Writing a Research Proposal [SUB: EN]

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

Shady Attia presents a comprehensive guide on writing a research proposal, emphasizing its significance for postgraduate students. The presentation covers the definition of a research proposal, the different types, and the importance of choosing a unique and impactful topic. Attia also provides practical advice on structuring the proposal, defining aims and objectives, and emphasizing the significance and audience of the research. He highlights the need for a thorough literature review, a clear methodology, expected outcomes, and the importance of an organizational chart. The talk concludes with the emphasis on the impact, dissemination, and publication of research findings.

Highlights

Shady Attia breaks down the fundamentals of writing a research proposal, crucial for postgrads! 🎓
He distinguishes between thesis, dissertation, and grant proposals. Which one are you writing? 🤔
Your research title should be catchy yet precise. It's the first impression! 🎯
Crafting a well-thought-out abstract can entice others to dive into your research! 📜
The aim of your research is like a guiding star, with objectives being the milestones on your journey! 🌟
Ensure your methods are clear and reproducible to maintain the research's reliability! 🔍
Defining your research's significance and audience proves its worth and applicability! 🗣️
An impactful research proposal is concise yet comprehensive, guiding your entire research process! 🚀

Key Takeaways

Research proposals are like a blueprint for your research journey! 🗺️
Your research topic should be unique and fill an existing gap. Find your niche! 🔍
Define clear aims and objectives; they’re your research's GPS! 📍
A literature review is essential – it’s like getting to know the neighborhood before building a house! 📚
Keep your methodology clear and replicable; it's the skeleton of your research! 🦴
Expected results help set the stage for your research's impact and relevance! 🎭
Organizational charts and timelines keep your research project on track. They’re your personal project managers! 🗓️
Publishing your work ensures it has a societal impact; don’t let it gather dust on a shelf! ✨

Overview

Starting with the basics, Shady Attia dives into the art of writing a research proposal, an essential skill for any postgraduate student aiming to make their mark in academia. He explains that a well-crafted proposal not only helps in defining your research journey but also in carving out a niche where your work can shine and stand out as innovative and essential.

Attia emphasizes the importance of understanding different types of research proposals, including those for theses, dissertations, and grant funding. He advocates for picking a topic that fills an existing gap, presenting a unique challenge or problem, and crafting a research question that is both specific and relevant. The session highlights the importance of defining clear objectives and preparing a rigorous literature review to guide your research.

Finally, the presentation touches on the significance of having a structured methodology, expected outcomes, and a well-thought-out organizational chart. Attia also stresses the importance of disseminating findings to ensure a real-world impact, encouraging publication to share insights with the broader community. This approach ensures the research is not only academically sound but also socially and scientifically relevant.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The introduction sets the stage for a presentation on writing a research proposal, emphasizing its importance for postgraduates. It outlines the four main areas of focus: understanding what a research proposal is, defining the research topic, organizing the proposal, and writing and presenting it effectively.
00:30 - 01:30: What is a Research Proposal? A research proposal is essentially a statement of intent where you outline your motivations and intentions for a particular topic of study. It serves as a motivational manuscript that declares your intentions. To ensure the research proposal is effective, it's crucial to define the precise scope of your topic along with specific aims and objectives.
01:30 - 02:30: Types of Research Proposals The chapter discusses the importance of selecting a unique and innovative research topic for a proposal. It suggests that the topic should reflect personal interest and originality, explaining why it stands out compared to other subjects. Furthermore, the chapter raises the question of what different types of research proposals exist, hinting at a variety that will be explored further.
02:30 - 06:30: How to Define Your Research Topic This chapter focuses on the differences between a research proposal, a thesis, and a dissertation. It clarifies that a thesis is a manuscript written for a master's degree, aiming to answer a research question based on existing knowledge. The emphasis is on the capacity for critical thinking, deep information analysis, and the presentation of new knowledge. In contrast, dissertations are intended for Ph.D. or doctorate degrees.
