Certificate Course on Postgraduate Research

Certificate Course on Postgraduate Research is a 6 months program conducted by Research Promotion & Facilitation Center, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo. The program has been designed for the applicant who possess an undergraduate degree from any recognized local or foreign university, to improve the quality of post-graduate research in the Universities and other higher education institutes in Sri Lanka by enhancing research skills, knowledge and attitudes of the research students.

Application will be Closed on 17th November 2023

To improve the quality of post-graduate research in the Universities and other higher education institutes in Sri Lanka by enhancing research skills, knowledge and attitudes of the research students.

  • To identify the responsibilities of a research student at different levels of postgraduate research.
  • To identify and carry out initial communications with a suitable supervisor.
  • To identify the dynamics of the student-supervisor relationships.
  • To get sensitized on effective use of  library and search of information through different search engines
  • To appreciate the importance of regulations, ethics and moral responsibilities in research
  • To understand  the process of obtaining ethical clearance
  • To get an understanding of the study designs used in research
  • To get an overview of clinical trials
  • To be able to appreciate different data collecting methods that could be adopted.
  • To appreciate the different data analysis methods including statistical methods that can be applied in research.
  •  To understand the process of applying effectively to  grants
  • To write a research/project proposal
  • To develop skills in writing abstracts, research papers and  theses
  • To develop research presentation and communication skills
  • To develop skills in publishing  research findings
  • To sensitize the need of researchers to be effectively engaged in new developments associated with research such as translational research and collaborative research.
  • To understand the dynamics of establishing research collaborations
  • Duration: 6 months
  • Credit hours: 192

This course is designed with an intention of catering to post-graduate researchers and will include

  • PhD and MPhil students
  • Any other interested individual from the following categories
    • University academic staff
    • University administration staff
    • Medical administration staff
    • Trainees of PGIM
    • MSc students

The applicant should possess an undergraduate degree from any recognised local or foreign university.

Priority will be given to those who are registered for a postgraduate research degree or those planning for a post-graduate research degree.

The course committee will review the application forms and selections would be carried out by the committee. Priority will be given to those who are already registered for a postgraduate research degree or those planning for a post-graduate research degree confirmed by the potential supervisor

Average number of students per batch: 30 – 50

  • Face to face teaching
    • Lectures, delivered by local and international research experts
    • Workshops, conducted by local and international research experts
    • Group work, facilitated by research experts with participants from same stages and different stages of research to share and learn
    • Hard and soft copies of the lectures and AV materials would be provided to all the participants.
  • Tutor-guided study time
    • Learning inputs delivered through an online platform as videos, webinars and slide presentations and pdf documents.
    • Tutorials and case discussions developed through online forums for the students to engage at pre-scheduled times during the week.
    • Students are expected to maintain regular online activity which will be monitored by the module coordinator.
    • Discussion forums offered through a online platforms throughout the month
    • Webinars conducted at scheduled time
  • The online teaching-learning material for a particular module shall be uploaded onto the learning management system after the face to face teaching of the module and shall be available for access throughout the duration of that module.

There would be an assessment at the end of each module and the certificate would be awarded to those obtaining >50% for each module plus an attendance >80% for the course and for each module.

The participants who do not fulfill the above criteria and / or wish to attend only selected module/s would receive a certificate of attendance for the specified module/s attended by them.

Assessments would be both formative and summative and would be specific for each module. The formative assessments would consist of group tasks, quizzes, etc, while the summative assessments would include research presentation and assignments.

  • The director, all the advisors and the coordinators of Research Promotion and Facilitation centre (RPFC), Faculty of Medicine, Colombo.
  • Content experts from the academic staff members from the Departments of the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo.
  • Retired research experts of the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo.
  • Content experts from other Universities in Sri Lanka.
  • International resource persons in the online platform and through Skype.

Course Fee: Rs. 50,000/-
Application Fee: Rs.1,000/-

Dr.Tharanga Thoradeniya,
Program Coordinator,

Phone: +94 112 695 300 ext: 106 (Ms. Malkanthi Fernando)

Email: rpfc@med.cmb.ac.lk