Aalto University Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering Master’s Thesis Guide for the 2026–2028 Curriculum

Aalto University’s Master’s Programme in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering is a 120 ECTS, two-year Master of Science (Technology) programme organised by the School of Chemical Engineering. For students following the current 2026–2028 curriculum, the degree includes 95 ECTS of major studies and 25 ECTS of elective studies, with the 30 ECTS Master’s thesis included inside the major studies.

The programme has two majors: Chemical and Process Engineering and Sustainable Metallurgical Engineering. Although the research topics, laboratory environments and industrial contexts can differ substantially between these majors, Aalto currently applies one School of Chemical Engineering thesis process to the programme. That process is detailed enough to support serious planning: it explains how to find a supervisor, approve a topic, prepare a research proposal, work with one or two advisors, schedule the project, present the finished thesis, submit the final PDF/A in MyStudies and move through formal evaluation.

This guide is based on the current 2026–2028 curriculum and the School of Chemical Engineering thesis instructions verified on 26 August 2026. It deliberately does not import rules from Aalto’s School of Business, School of Engineering, ARTS or another programme.

Degree structure and where the thesis fits

The current curriculum totals 120 ECTS:

• 95 ECTS major studies, including the 30 ECTS Master’s thesis;
• 25 ECTS elective studies.

The two majors share the same broad thesis framework, even though their subject matter differs. Chemical and Process Engineering covers areas such as reaction engineering, separation processes, process modelling, process control, plant and process design, and related chemical-engineering systems. Sustainable Metallurgical Engineering covers areas such as hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, minerals engineering, recycling, metallurgical thermodynamics and circular processing of metals and minerals.

For both majors, Aalto’s current recommended timetable places the Master’s thesis in the spring of the second study year. This does not mean topic development must wait until then. In practice, students should begin identifying possible research environments, professors, companies and research questions early enough that a suitable project can be agreed before the planned thesis period begins.

The 30 ECTS thesis is a project, not only a report

The School of Chemical Engineering describes the Master’s thesis as a 30 ECTS project. The project consists of the thesis report, a maturity test and a seminar or presentation related to the project.

This wording matters. The current 2026–2028 curriculum lists a 30 ECTS Master’s thesis, but it does not publish a separate additional thesis-seminar ECTS value. The presentation or seminar requirement should therefore not be turned into an invented extra-credit component.

Aalto describes the purpose of the project as solving a problem related to the student’s field of study and advanced studies. A strong thesis therefore needs more than a technically interesting task. The topic has to be academically suitable for the student’s major and sufficiently defined to support a research problem, research methods, evidence, analysis and conclusions.

Choosing a topic that fits the major

The first formal step is to find a supervising professor and agree that the proposed topic is suitable. Students can explore research groups, company projects and previously completed theses, but an appealing topic is not automatically an approved thesis topic.

For Chemical and Process Engineering, possible thesis environments may involve process modelling, reaction engineering, separations, process control, plant design, energy efficiency or other chemical-process questions. For Sustainable Metallurgical Engineering, possible environments may involve hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, mineral processing, recycling, corrosion, thermodynamics or circular materials systems.

These are examples of disciplinary contexts, not a list of mandatory thesis methods. Aalto does not require one universal experimental design for every student. Some projects may be experimental, some computational, some modelling-based, some design-oriented, and some may combine several forms of evidence. The method should follow the research problem and be agreed with the supervisor and advisor or advisors.

Before you submit the thesis starting information

Current CHEM instructions identify several prerequisites before the student starts the formal approval process. The student should:

• be enrolled as an attending student;
• have the Bachelor of Science degree approved;
• have an approved personal study plan for the Master’s degree;
• have completed any complementary studies assigned at admission, where applicable.

The student first agrees the topic with the proposed supervisor. The starting information is then entered in the MyStudies Thesis tab. The information includes the thesis topic, thesis language, supervisor and advisor or advisors.