06:30 - 09:00: Golden Rules for Defining Research Topic This chapter discusses the importance of defining a research topic that contributes new knowledge or solutions to existing problems. It highlights the necessity of creating innovative solutions, either through addressing contextual problems or developing cures. It also mentions a third type of research proposal aimed at obtaining funding from national or institutional grants, such as those offered by Belgian research organizations, which require a competitive proposal to secure financial support.
09:00 - 11:00: Content of a Research Proposal The chapter discusses the various types of research proposals one can write. It emphasizes the importance of defining your research topic clearly. Given the challenges involved, especially with limited research experience, the chapter advises starting with identifying a broad idea or area of research and then developing it further.
11:00 - 16:30: Title and Keywords For a research topic to be meaningful, it should relate to real-life applications and address societal problems. It's essential to evaluate whether the topic is both useful and interesting. This ensures the research contributes effectively to applied science.
16:30 - 21:00: Abstract The chapter delves into the importance of selecting a focused and specific research topic. It suggests that broad and generic topics are challenging because they make it difficult to introduce new ideas or findings. Moreover, it emphasizes the necessity of filling a gap in research and ensuring that the topic has not been extensively covered by others.
21:00 - 25:30: Problem Statement The chapter 'Problem Statement' discusses the importance of identifying gaps in existing research and ensuring that new studies address these gaps to contribute valuable knowledge. It emphasizes the need for research to generate new knowledge, as this makes the study a worthwhile contribution to the field. Researchers should consider whether their work will benefit professionals such as architects, engineers, and others in their respective fields.
25:30 - 37:00: Aim and Objectives The chapter titled 'Aim and Objectives' discusses the importance of advancing understanding and influencing policy through research. It emphasizes the necessity of filling gaps in existing knowledge or resolving current controversies. The chapter provides a series of questions that serve as a checklist or starting approach to streamline the process of defining a research topic. By addressing these questions sequentially, one can effectively define and shape their research objectives.
37:00 - 45:00: Significance and Audience The chapter 'Significance and Audience' is focused on guiding researchers in defining their research topic effectively. The chapter emphasizes the importance of being passionate about the chosen topic, encouraging researchers to select topics that genuinely interest them or relate to their interests. While it's common to seek guidance from supervisors, professors, or existing concepts, maintaining personal enthusiasm and passion for the topic is deemed crucial. This personal connection not only makes the research process more engaging but also potentially leads to more impactful outcomes.
45:00 - 48:00: Literature Review The chapter titled 'Literature Review' emphasizes the importance of choosing a research topic that is both promising in terms of potential discoveries and engaging to the audience. It advises against guaranteeing discoveries but suggests that there should be a reasonable expectation that the chosen topic can lead to meaningful findings. The chapter underscores that the topic should be intriguing and relevant to society, ensuring that people are interested in reading about it in academic manuscripts.
48:00 - 54:00: Methodology In the 'Methodology' chapter, the importance of clearly formulating your research objectives and aims is emphasized, ensuring a focused approach to your study topic. Selecting a suitable supervisor is crucial for successful guidance through the research process. The chapter outlines five essential rules to follow to stay on the right track in your research journey.
54:00 - 58:00: Expected Results This chapter focuses on providing guidance on how to write a research proposal. It emphasizes the importance of content organization, outlining ten major elements that should be covered in a proposal. Key areas include the title and keywords, a brief abstract, a problem statement, and the aims and objectives. Additionally, the chapter touches on the significance of having a well-structured proposal.
58:00 - 87:00: Organizational Chart The chapter titled 'Organizational Chart' appears to discuss the critical elements of presenting research effectively. It emphasizes the importance of your research topic and the audience it targets, state-of-the-art methodologies, expected results, project outline, impact, and biography of your research. Additionally, the chapter begins by underscoring the significance of choosing a proper title and keywords, which are crucial in setting the stage for the research presentation.
