Institutional Research Committee (IRC)
1. Constitution of the Committee
The committee may be chaired by a faculty member of Assistant Professor level or above and managed by the Secretary among the committee members. All research supervisors will be members of the committee.
2. Functions and Responsibilities of the Committee
- i. To ensure quality medical research at the undergraduate level.
- ii. To divide students into research groups, with each group having 3 to 4 students.
- iii. To recommend supervisors for the students’ final dissertations.
- iv. To rectify and ratify the students’ research topics and proposals.
3. The Scheme of Research
Total credits of research in the final semester:
- DPT & BS Paramedics: (0+6)
- BSN: (0+5)
Each credit of research is equivalent to 3 Contact Hours per Week, totaling 240-288 contact hours in the last two semesters.
- 2nd Last Semester: Allotment of supervisors to groups, research topic selection, submission of synopsis, and its approval by the IRC and commencement of data collection.
- Final Semester: Data analysis, dissertation writing, submission of the final thesis/dissertation, and its defense.
4. Supervisors
- i. Supervisors must be lecturers or above in the respective discipline with at least 1-year research experience.
- ii. Each supervisor may only supervise 2 research projects at one time in the same semester, unless permitted otherwise by the committee.
- iii. Supervisors must teach students necessary research skills and data analysis.
- iv. Supervisors must document research sessions and mark internal assessments based on participation and performance.
- v. Supervisors may be remunerated for supervising research projects (3000 PKR/project).
5. Final Defense
- i. The final defense shall be conducted in front of the IRC, external examiner, and supervisor (internal examiner).
- ii. The plagiarism policy of KMU is to be followed.
- iii. Four copies of the final approved thesis must be submitted:
- One copy to the Examination Department, KMU.
- One soft copy for the department.
- One hard copy for the library.
- One student copy.
6. Guidelines
- Guidelines for the preparation of the synopsis are available with the Chairperson of the IRC.
- Guidelines for the preparation of the thesis are available with the Chairperson of the IRC.
7. Undergraduate Students Research Procedure
- a. Students shall submit research titles to their supervisors, who will forward them to the IRC via the Programme Coordinator.
- b. Titles shall be presented for approval by the IRC.
- c. Research proposals must be submitted in soft form one week prior to the proposal defense.
- d. Proposal defense shall be conducted, and final approval granted by the IRC.
- e. Ethical approval shall be granted by the IRC.
- f. Official data collection request letters shall be issued by the Director Campus.
- g. Data collection shall commence, and students shall write their thesis following the prescribed format.
- h. Data analysis using SPSS Software shall be conducted under the supervisor’s guidance.
- i. Students shall submit the thesis in hard form for supervisor review.
- j. Final thesis defense shall be conducted via viva by internal and external examiners.
- k. Four hardbound copies of the final approved thesis shall be submitted by students.