Finding a proper agreement with a company

Master thesis projects can be done without a company at all, or fully at a company, or a lot of different alternatives in between.

Generally, the most important in the contact with the company is to be clear and precise with what is to be expected, both ways: your (and Chalmers' / GU's) demands on the company, and the companies demand on you. A master thesis student should not be just cheap labor. Most companies are professional with this, but not all. It is important that the company is prepared to take care of you properly, give you the guidance you need (of course together with guidance form your academic supervisor), and that they give you meaningful assignments with a clear connection to an academic question. It is very important that the company understands that a big part of the master thesis is writing. They also must understand that a master thesis project involves an academic research question of quite high intellectual level.

Concerning payment, Chalmers/GU is not involved in any discussions about payment/non-payment. Remember that if you are not paid, you own your results.

Regarding demands from the company that some research results should not be published, we strongly oppose such demands. Companies will sometimes try to stop researchers from publishing results. Such agreements are sometimes done - both for master thesis and for all sorts of research projects - but it should be done only if there is no other option, and it can only apply to additional results – such as report appendix – that are not needed to approve the master thesis report and report the grades. The master thesis report itself must always be fully open for publication. Some kind of middle-ground agreement concerning extra publication can be reached; for example that some of the additional results is reported only to the company, or that there is a specific date after which everything can be published. If the company wants to make this kind of agreement, it is very important that it is done in written form and that the academic supervisor have reviewed it and agreed upon it.