Since 2012, the nationwide CDRC Masters Dissertation Scheme (MDS) has brought together masters students intent upon pursuing dissertations using retail and other industry data, their academic supervisors and industry contacts who are able to provide data or support ‘horizon-scanning’ research focused upon real world problems. The MDS now also has an active alumni network of past students to maintain and further develop industry collaborations with CDRC.

Every year, the best dissertations are showcased at an event and three prizes awarded to the best dissertations.

This year’s awards ceremony was held online, hosted by the Market Research Society’s Census and GeoDems Group, with prizes awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Senior Policy Manager, Bruce Jackson.

The winner was Disa Ramadhina (MSc Business Analytics, UCL) who worked with partner Entain Group on the relationship between the use of retail shop and online gambling behaviour. Disa now works with Entain Group as a Compliance Data Analyst in their Safer Gambling team.  

Runner up Sharon Liu (MSc Operational Research with Data Science, University of Edinburgh) worked with longstanding MDS partner Walgreen Boots Alliance on enhancements to online recommender systems to personalise customer experience.

Movement Strategies has also become a regular sponsor of MDS projects and worked with our other runner up, Lu Xia (MSc Social and Geographic Data Science, UCL) on inferring transport mode using GPS data.

Our warmest congratulations to these very worthy winners, who share £1,000 in prize money. This year the MDS attracted 80 applications for the 20 projects on offer, details of which can be found in the MDS Project Archive. 

The Masters Dissertation Scheme 2022 is now open for proposals from industry and other partners – enquiries can be directed to Melanie Chesnokov at m.chesnokov@ucl.ac.uk