87:00 - 91:00: Gantt Chart In this chapter, the concept of creating an effective title for a thesis or dissertation is discussed. Key points include the importance of a title being specific, accurate, and not too lengthy. The title should also be catchy and encapsulate the main idea to give the reader a clear hint of what the document is about. The process of selecting a title involves careful consideration and revision to ensure it meets these criteria.
91:00 - 102:00: Impact and Biograph This chapter focuses on creating impactful titles for academic work, specifically emphasizing the use of action verbs. By starting titles with verbs like "simulation," "comparison," or "assessment," the intent to address or solve a specific problem is immediately communicated. This approach is particularly relevant for researchers working on master's theses, PhD dissertations, or grant applications, as it indicates a clear purpose and objective in their research efforts.
102:00 - 108:00: Conclusion In the conclusion of the discussion, the focus is on the importance of selecting appropriate verbs as a foundation for crafting a suitable title for proposals. Once a title is established, it is not the final step; defining key words that accompany the title is crucial. These keywords, limited to six to eight, are essential despite having an established title and topic, as they help in using specific terminology effectively.

Writing a Research Proposal [SUB: EN] Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 hi my name is Shady ATA I'm going to present today a presentation on writing a research proposal this is a very important presentation for postgraduates in order to learn how to write a research proposal my presentation will go through four M four main AES I will present how to write a pres what is actually a research proposal how to define your topic uh how to organize your research proposal and finally how to write it technically and presented well let's see the first question what
00:30 - 01:00 what is a research proposal a research proposal is a is a intent a statement of intent where you described your intentions and simply we can describe it into a motivational uh intention uh manuscript where you declare your intentions and show your motivations and it's very important in this sense that you define the scope of your topic the subject enough it has to be specific enough and you have to have a specific aim and objective related to your topic and
01:00 - 01:30 definitely it would reflect your interest and it should be your own research so therefore you should also explain why is this topic better than other topics and you have to show that this is a firsttime subject that will be Innovative you not previously addressed in a way and that you will carry that responsibility and present it through the research proposal well the next question comes to what are the types of research proposal that we have many
01:30 - 02:00 people get confused about that we have a research proposal that is mainly under athesis athesis is mainly a manuscript that you write for a master degree and it answers a research question based on existing knowledge and here we are looking to your capacity to critical think and analyze deep information and process it and presented as new knowledge while there's another type of uh manuscript that is called dissertations the dissertations they are mainly for PhD doctor degrees and in
02:00 - 02:30 this sense you have to create a significant new contribution to knowledge and you have to come up with a new solution for a problem or a cure for a certain uh uh contextual problem well there is a third type of research Pro proposal that you could write for funding grants like the Belgian uh research institutes or you write it for National research uh uh organizations in order to go through a competition process to win a funding to cover uh research
02:30 - 03:00 uh topic okay well these are the three type of uh proposal that you can write next I would move to the second important question how to define your topic this is not a easy task because you are most probably not having large experience with doing research and sometimes it's very difficult to do that so in this sense you have to Define your topic and the process should start by identifying a general idea or a area of research search and then develop it and
03:00 - 03:30 focus on a certain research question so you have to ask yourself the following question is the topic related to real life because we are looking to applied science we are looking applied research so you have to make sure that this is related to real life when you answer this question you have to come to the next question is your topic related to societal problem is it a really problem in the society that your research is addressing is your topic going to be useful and interesting or did it or did
03:30 - 04:00 someone before answer it so you must make sure that the topic is useful and interesting is your topic focused and specific or is it very Broad and and large the more the topic is large and and and generic the more it's difficult to come up with something new it's difficult to process the work can you your idea fill fill a gap in research do we have a problem or a topic that was not addressed pre previously by another researcher so you have also to make sure that your research topic is not a kind of um common topic that has been
04:00 - 04:30 processed by many people always you must look for a gap or something that is missing and make sure that your research will um cover that area and definitely you should ask yourself will this study generate new knowledge and this is very important because when you generate new knowledge then you have a real contribution and your research is worthy and you should also ask with the benefit from it The Architects the engineers the professional in the your field is it
