Research Proposals
The Basics
The Purpose of a research proposal
Researchers, in many instances, are required to write a research proposal. It is a means by which to communicate, in writing, your ideas and plans for a given project. Most all organizations, whether government or private, require a written proposal to assess suitability of a project for funding. Every organization will dictate the exact contents required for a proposal and they typically scrutinize every aspect of the proposal, including the formatting! When you are attempting to secure funding with your proposal, you don’t want a silly thing like formatting to get in the way of your ideas, so pay attention to detail. While the purpose of the proposal is to sell your science, not to see if you are capable of following instructions, it unfortunately is still critical.
Designing a research proposal
A research proposal needs to explain the current problem or topic being explored and what new answers it will be adding to impact the scientific and/or non-scientific environment. The proposal must be able to convince its audience (i.e. those who will evaluate the proposal) of its credibility, feasibility, and reproducibility.
A good proposal is typically composed of a:
• Title -including name of all investigators and affiliated institutions
• Introduction to state the topic or current challenge/problem, including a literature review to summarize current understanding or solutions
• Clear hypothesis & Aims and objectives to state a new novel approach to the topic/problem
• Research design or tools/methods to be used to answer aims including alternative strategies
• Timeline to graphically display timeframe in which the work will be completed
• Conclusion to summarize the proposed work and potential impact
• Complete list of references
Common Sections
Title, Authors, & Affiliations
The title is your opportunity to attract your audience to your proposed work. It should be short, concise, and clearly stated. Less is more when it comes to the title. It takes practice to write a good title, but do your best to create something that both hooks the audience and is accurate.
Your author list is very important. It should include anyone who advises or contributes to the project. If you are writing the proposal, you should be the first author. If you have a graduate student or post-doctoral fellow as a mentor on the project, they are commonly listed second. Your PI (principal investigator) who advises the project should be listed last. You may have others to include in there as well. *If you are uncertain about who should be listed as an author, talk to your mentor and/or PI. Double check the spelling of each individual’s name.
Affiliations are the universities, departments, institutes, groups and/or companies to which an author belongs. The simplest way to know what affiliation you should include for an author is check their bio-page or to ask them. To keep things concise and clean, you can include up to two of the academic departments to which an author is appointed.
Suggested Format:
State Title Here
Your Name1,2, Mentor Name1, PI Name 1,3*
1 Department of X, Vanderbilt University
2 The SyBBURE Searle Undergraduate Research Program, Vanderbilt University
3 Department of X, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Font style suggestions: ARIAL or TIMES NEW ROMAN and title should be Title Case (all words capitlized) or Sentence case (first word capitalized) and bolded
Font size suggestions: 11 Point for author names, 8 Point or greater for affiliations, between 11 and 14 point for title
Introduction/Background
The introduction is your selling point for your proposal. Here, you are starting to pitch your idea based on your background research. It should end by conveying to the audience what you want to do based on what is currently missing in literature or the field. Some questions you can used to clearly outline your introduction are:
Who would this study benefit?
What is already known about the topic?
What questions still need to be addressed?
A review of past and current research in the form of the literature review must be concise. It should contain all sources of scientific or clinical evidence on the proposed topic of interest. This section must be structured strategically to provide a strong argument for the relevance of your proposed research while conveying the originality of your work.
Keep the five ‘C’s in mind while writing a literature review:
Suggested Format:
Each paragraph should summarize specific previous works with major findings relating to the proposed topic. Each paragraph should build on the previous one leading into your hypothesis. Such as:
Paragraph 1: Summary of broader problem/topic
Paragraph 2: Summary of a more focused topic/problem that your research directly stems from
Paragraph 3: What are the pros and cons of current solutions
Font style suggestions: ARIAL or TIMES NEW ROMAN and section header should be bolded
Font size suggestions: 11 Point
Hypothesis
The most important part of your proposal. Here, you are pitching your idea based on what is currently lacking in your field of interest. It should convey to the audience what you want to do and why the study is important and significant to your field of interest. Some questions you can used to clearly state the significance are:
What answers still need to be addressed?
What is your proposed solution/hypothesis?
How will the completion of this research add to current knowledge and/or practice (i.e. novelty)?
Font suggestions: 11 Point and section header should be bolded
Specific Aims & Objectives
This is a broad but clear description of what the project aims to achieve. Each ‘aims’ is a clear hypothesis to be tested. Within each aim, is a set of objective or tasks outlining the parameters or tools that will be used to test the aim. Typically, there are three aims per proposal, and two- three objectives/tasks per aim.
Suggested Format:
Aim 1: State Aim 1 here.
Objective/Task 1: state objective 1 here.
Objective/Task 2: state objective 2 here.
Font size suggestions: 11 Point
Font style suggestions: All aims and section header should be bolded and objectives italicized
Research Design & Methods
The goal of the research design and methods is to clearly provide detailed description of the overall design and method of analysis that will be used to answer the research problem. In this section the methodology, analysis and validation are discussed and should be appropriate for answering each aim leading up to answering the overall project goal.
Questions to be answered in this section
How will be data be collected?
How will the data be analyzed?
Any current methods well-known in literature to validate data?
Any foreseeable problems and potential alternative solutions?
Suggested Format:
Aim 1, Task 1: restate aim 1, task 1 briefly
Experimental Design - describe here
Data Analysis/Validation - describe here
Problems and Alternative Solutions - describe here
Aim 1, Task 2: restate aim 1, task 2 briefly
Experimental Design - describe here
Data Analysis/Validation - describe here
Problems and Alternative Solutions - describe here
Font suggestions: 11 Point and section header should be bolded
Timeline
You now have a plan of what you want to do, but now you need to map out how long each aim and objectives will take. You can use a table or Gantt chart to layout your project’s timeline, listing all tasks in one column and an approximate time to completion in adjacent columns. Keep font size consistent with rest of the text (11 Point) and bold all major aims/tasks.
Suggested timeline format (light gray: when task starts, dark gray: when task ends):
Font suggestions: 11 Point and section header should be bolded
Conclusion
A summary of the work you intend to do. Elaborate on the potential impact of your research to advance scientific knowledge and understanding and potential impact on society.
Font suggestions: 11 Point and section header should be bolded
References
You should include relevant references (i.e. ones that you cite in your background, methods, etc.). Make sure you follow a standard reference format (MLA or APA) or pick the one used commonly in your field so you can familiarize yourself with it. Remember that all work and information not originally yours must be cited (i.e. run away from plagiarism!!). Double check citation to ensure that the same format is sued throughout. Citation should be listed as numbered bullet points and correspond to the numbered citation used throughout the body of the proposal.
*Citation tools such as Zotero, EndNOTE, RefWORK and Mendeley are useful to help keep all references organized and format consistent when inserting into a word document*
Font suggestions: at least 10 Point and section header should be bolded
References & Further Reading
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/sybburewiki/fall-2019/project-proposal/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037942/#!po=43.7500
