DEVELOPING RESEARCH PROPOSALS

1. DEVELOPING RESEARCH PROPOSALS http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/proposal.htm

2. Purpose of research proposals

3. Why do I need a research proposal? • To convince others of the value of your research • To demonstrate expertise • To demonstrate competency • To serve as a contract • To assist you as a planning tool

4. Who will evaluate my proposal? • Higher degrees committees • Review panels • Individual reviewers • Specialists • Generalists • Research proposals are often reviewed by a mixture of experts in the field and reviewers from cognate disciplines

5. When should the proposal be written?

6. When should the proposal be written? • A research proposal (particularly at postgraduate level) is an iterative process • A substantial amount of work has to be done before a proposal can be written • Some institutions assume that a research proposal will be written over six or even nine months • Seek advice on your draft from supervisors and peers

7. Core components of research proposals Make sure that these are meaningful, not mechanistic

8. Core elements • A description of the research question • An indication of why the problem is important • A review of relevant literature • A description of the proposed methodology • A time frame

9. Or in plain English... • What do you want to do? • Why do you want to do it? • Why is it important? • Who has done similar work? • How are you going to do it? • How long will it take?

10. Additional components of research proposals

11. Depending on the project... • A budget • A description of how the research findings will be disseminated • An outline of team members’ responsibilities • Capacity development • Ethical statement • Possible problems • Other information required by funders...

12. Always try to find out exactly what the funder or organization expects in a proposal, and do it

13. Success and failure indicators for proposals NRF (humanities and social sciences) & DACST

14. NRF success indicators • Clearly defined research question • Appropriate literature provides a background to the problem • Use of other sources to identify/support the problem • Objectives clearly specified • Conceptual framework and theoretical assumptions clearly stated • Appropriate design and methodology • Promotes further research • Preliminary data/pilot study • Necessary resources available

15. NRF failure indicators • Too long • Poor structure, language use • Inappropriate use of technical terms • Research too ambitious • No literature review • No integration of theory in literature review • Literature review copied • No theoretical foundation • Budget not linked to methodology • Unrealistic costing • Methods not clear • Methods inappropriate • No references or bibliography

16. DACST Innovation Fund success indicators • Novelty and innovation • Capability of research team • Market / benefit

17. DACST Innovation Fund failure indicators • Misunderstanding the IF purpose • Choice of project • Recycling existing project proposals • Weak skills in proposal writing • Inadequate prior research • Weak or non-existent consortia • Attempting to use the IF to allow existing solutions to find a problem • Weak project planning skills

18. IF failure indicators (cont.) • Weak research design • Failure to include milestones • Inadequate consideration of impact assessment • No consideration of redress criteria • Poor budgeting skills • Inflated budgeting • Weak understanding of the route to market • Confusion regarding the meaning of innovation

19. Core components

20. Describing the research question

21. First find a research question! • Researchers get their questions from many different places... • Observation of the world • Concern with theory • Previous research • Practical concerns • Personal interest

22. Choosing a research question • A broad research area is not a research question • Formulate a number of possible questions, and weigh up the pros and cons • The proposal must reflect that the issues have been thought through

23. Criteria for choosing include... • Access to information • Access to resources • Theoretical background • Value of research • Researcher’s skills • Is question big/small enough • External requirements • Overall probability of successful completion • Interest to researcher

24. Topic analysis: attribute grids

25. Setting the limits: definitions • Provide explicit definitions for key concepts • Terms don’t always have single meanings understood in the same way by all • Don’t under- or overestimate your readers • Don’t provide mechanistic dictionary definitions of all terms

26. Sample definitions • “A dependent variable is a variable that is influenced by another variable.” • The term “social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting” (SEAAR) has been used to describe a variety of practices relating to corporate social responsibility. For purposes of this study, the term will be used to refer specifically to the formal set of procedures outlined in AccountAbility 1000, while “social audit” will be used to describe the broader set of practices.

