Signing the pledge demonstrates your commitment to making your thesis matter more than an academic assignment. Signing the pledge can provide you with:

• Motivation: Help you stay motivated and focused on making a positive impact in this world

• Community: Join a network of like-minded peers and mentors, all working to address pressing global challenges.

• Support: Gain access to specialized resources, feedback, and expert mentorship from Effective Thesis to help you in your high-impact journey.

We think a high-impact thesis entails three key dimensions:

• Impact on Your Career Trajectory – How your thesis shapes your motivation, skills, expertise, and opportunities for a high-impact career.

• Impact on the Research Problem – How your work contributes to solving an important problem and how effectively your findings are shared to the people who can use them.

  Impact on Your Wider Community – How your thesis inspires others—peers, academics, and professionals—to pursue impactful work.
  

For more, read our full piece here.

When you’ve completed your thesis, you can submit your work, along with an explanation of how you think it has made an impact across the three dimensions of a high-impact thesis.

Our team of experts will then review your submission to assess it for the Effective Thesis Award.

However, it’s important to remember that external recognition is not the primary goal. What truly matters is how engaging with your topic helped you develop skills, deepen your understanding of pressing issues, and lay the groundwork for your pathway to impact - during your studies, and beyond.

We completely understand academic paths can change! The pledge is a statement of intent rather than anything binding.

Our primary goal is to help you create meaningful impact—whether that ultimately happens through your thesis or another path. What’s most important is continuing to develop your motivation, skills and connection to address pressing global challenges, wherever your path leads.

Any student working on a research project can sign the pledge—whether you’re an undergraduate, master’s, or PhD candidate, or even planning a future thesis. If you’re passionate about contributing to meaningful solutions through your work, the pledge is for you.

No, you can sign the pledge at any stage in your academic journey, even if you’re still exploring different topics. We aim to offer resources, topic suggestions, and support to help you identify a promising research direction that aligns with your interests and skills.

That’s absolutely fine — the pledge represents a commitment to try your best to create impact. It’s normal to feel uncertain in research, but committing to a high-impact thesis can help you stay focused on the potential real-world implications of your work.

Once you sign, you’ll receive information on the next steps, including how to engage with the rest of the community and our most relevant resources.

Signing the pledge also involves performing quarterly check-ins with our team regarding your thesis progress.

We are also in the midst of launching new services (i.e. fellowship program and mentorship services) that we will keep you updated on.