04:30 - 05:00 going to advance the understanding or influence policy this is very important and definitely finally you should ask yourself will this study fill a gap in existing knowledge or res resolve Uh current convers controversies so these kind of series of questions you can use them as a kind of checklist as a starting approach after defining a general topic you're interested in and go step by step trying to answer them until you can Define and shape your
05:00 - 05:30 research topic well there is some golden roles you should keep in mind while defining your research topic you must be passionate about the topic because it should come from you it should be your interest that you are related you might ask your supervisor or follow um a previously developed idea or concept from your supervisor or your professor but in the same time you must have the passion related to this topic so this is very important the second Gordon rule is related to uh uh uh the the the
05:30 - 06:00 discoveries is the topic could the could the topic lead to discoveries you should not promise to to to guarantee a discovery but you should have a kind of estimation this could topic lead to discoveries or not and you have to make sure that this is catchy topic it it it it catch the attention uh uh people will be interested in it it's grabby it's really related to society people would really would like to listen to what you are going to present and read it through your manuscripts and definitely you have
06:00 - 06:30 to formulate very clearly your objectives and aims so that you are um focused in your research and having a very specific uh topic and finally uh you should select a supervisor he or she that can help you through this process and has the ability and the skills to guide you through the process so these are kind of five golden rules I would like to uh highlight you must follow them to make sure that you are on the right track now after describing what is
06:30 - 07:00 a research uh proposal and how to do it I would start to talk about the content the content is very important many people don't know how to write a proposal what should be the order of the information and here are kind of 10 major elements you should focus on in writing a research proposal you should cover issues related to the title and the keywords related to your search topic a brief abstract describing your topic a problem statement aims and object objective the significance and
07:00 - 07:30 importance of your topic and the audience that your resarch is catering for the State ofthe art the methodologies your expected results and definitely you should describe the project outline and the impact uh and the biography of your research well let's start with this and I'm going to describe everyone into detail well when I'm talking about title and keywords this is very important why because a tit title and a keyword is not
07:30 - 08:00 a keywords is not an easy task a title in general should be catchy and should be precise so these are some rules that you should follow to have a good title it has to be a specific title accurate not too long catchy and it has to contain the main idea I should read the title and figure out most probably what is this thesis about or what is this dissertation about so you have to look at the title in a way and revise it and think about about it and most of the
08:00 - 08:30 time good titles start with an action verb let's say like simulation of comparison of assessment of these are all examples that you can look at and start with them uh your title once you have an action verb it shows already that you are trying to do something to cater or to address a certain problem and most of the time a researcher doing a master C or a PhD seases or even a a a research for GR
08:30 - 09:00 proposals he or she should look at these verbs as a starting to identify and uh formulate their uh title well once you are done with your title that's not enough you have to Define next to the title keywords well you will ask what's the point I just defined the topic and I have a title now why should I use keywords well keywords are very important they should not exceed six to eight words and actually we use terminology or we use words that are not
09:00 - 09:30 in the title in this sense you are helping the search engine to extend the topic so let's me let me give you an example my topic of my research is called Dynamic building kit for adaptable and reusable wall Solutions that's the title the title is talking about developing um uh uh uh building kit that could be adaptable that could be assembled and disassembled uh for or
09:30 - 10:00 materials or building components that could be reused okay and specifically on walls this is the title and I understand it like that well I can add to that some keywords these keywords can help me to describe more I can say that I'm talking about design Solutions I'm talking specifically on post w war housing I can add a context or a city to describe where I am Le in this case I can add the keyword Energy Efficiency renovation
10:00 - 10:30 like that I am extending my title and amending additional words that can help in the understanding of topic and once uh you do a research with these keywords the topic will pop up in the search engine much much um easier so actually this is very important to Define your keywords associated with your topic and in this sense they are very complimentary well the next step is to move to the abstract