27. Setting the limits: boundaries • Specify the limits of the research in a way which makes in clear what is and is not to be studied, through, for example, • definitions • time spans • geographical boundaries • other limits as appropriate to the field of study

28. Setting the limits: an example “How have South African mining regulations changed over the years, and what has been the impact of these changes?”

29. Setting the limits: example (cont.) • Restrict to mining safety regulations • Define “mining safety regulations” (e.g. as Acts of Parliament only) • Restrict study to gold mining • Restrict period (e.g. 1911 - 1996) • Restrict “impact” to effect on cost of gold production

30. Setting the limits: the revised example “How did Acts of Parliament regulating mine safety between 1911 and 1996 impact upon the cost of gold production in South Africa?”

31. Small group discussions Refining research questions

32. Literature review

33. What purpose does the literature review serve? • Provides a conceptual framework for the research • Provides an integrated overview of the field of study • Helps establish a need for the research • May help clarify the research problem • Helps to demonstrate researcher’s familiarity with the area under consideration (theory and / or methods)

34. Skills involved in producing a literature review • Surveying a comprehensive range of existing material and sources in the general areas of your study • Selecting those that will be most relevant and significant for your particular project • Understanding and analyzing the central findings and arguments • Synthesizing the findings and integrating them into the research proposal • A good literature review generally contains an argument

35. How to write a literature review • Indicate the ways in which the authors you are reviewing will be relevant to your research (information; theory; methodology) • Demonstrate that you understand the similarities and differences between these works and paradigms (Where do they stand in relation to each other? Where does your research stand in relation to them?) • The works that you refer to should reflect recent scholarship as well as those considered of seminal importance • If the study is cross-disciplinary or comparative you need to describe how the different areas of research can be drawn together in a meaningful way

36. Questions to help you in compiling a literature review • What are the broad bodies of literature that have relevance for your research topic (local and international)? • What theoretical model/s relate to your research topic? • What theories, methods & results have previous researchers in your field produced? What is the history of your area of study? (cont.)

37. Questions to help you in compiling a literature review (cont.) • What are the most recent findings in your area of study? • What gaps or contradictions exist among these findings? • What new research questions do these findings suggest? • What structure suits my literature review best? • What should I leave out?

38. The literature review is not • Part of the research project (although there may be an ongoing review of literature throughout the project, funders expect a solid preliminary review to have been carried out before a proposal is submitted). • A bibliography • A series of descriptions of pieces of previous research with no apparent connection to each other or your project

39. Significance of the research

40. The research must be of value, e.g. • Practical value in solving problems • Value to policy development • Contribution to theory • Contribution to body of knowledge within discipline • Funders often specify the nature of the “value” they are looking for in research.

41. Methodology

42. What does the methodology section do? What should it contain? • The methodology section shows the reader how you are going to set about looking for answers to the research question (including, if appropriate, materials and methods to be used) • It must include enough detail to demonstrate that you are competent and the project is feasible • The proposed methods must be appropriate to the type of research

43. Methodology section: “traditional” empirical social research • Hypothesis • Research design • Sampling • Measurement instruments • Data collection procedures • Data analysis

44. Empirical research methodology format: a caveat • Appropriate for traditional empirical research • Don’t force either the terminology or the methods of empirical research onto proposals for other types of research

45. Time frame

46. Time frames • Be realistic - novice researchers tend to underestimate how long the stages of research will take

47. Additional components

48. Budget

49. Budget • Include a detailed budget breakdown if required • Follow the requirements of the organization to which you are submitting the proposal • Motivate for any exceptions falling outside prescribed tariffs

50. Budget detail example Research Assistance • Two full-time research assistants (with Masters degrees), 2 x 32 days @ R120/day = R 7680 • Two part-time research assistants (with Honours degrees), 2 x 25 days @ R100/day = R 5000 • One part-time research assistant (with Matric), 12 days @ R70 = R 840