The supervisor approves the topic and language and appoints one or two thesis advisors. The Programme Director approves the supervisor. Aalto states that the approval process can take up to four weeks, so this administrative step should be included in the student’s project schedule.

Supervisor and advisor roles

A CHEM thesis normally has one supervisor and one or two advisors.

The supervisor is usually an Aalto University professor. School of Chemical Engineering instructions also allow specified lecturer and Professor of Practice roles to supervise, and certain other senior research roles may receive individual permission from the dean.

The supervisor’s academic responsibility is central. The supervisor ensures that the thesis topic and completed work satisfy School of Chemical Engineering requirements. At the end of the project, the supervisor prepares the evaluation report and proposes the grade to the Degree Programme Committee.

The advisor is a subject-matter expert who holds at least a Master’s degree. An advisor may work at the company or organisation commissioning the thesis, or may be an Aalto researcher or doctoral student. Advisors give practical guidance during the project and can comment on the writing and technical work. They do not formally grade the thesis.

Because the roles vary from one project to another, students should clarify at the kick-off meeting how frequently they will meet each person, who comments on which parts of the work, and how progress will be reported.

Company thesis, university thesis and work abroad

Aalto CHEM explicitly allows the thesis to be conducted in several settings. It may be completed:

• for a company or other external organisation;
• within an Aalto research project;
• with grant funding;
• without external funding;
• abroad, provided Aalto requirements and supervision are preserved.

A company thesis does not receive a lower academic standard. The supervisor must approve the topic’s suitability and scope, and the thesis remains an academic attainment assessed under Aalto rules.

If a company is involved, practical issues such as salary, funding, equipment, work location, intellectual property and confidential background material should be discussed at the start. Aalto provides a contract template for student projects with outside organisations, but the contract does not remove the University’s public-thesis requirement.

The kick-off meeting and research proposal

Once the proposed topic is considered suitable, the student, supervisor and advisor or advisors should hold a kick-off meeting. If an external organisation is involved, its representative may also participate.

The research proposal is a central planning document. Current CHEM guidance says it should define matters such as:

• background and theoretical framework;
• research problem or problems;
• main objective and intermediate objectives;
• research methods;
• timetable and possible budget;
• analysis, synthesis and conclusions.

Aalto specifically notes that the main objective is often best framed as a question. This is a useful principle for engineering theses because it forces the student to distinguish the research problem from the technical activity. Running experiments, building a model or simulating a process is not itself the research question. The thesis needs to explain what the work is trying to determine and how the chosen methods provide an answer.

Workload: about 800 hours and usually about five months

The School of Chemical Engineering gives an unusually concrete workload baseline. A 30 ECTS thesis corresponds to about 800 hours of work, and Aalto says the project is usually completed in about five months.

The administrative schedule on the thesis page illustrates a typical process across roughly five to six months: topic definition and kick-off, research planning, literature acquisition, experimental or other project work, results, writing, presentation and evaluation.

The exact calendar may differ. Experimental work can be delayed by equipment, sample preparation or external processes. Computational projects may have different bottlenecks. Students may also have personal or study-related reasons for a longer calendar period.

Aalto permits an extended project schedule when agreed with the supervisor and advisor or advisors, but the School states that the total thesis workload should not exceed approximately 800 hours. The agreed thesis deadline should also be no later than one year from the starting date.

This distinction is important: elapsed calendar time and academic workload are not the same thing.

Give enough time for supervisor review

CHEM recommends reserving enough time at the end of the project for examination and corrections. The thesis page says the supervisor should have around 2–3 weeks for reading, correcting and commenting on the manuscript.

A student who plans backwards from a Degree Programme Committee deadline should therefore not treat the submission date as the day the first complete draft is sent to the supervisor. The manuscript needs to be mature earlier so that supervisor feedback, corrections, the required presentation and final submission can all happen in the correct order.

Thesis language

The applicant-facing study option is taught in English. The student guide also describes the programme as multilingual for degree completion, allowing study attainments according to curriculum rules in English, Finnish or Swedish.

