Honours and undergraduate research

During your honours year, you will study and apply research techniques, which will give you an advantage in any research or professional career you choose.

Courses

Participating in research while you're studying your bachelor degree is an excellent opportunity to find out what's involved with higher degree research and whether it suits you.

If you're interested in applying for a postgraduate research course after you've graduated, we offer events, courses and programs to help you learn more about the research experience.

Considering becoming a researcher?
I continued on to Honours because I really wanted to get some research experience and to give myself a different view of the medical field before I go on to study medicine. I chose QUT because it is a great learning environment and I can do my own research in my area of interest. The lecturers are always helpful and I found an amazing supervisor for my honours project.
Jana Pauli
Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours) student.

Honours

The honours course provides foundation skills in designing and undertaking research. Some of our 4 and 5 year courses offer honours in the final year. For most 3 year degrees, honours requires an additional year of study.

We also have accelerated honours programs, which you apply for at the end of high school.

An honours year normally consists of:

  • one semester's coursework study
  • preparing a research hypothesis and methodology
  • presenting the research results in a thesis.

Honours is ideal for recent graduates from bachelor degrees.

Deeper discipline knowledge

If you are part way through your undergraduate course and are interested in studying at a more detailed level, an honours year allows you to more deeply investigate a topic of interest.

First steps to a research career

For most students, honours provides a pathway to further higher degree research, including a PhD.

Postgraduate pathways

Vacation research experience

Our Vacation Research Program allows you to:

  • get a taste for research with first-hand experience
  • work alongside active researchers
  • make an informed decision about whether you want to pursue further research study.

The program usually runs for 6 to 10 weeks during the summer holidays.

If you're a current student, you can apply for a Vacation Research Experience Scholarship.

Vacation research experience and scholarship

Stay connected

Get just the information you want on courses, scholarships and events.