10:30 - 11:00 well the abstract is one of the things you do at the end so you don't start with an abstract but let me tell you first what is an abstract an abstract simply is a text a piece of text that is not longer than 250 words and it describes simply your topic the research problem the objectives the methodology your results and the audience and the impact of your work so simply the abstract should be read by somebody in less than 3 4 minutes he or she can directly grasp the whole overview of
11:00 - 11:30 your topic so you summarize the essence of your whole Master CES or PhD C in 250 and words 250 words and therefore it should be really well thought well written and following this uh structure well let me give you an example here is a topic related to health the topic title is called the effect of exposure to n natural environment on health inequalities and observational population study as we can see those words are not exceeding 250 words we
11:30 - 12:00 have a background statement just two sentences we have a methodology fully described where it has been done what is the population the population size the sampling and finally we find the findings talking uh talking about this observational study results with some statistical analysis and the rates uh of of U um the study that go the rates of U uh the study and finally we have to look
12:00 - 12:30 at the final two sentences talking about interpretation in this sense this is an abstract it's compact but it's describing the whole study into a systematical approach so this is actually you do when you finish your thesis you write your abstract in order to communicate to people and actually when you publish your work only your abstract will be a open source and then after that when a researcher looking on internet they will be interested by your topic by Title by keywords then will
12:30 - 13:00 they will go through your abstract if they find the topic interesting they find interesting findings and interpretation they come up with the idea of investing in reading the whole manuscript or ordering the master CES from another library or from another country okay so this is very important to start with after having defining the title and the keyword the third step is mainly related to the problem statement and here we are really starting the real work the serious work related to the uh
13:00 - 13:30 research proposal well what is a problem statement you must start in your problem statement to contextualize your problem and you have to be concise you have to Define exactly what's the what's the problem and most of the time it's good to link your background problem with authorities so you start by saying the E European Union has this objective the national government has this objective the region or the province or the city has these objectives so you relate your
13:30 - 14:00 background and the problem uh with uh political governmental uh or non-governmental the United Nations the world he Health Organization whatever Authority that is stating something related to the topic also it's important to quantify this information H and quantify the background so it's advised here to define the problem into numbers give some statistics some uh figures related to the issue and you must also
14:00 - 14:30 contain an overview of most relevant work you should also try to cover others uh work saying in this context of this problem those stakeholders are doing that or doing that or covering this problem or addressing it from uh angle or another it's also important here to describe clearly your hypothesis that you have been done and how you are going to enter to uh propose uh the problem well after describing this background
14:30 - 15:00 and preparing uh the reader for uh the topic you can directly now start to propose the problem and you have to show a really significant uh problem that is related to a topic so you should not make the reader get lost on the opposite you should start to define a statement clearly and make sure that it's a society problem in a certain context well this is an example just remember that at the end of the today a research
15:00 - 15:30 proposal maybe in a ma SE or a dissertation you will get funding or sometimes you don't get funding you do it a work for free but at the end no one will fund a research proposal or find it reasonable as long it's not solving local or G or Global problem so my advice in writing a research Pro problem proposal make sure that your problem definition is by default solving a local or a global problem trying to solve it in a way or another linking to reality
15:30 - 16:00 linking to statistics putting some putting some figures variables and contextualizing the problem describing it in a way that is viable up toate related to our current practice once you are done with that you can start to Define your aim and objectives and you should take into account that an aim is not an objective an aim is like a bullet it's very important to Define your aim once you define a good aim you are sure that you will do a good research so a aim aim
16:00 - 16:30 well and you should hit your target cleanly if you don't write a clear aim that is targeting a specific uh um uh goal you'll not succeed in doing your research and simply you have to say what you want to Simply uh simply and directly want to say you have to explain what is this research going to do and who will benefit from it I will give you some examples related at to Aims but
16:30 - 17:00 keep into into account it has to be short it has to be to the point and it's like a bullet you don't need to write a lot it's the shorter the better well what's the definition of a aim a aim simply provides an answer to a general problem so so far we are not talking about the specific problem this is the objective in a aim I'm talking about the general problem and the aim goes along with an adjective it has to be concise uh you should be aware that you your grandmother can read the aim and