The Master’s thesis itself may be written in English, Finnish or Swedish. The thesis language affects the language or languages in which the degree certificate is issued. Students should therefore confirm language choices early in the MyStudies starting process rather than treating language as a formatting decision at the end.

Practical structure and formatting

The CHEM thesis page provides practical formatting guidance and points students to the Aalto Master’s thesis template. It describes a conventional scientific structure containing elements such as:

• title page;
• abstract;
• preface;
• table of contents;
• list of symbols and abbreviations where needed;
• introduction;
• literature review;
• experimental or methodological section;
• results and discussion;
• conclusions;
• references;
• appendices where needed.

The School also gives detailed layout guidance on fonts, margins, line spacing, headings, paragraph spacing and page numbering.

This is useful, but it should not be misread as evidence that every Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering thesis must have exactly the same chapter sequence. A modelling-heavy or design-oriented thesis may need a different internal logic from a laboratory-based thesis. The supervisor should confirm the appropriate structure for the project.

Aalto’s current public CHEM instructions do not establish a universal thesis page count or word count. Students should not copy an arbitrary length from an older thesis or another Aalto school.

Presentation before approval

The completed thesis must be presented before formal approval and evaluation. Aalto allows the presentation or a similar event to be arranged at a time agreed with the supervisor.

CHEM does not currently publish one fixed oral-presentation seminar date for all students. The programme’s thesis guidance explicitly says the student agrees the presentation with the supervisor. The graduation instructions also require the relevant thesis seminar or presentation requirement to be completed before the application for thesis approval is submitted to the Degree Programme Committee.

This means presentation planning belongs inside the thesis schedule, not after the final upload.

Maturity test: the thesis abstract

At the School of Chemical Engineering, the thesis abstract is the Master’s maturity test. Aalto states that this has been the practice since 1 August 2021. The supervisor approves the content of the maturity test.

Language obligations differ depending on the student’s educational background. Students who still need to demonstrate proficiency in Finnish or Swedish may have additional language-check requirements. International students who are not required to demonstrate Finnish or Swedish proficiency generally complete the maturity test in the thesis language, commonly English.

The maturity test is assessed pass/fail and does not determine the numerical thesis grade.

AI use and the maturity-test boundary

Aalto’s current AI guidance allows AI to support learning unless a teacher or assessment explicitly restricts its use. Students remain responsible for the accuracy, originality and academic integrity of submitted work. AI-generated text should not simply be presented as the student’s own unmodified work.

There is an important hard boundary: Aalto prohibits AI in maturity exams.

Because the School of Chemical Engineering defines the Master’s thesis abstract as the maturity test, students should treat the maturity-test abstract as an AI-prohibited assessed component. For other parts of the thesis, students should follow current University, programme, supervisor and course guidance and document permissible AI use transparently where required.

Final submission in MyStudies

The final thesis is submitted through MyStudies after the supervisor gives permission for submission. The version uploaded for grading is the final version.

The student should also have a valid and approved study plan in Sisu when applying for thesis approval.

The thesis must be submitted electronically in PDF/A format for archiving. Once the final file is submitted in MyStudies, it is automatically checked by Turnitin and the report becomes available to the supervisor.

Students should therefore complete reference checks, figure/table checks, file conversion, template compliance and final proofreading before the MyStudies submission.

Public thesis, company secrets and Aaltodoc

A CHEM Master’s thesis is a public document after approval.

Aalto archives the full text and publishes thesis metadata and the abstract in Aaltodoc. The student can give permission for full-text online publication. If needed for publication, patent or company reasons, online publication can be delayed by up to one year from the approval date.

That delay does not make the thesis confidential. Aalto states that the thesis becomes public immediately after approval and must remain available as a public document. If full online publication permission is not granted, access arrangements differ, but the thesis itself does not become a secret document.

Students working with companies should therefore separate confidential background material from the public thesis report. Trade secrets or other non-public information that cannot lawfully be made public should not be placed in the report. This issue should be resolved with the supervisor and external partner before the writing reaches its final stage.

