Download How to structure a research proposal

Sebastian Schuck & others
How to structure a research proposal
The aim of a proposal is to convince your readers that your planned research is
worth doing. Here are a few pointers to help you structure your proposal.
 A proposal needs to (1) define a scientific question; (2) explain why this question is
significant; (3) elaborate strategies to address this question; and (4) stay within the
length and format specified.
 Typically, a proposal consists of the following sections: title, abstract, introduction,
experimental design, and references. Sometimes, a section called ‘outlook’ or
‘perspectives’ is inserted after the experimental design section. In our case you
have 4000 words excluding references. Including Figures can often be helpful.
 The introduction serves to give a concise summary of your area of research,
outline what is not yet known, define your question and explain its significance.
Whether you find some topic interesting is not the point – you need to demonstrate
that answering your question will advance our understanding of nature, plausibly
lead to tangible health benefits, or both.
 Besides identifying a question you should try to develop at least one hypothesis
concerning what the answer to your question could look like. An experimentally
testable hypothesis is a proposal’s ideal conceptual compass. State your
hypothesis at the end of the introduction or the beginning of the experimental
design section. Remember, in your experiments you are testing your hypothesis,
not "trying to prove" it. You could also present two alternative hypotheses.
 In the experimental design section you describe what you want to do. This often
involves dividing your research plan into steps, each of which constitutes a
milestone called a specific aim. Say, for example, your question is how a certain
disease-linked point mutation in a human mitochondrial protein affects the protein’s
function. Your specific aims could be to (1) determine the subcellular localization of
the wild-type and mutant protein in tissue culture cells, (2) test whether knockdown
of the protein impairs mitochondrial function and whether this phenotype can be
rescued by the mutant version, and (3) determine the crystal structure of the wildtype and the mutant protein.
 You need to describe how you want to do these experiments, explain that they are
feasible, discuss the outcomes you envision and, if possible, outline alternative
approaches in case something does not work. The description of the experiments
usually explains only the principles of the assays involved. Feasibility comprises
three aspects - that the experiments are do-able in general, that they are do-able
with the expertise available in your particular lab (e.g. if non-standard techniques
are involved) and that they are do-able within a relevant time frame, which in this
case is that of a Master’s thesis (6 months). It is helpful to include an approximate
time-plan: this tells the reader whether you are able to estimate the time needed
realistically. For example, you probably would not manage to complete point (3) in
the list above if you had only 6 months, although you might manage to get enough
protein to do crystallization. Thus point (3) could go into the "Outlook" section.
The discussion of possible results is inevitably somewhat speculative but allows
you to show that you have given real thought to what you might find and what
these findings could mean. You should spell out what positive and negative results
mean and what you will do in each case. (For example, if you knock expression of
a protein down by RNAi and see no effect, it might mean that the protein is not
essential - but it might also mean that the RNAi didn't work well enough, so there
was still enough protein left for the function. What can you do instead?)
 Your experimental plan should be designed such that it consists of complementing
parts. In our example, a problematic set of aims would be to (1) generate a knockout mouse of your gene of interest and evaluate the associated phenotypes, (2) reexpress the mutant version to determine whether these phenotypes can be
rescued, and (3) if the mutant cannot rescue the phenotype, do a drug screen to
cure the mouse expressing the mutant protein. This project would completely
depend on obtaining a viable knockout mouse with a phenotype in the first place,
and each subsequent aim depends on the success of the preceding one. In
contrast, a good research plan should be likely to generate new insights even if
any one part fails. (Of course, for an MSc thesis project, getting a knockout mouse
would be completely unrealistic anyway - but a project that 100% depended on
getting some particular cell line would be just as problematic.)
 At the end of your proposal, for instance as part of an outlook section, it is a good
idea to again put your planned work into a broader context. If, for example, you are
going to work with a model organism such as yeast or flies, you need to spell out
whether this is likely to be of relevance to other organisms. Context matters here.
For example, if you were looking for a target for an insecticide, you would actively
want results from insects not to apply to mammalian cells. But if you were working
on stem cells, you would be interested to know whether the same phenomenon
occurs in mammals. Thus, your proposal should start out broad, then focus on your
specific research question, and finally zoom out again.
 Finally, remember to stay within the rules of good scientific practice. Copying whole
sentences is not allowed. It is usually also really obvious to a trained reader, like
your examiner. If you include a copied Figure, say clearly where it came from in the
legend - if you changed it a bit, write "adapted from". If you cite a paper you must
read it (or at least the relevant parts of it) in order to check that what you claim that
paper says actually is in the paper. Never rely only on reviews.