17:00 - 17:30 understand it and you should also keep in mind that it should be related to what's motivating you so this is very important and it should assist on improving the decision lead this is very important some examples of aims you can have a look lowering the depend dependency or the dependence on fossil fuel increasing the Energy Efficiency of improving the situation of increasing renovation rate dissemination knowledge uh sharing information General overall
17:30 - 18:00 aims related to a serious problem and in this sense you don't need to write it more than one sentence maximum and then you are describing the topic in general in a sense in a aim that a non-technical person can understand it when I say here uh my aim of my research is to increase Energy Efficiency in the building sector this is a very broad generic aim anybody can understand and that's the purpose you should have this AIM now now once you define the aim you can now be more
18:00 - 18:30 specific and focus on the objective but let me tell me you what's the objective the objective is more specific to your study it's more accurate than the aim and it's operational so there is an action in it you have to do something in it in the aim in the objective also it has to correspond to what you will try to produce and generate so it has to be very uh uh precise in description it has to focus on the central research question and often contextualize it uh
18:30 - 19:00 to a specific climate context country uh region very important and these are some examples for uh objectives so here I'm saying my objective to develop a software or a progam program to calculate turbulent non linear equation here the the the objective became very clear um analyze the reason of low renovation uh rate identify barriers understand stud the impact of assess compare so the
19:00 - 19:30 objective has to be very clear very precise to the point talking about a specific aspect so in general it should be combined with the aim but let me give you an example with a good description of a aim with an objective well have a look and read this sentence sorry just have a look I have a aim here the main aim of This research is this to disseminate technological knowledge on adaptive facade at a
19:30 - 20:00 European level that's the overall aim very general I want to spread or um share information related to a specific type of building facades in Europe and do it on a European level so this is a very broad aim and this is very successful one sentence like a bullet now how how I'm going to do this aim I need to describe at least three four objectives to do this aim first of all
20:00 - 20:30 I'm aiming to increase knowledge sharing secondly I'm looking to develop a new knowledge thirdly I'm starting new collaboration so in this sense I am precisely describing how I'm going to achieve this aim through operational tactical objectives another example could be interesting here have a look at that the project is aiming to improving building energy labeling schemes so I would like to improve the labeling of
20:30 - 21:00 buildings so like you buy any food product you have a label telling what's the ingredients I want to improve the labeling of buildings but how I'm going to do that these are the objectives that I'm going to do I'm going to review different building labeling I'm going to review different performance indicators I will investigate possibilities for developing um uh other labels I will choose some case studies I will examine the robustness of labeling schemes I will evaluate their social acceptance I will analyze the the results I will
21:00 - 21:30 create a fair framework directly you can see that we have here at least something around eight objectives serving one Aim so it's very important in your research proposal to keep this structure in your writing you have a overall overarching aim with a very specific objectives that serves to achieve this aim and as I told you it has to be operational with objectives also a criteria to make sure that that your objectives are well or
21:30 - 22:00 right good written we call objective smart smart stands for specific measurable attainable realistic and time bound every reviewer reading your research proposal he or she will look at these objectives are the objectives specific are they measurable are they attainable realistic and time bound and this is very important you have to make sure that you have a pointed topic you are covering it you can measure the objective and measure what you are doing
22:00 - 22:30 you must make sure that you can reach uh this objectives and that you have a realistic objective it's not a dream uh you have calculated uh the time and the effort and you can do it and definitely it should be time bound so you must put it in a frame of a deadline uh with a certain start and an end date once you make sure that your objectives are smart you can pass now and validate your topic and in this sense you can look to the
22:30 - 23:00 topic and say I have Smart objectives and you need some time to do it it's not easy to write it but you need just to take some time brainstorm uh uh your topic once you defined well the problem you can then Define good the aim and from the aim you can break it down into a specific objective this is how it works another final advance for uh the aim and objective don't forget to frame it you need always
