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Poster Presentations
National Reports
P48 THE MEDICAL STUDENT RESEARCH PROGRAMME
Marianne H Stien 1 , Torunn Olsnes 1 and Inger Hjeldnes Senneseth 1
1 University of Bergen, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Bergen, Norway
marianne.stien@mofa.uib.no
The Medical Student Research Programme (MSRP) is a national education and grant scheme for a
group of students in medicine and dentistry (up to 10 %) who wish to carry out research in parallel
with their studies. The purpose of the programme is to increase recruitment of people with a
standard medical and dental degree to medical and dental research.
The students at the MSRP follow the ordinary medicine and dentistry study. In addition to this, they
achieve an organized research education and get to perform their own research activity that might
be the beginning of a PhD. The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry grants 5 scholarships each year for
students who wish to finish their PhD immediately after their studies.
The students can be affiliated with the MSRP from the second year of their studies. For students
at the MSRP, the regulated time of study is prolonged by one year. Students at the MSRP perform
one year of fulltime research training, and 0.2 years of part-time research training in parallel with
their medical and dental studies, which sums up to 2 years of fulltime research training during their
studies.
The MSRP students have the same training component as the PhD candidates, and do not have to
repeat this if they choose to complete a PhD later.
A thorough evaluation of the programme was done in 2007. The evaluation found that the MSRP has
led to an increase in the recruitment of graduated physicians to medical research in Norway.
Completed MSRP will give a total of 120 ECTS, in addition to the credits in the professional studies in
medicine or dentistry.
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