Minor Introduction to Scientific Research

Coordinated by: Gilles Bernot (Fall semester) and Fabien Ferrero (Spring semester)
 

FORMAT

Classroom

LOCATION

Campus SophiaTech Templiers

PREREQUISITES

No

CAPACITY

24 students

ABOUT THIS MINOR

This minor is also open to students from the SPECTRUM Graduate school.

Video
Summary

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The student will learn not only how to conduct research, but more generally how to approach a subject rationally, to take a critical view on the literature available on the subject, to provide his or her own reflections supported by experience, and also to know how to communicate them.
The hindsight that this course provides on what science is (or is not) should be part of the skills of any scientist, not only researchers.


Everything you always wanted to know about research ... but were afraid to ask.

Becoming a researcher is a professional qualification. Science requires curiosity, original thinking, rigour, experimentation and critical analysis of results. But for centuries now, science progresses have led to ever stronger organizations at the international scale, scientists’ professional networks, shared practices and rules. In a both competitive and collaborative and frontier-less research environment, conducting visible and relevant scientific research requires a strong methodology and conforming to international standards.

The course will cover the following topics:

  • Definition of scientific research, scientific methodology and the interactions between science and society. Ethics of scientific research.
  • Acquiring a background on a scientific topic, analysing the state-of-the-art, compiling a bibliography, publishing scientific results, facing the evaluation of scientific work by peer scientists and presenting scientific activity to a specialized audience.
  • Planning, conducting and analysing scientific experiments.
  • Scientific environment, collaborations, research funding and interaction between academic institutions and industry.

Contents:

  • Epistemology, "What is science?"
  • A job of passion
  • Bibliographical research
  • Methods for conducting research
  • PhD and its career opportunities
  • Conducting experiments
  • Scientific writing
  • Scientific collaborations
  • Digital Deontology
Lecturers


With the STIC Doctoral School

Bibliography

Bibliography will be given on a dedicated website.

Evaluation
  • Home written report - Submission deadline: to be announced - 50% of the final grade
  • Oral - 04/12/2025, 8h00-12h20 - Campus SophiaTech Templiers, Building B, room B107 - 50% of the final grade

Schedule Fall 2025

Mind the evaluation time and modalities in the "Evaluation" tab below.

Time slot

Lecturers

Course title

Location

09/10/2025

9h00-12h15

9h00-9h15 - G. Bernot

Welcome, course goals and outline, evaluation modalities

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

9h15-10h45 - E.Picholle

Epistemology, "What is science?"

11h00-12h15

Research: a job of passion

16/10/2025

9h00-12h15

9h00-10h30 

Methods for conducting research

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

10h45-12h15 - S. Touati

Bibliography

23/10/2025

9h00-12h15

9h00-9h30 - G.Bernot

Bibliographic analysis on a given list of articles

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

9h45-12h15 - F.Ferrero

Scientific writing

06/11/2025

9h00-12h15

S.Touati

Experimentation workshop: Statistical aspects of experimentation

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

13/11/2025

9h00-12h15

Experimentation workshop: Human-Computer Interaction

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

20/11/2025

9h00-12h15

9h00-10h30 - N.Abchiche

Digital Deontology

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

10h45-12h15 - G.Bernot

TD Article analysis: last questions

27/11/2025

9h00-12h15

9h00-10h30 - F.Ferrero

Scientific collaborations

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107

10h45-12h15

PhD and its career opportunities

04/12/2025

8h00-12h20

Jury (G. Bernot and F. Ferrero)

Evaluation: Experimentation workshop and article analysis reports 

SophiaTech Templiers, room B107