How the thesis is evaluated

CHEM evaluation covers the whole thesis project, not only the final report. The School’s instructions say that the student’s development during the project is considered in relation to the thesis learning outcomes and evaluation criteria.

The supervisor prepares an evaluation statement and proposes a grade. Advisor feedback may inform the supervisor, but advisors do not decide the grade. The Degree Programme Committee formally approves the thesis and grade.

The supervisor should provide the evaluation report within four weeks after the final evaluation request. For certain extreme grade proposals, the Committee may consult an additional qualified expert before deciding.

Students dissatisfied with the thesis grade may appeal to the Aalto University Academic Appeals Board within 14 days of receiving notice of the decision.

Current 2027 CHEM thesis-approval timetable

Aalto currently publishes School of Chemical Engineering thesis-approval and graduation schedules into 2027. Not every graduation date can be used for thesis approval: dates marked as graduation-only have no Degree Programme Committee thesis meeting.

Current 2027 application dates that do include thesis approval are:

• 17 February 2027 → Committee 9 March 2027;
• 21 April 2027 → Committee 18 May 2027;
• 26 May 2027 → Committee 15 June 2027;
• 30 July 2027 → Committee 24 August 2027;
• 22 September 2027 → Committee 12 October 2027;
• 17 November 2027 → Committee 7 December 2027;
• 31 December 2027 → Committee in January 2028.

Students should always re-check the live graduation page before planning around one of these dates. Administrative schedules can change, and the supervisor’s review time and presentation must be completed before the final evaluation application.

A realistic project plan

Before the formal start

Identify a feasible research environment and potential supervisor. Discuss whether the topic belongs to your major and is substantial enough for a 30 ECTS thesis. If working with a company, clarify what information can be public and what must remain outside the report.

Month 1

Agree the topic and language. Identify one or two advisors. Submit the MyStudies starting information. Hold the kick-off meeting and prepare the research proposal. Define the research question, methods, milestones and data or experimental needs.

Months 1–3

Build the literature base and conduct the main experimental, modelling, computational, design or other research work. Keep regular contact with advisors. Record methodological decisions and deviations from the original plan.

Months 3–5

Complete analysis, write the thesis and connect results back to the research question and previous literature. Do not postpone writing until every experiment or model run is complete.

Final review stage

Give the supervisor the mature manuscript early enough for the recommended 2–3 week review period. Make corrections carefully. Complete the required presentation. Finalise the abstract/maturity test without prohibited AI use. Convert and verify the PDF/A file.

Submission and approval

After supervisor permission, submit the final file in MyStudies, allow for Turnitin and supervisor evaluation, and target a Degree Programme Committee date that fits the agreed graduation plan.

Final checklist

Before final submission, confirm that:

• the topic, supervisor, advisor(s) and thesis language have been approved;
• the personal study plan is valid and approved;
• the research proposal and major milestones have been completed;
• the thesis remains within the agreed 30 ECTS scope;
• the report follows the appropriate CHEM/Aalto formatting guidance;
• confidential information has not been placed in the public report;
• references, figures, tables, equations and appendices are complete;
• the finished thesis presentation has been completed;
• the abstract/maturity test satisfies the applicable language and AI rules;
• the supervisor has authorised final submission;
• the final file is a verified PDF/A;
• the current CHEM application deadline and Committee meeting have been rechecked.

Final planning principle

The Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering thesis process is structured but not mechanically identical for every student. The current secure framework is clear: 30 ECTS, about 800 hours, normally around five months, one supervisor, one or two advisors, a research proposal, a required presentation, abstract-as-maturity-test, MyStudies submission, PDF/A archiving, public-document status and Degree Programme Committee approval.

Within that framework, the research problem should determine the detailed method and structure. Students should use the current CHEM instructions and their supervisor’s project-specific guidance rather than importing word counts, seminar credits or thesis rules from another Aalto school or programme.