannot begin any data collection until you have received formal ethical approval or had confirmation from your supervisor that your dissertation topic is ethically exempt.
  • If you collect data without ethical approval or miss critical approval deadlines, there can be consequences such as having to change your dissertation topic late in the summer, or in severe cases, receiving a mark of 0 for your dissertation. Please engage with the process and if in doubt, always ask your supervisor or contact ambs.programmes@manchester.ac.uk for support as soon as possible.
  • All students undertaking a dissertation or research project will need to use the Ethics Decision Tool and submit an Ethics Statement Form to determine whether there is ethical risk to be approved.
  • Students will be emailed when the Ethics Statement Form is available in April – May, depending on the programme of study. Programme-specific deadlines can be found below.
  • Only students who require ethical approval as determined by the outcome of the Ethics Decision Tool and Ethics Statement Form will need to submit an ERM application as the final step. Only when you have received formal approval via the ERM system can you begin data collection.
  • Only students studying on MSc HRM/IHRM and MSc Business/Organisational Psychology are permitted to travel outside the EU/EAA for data collection purposes. This is because traveling outside the EU/EAA increases the ethical risk to ‘medium’, which is only permitted for these specific programmes. All other MSc programmes must either be ‘ethically exempt’ or require ‘low-risk’ ethical approval and therefore data collection is restricted to the UK or within the EU/EAA.
ethical approval for msc dissertation

Step-by-step guide you need to follow:

  1. Use the Ethics Decision Tool to help determine whether your project requires ethical approval and save the results. By this point, you should have already agreed a dissertation topic and title with your supervisor. 
  2. Submit an Ethics Statement Form by your programme specific deadline, attaching the outcome the Ethics Decision Tool at the end of the form. Your submission will be automatically sent to your supervisor.
  3. Liaise with your supervisor to ensure the ethical risk identified by the tool and form is appropriate and accurate based on your topic and plans for data collection. In some cases, your supervisor may at this stage confirm that your dissertation is ethically exempt.
  4. If ethical approval is required (either i) low-risk or ii) medium-risk for select programmes*), submit an ERM application by your programme specific deadline. Attach your Participation Form and/or Consent Forms, where applicable. Do not wait until the deadline to submit your ERM application as this will delay approval. Please ensure that you complete the application accurately to avoid having to make corrections.
  5. Once you have final approval via the ERM system, you will receive email confirmation and you can now begin data collection.

*Only MSc HRM, MSc IHRM, MSc Business Psychology and MSc Organisational Psychology are permitted to carry out dissertations that require medium-risk ethical approval.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We urge students to be cautious when using a chatbot or AI tool within their learning. Chatbots and AI tools can be useful, but there are a number of risks associated with using them. Please ensure that you are aware of what is permissible use of AI for each assignment. You can utilise AI to generate ideas, key themes, and plan your assessment but not to write your assessment.

Do not use AI to generate text, or partial text for use in your assessment unless the assignment brief explicitly states that this is permitted, otherwise use will be deemed academic malpractice. This is academic malpractice because the words and ideas generated are not your own and not an accurate reflection of your learning. Further to this, the words and ideas generated by the chatbot or AI tool may make use of other, human authors' ideas without referencing them, which is plagiarism.

Where a chatbot or other form of AI has been used, make sure you acknowledge that use. Information on how to cite can be found on the Library Help FAQ webpage.

Some units, for example those on AI and technology, permit the use of AI. However, they require you to sign a code of conduct which must be adhered to. Make sure you understand and follow these codes. If you are unclear on what is permissible, speak to the unit lead.