For purposes of the discussion below, Year 1 begins in the first Fall term when you are enrolled as a PhD student, unless you begin the PhD program in Fall without completing a Master's degree, in which case your first 3 terms are considered Year 0. Thus, if you enter the PhD program without completing a Master's degree, your first report will be at the end of Year 0, whereas if you enter the PhD program after completing a Master's degree, your first report will be at the end of Year 1.
Advisory committees
Once you have completed your qualifying examination, you and your supervisor(s) should work together to form your Advisory Committee. This consists of your supervisor(s) and at least two other faculty members (typically but not always in Pure Math). Your Advisory Committee will give comments on your annual activity report each year, and at the end of Year 2 as a PhD student, you will have a meeting with your Advisory Committee where you give a presentation as part of the activity report process. Typically, the members of your Advisory Committee will also serve on your PhD thesis committee, but this is not required, and additional voting members are necessary for the thesis committee.
PhD annual activity report
Each year Pure Math doctoral students must complete an annual activity report. Every PhD student must complete the report according to the schedule below, even if they were not enrolled for the entire reporting period, unless they have already scheduled their PhD defence for Spring through the MGO.
The form covers the period May 1 – April 30.
The deadline for receiving approvals and comments from all supervisors and all Advisory Committee members is June 1. Please note that supervisors will need to approve and comment on the report before the advisory committee members do, so the report should be submitted to your supervisor(s) by May 25 at the latest.
Please follow the procedure below.
Step 1:
Download the report template here: Annual Activity Report (LaTeX file will be provided soon)
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Make sure that you have downloaded the template for the most recent academic year. The current template should be available by May 1; please alert us by emailing pmgradadmin@uwaterloo.ca if the linked template is outdated in May.
Step 2:
Complete the report (including the Statement of Research Progress), and share it with your Supervisor(s) for feedback.
New for 2026: The content of the Statement of Research Progress should follow the guidelines below, depending on your year in the program.
- End of Year 0: Students should include a short plan for a research paper they will write under the supervision of their advisor, which should be similar in length and scope to the final paper of a Research Paper MMath degree (approximately 30 pages). This paper should be completed by the end of Spring term of Year 0 (typically in late August).
- End of Year 1: Students should include a specific plan for what topic they expect their thesis to be on and what materials they plan to study to prepare for that research.
- End of Year 2: Students should include a specific research plan for the topic of their thesis and what they hope to prove. They should give a 30 minute presentation to their committee about their research plan as part of the annual report process. Ideally, this would be an in person presentation, but online or hybrid presentations might be necessary due to logistical concerns. The presentation should be completed in time for the committee to make comments on the student’s annual report (that is, before June 1).
- End of Year 3: Students should include a detailed report on the progress they have made thus far toward completing original research to be incorporated into their thesis.
Revise your report to incorporate any feedback you have received. Your Supervisor may advise you to also request pre-approval feedback from your Advisory Committee members.
Step 3:
Upload a pdf of the final version of you report using this form (will be provided soon). Your report will be automatically sent to your Supervisor(s) and Advisory Committee members for their comments and approval. If this is your first time submitting an annual activity report, or if your Advisory Committee has changed since your last report, please confirm your Advisory Committee composition with pmgradadmin@uwaterloo.ca before submitting your report.
Step 4:
(This only applies to Students in Year 0) Complete your paper and submit it to your supervisor by the end of Spring term. Additional comments on the completed paper by your supervisor will be collected by the Graduate Administrator.