23:00 - 23:30 to frame it so these are the question you should ask yourself at the end of writing your aim or objective so first question is it worth it answering your research question and the aim uh what will benefit am I going to benefit from it is the society the community the professional or the scientific Community going to benefit from it is it specifical specific your aim and objective are they answerable can can we answer them in this Frame of a thesis or a dissertation is the topic original
23:30 - 24:00 original is it contribution to knowledge uh did somebody else do it or I'm really doing something new what about the outcomes are they appropriate uh do they think ahead are the expected uh outcomes uh really um uh achievable this is very important and finally you should ask yourself is this topic interesting to you there is many students who start a thesis and after a while they say I don't like like this problem I don't like this topic they stop this means
24:00 - 24:30 that you are not certain that you are motivated you are passionate and this topic is for your own personal interest is triggering you so these are some important advices to validate and to make sure that your aims and objectives are well written and this is a very fast example you can have a look for a a winning proposal uh this is simply um an example showing uh the the specific measurable and attainable realistic time bound uh
24:30 - 25:00 objectives you can see here I have a precise problem agriculture is the backbone of Belgium's economy for example and it's Central to the government development strategy but although the agricultural sector employs more than 75% of country's Workforce and accounts both directly and indirectly for approximately 51% of Count's uh Belgium's gross domestic product little is known about the scale of livestock
25:00 - 25:30 farming livestock diversity or distribution of livestock Farms so here I have a problem very specific well described it's contextual there's a background on the national level I find some figures and statistics and the researcher simply wanted to say one thing we don't have information about the livestock farming in this country but instead of writing it directly he put a context he gives some numbers he puts some figures he shows the importance of the topic and right after
25:30 - 26:00 he will or she starts to write the objective so the objective here is not a aim he is directly talking about operational specific task a team of eight researcher defining who will do that eight researcher at the livestock Research Unit of agricultural college for example at Le University will research the types and extent of livestock farming in the country a comprehensive report will be published and an online database and website will
26:00 - 26:30 be created the project will be presented in its entirely four years after the start of the project at the subsaharan agricultural sub Summit in Botswana in November 2016 so you have here a very clear objective operational with steps following up and I can measure it it's specific it's attainable it's realistic it's time bound so this is the way how to write a good uh research aim and a research uh objective and this will be
26:30 - 27:00 the start of your research proposal and just to remind you keep in mind that in the beginning of your search proposal you have to have a catchy and informative title the summary and the abstract leave it for the end you will not do it when you start this is after you finish write your six eight keywords that are not included in your title make sure that you have a good problem statement description with a problem related uh to contextual societal uh issues Define an overall aim and go for
27:00 - 27:30 your operational step by-step specific objectives in this way if you keep this slide in mind while developing your first part of your proposal you are on the road to success well I'm done with the aims and objectives and I will move to the fifth component or element which is the significance and audience it's very important in research to Define why is this research important important and who who are the users of This research
27:30 - 28:00 who are the end users who should benefit from this study am I doing this study for myself for fun you should not do that in University even though that some people try to do explorational work you can do it but you should just succeed in translating your own interest into a common interest once you did it you are on the track so the significance is meant the importance the importance here so you have to make sure and describe in your text what what is the added value what is original about this work why is
28:00 - 28:30 it important even if some people are not finding it important you have to defend the work and present it and write it in a way that is uh important something you should show that this is something never that was never did before and once you contextualize your topic you succeed to have a significance for example if I'm talking about uh renovation using prefabricated uh units or if I'm talking
28:30 - 29:00 about prefabricated housing once you open or would like to research topic you might get some feedback saying yeah but prefabricated construction uh there is many countries who do it in the United States in Canada it's nothing new but once you contextualize it you can make it new if you say studying prefabricated housing in leage or in wona or in Belgium or in the province X or in the region X or for residential housing or
29:00 - 29:30 for a specific context for a specific region once you cont contextualize a topic you directly make it original so there is many Topics in your Society in our context here at Le universities maybe it there's Advan advancement in Finland or in other European countries but they are not contextualized so you can also borrow ideas from abroad from other researchers and contextualizing and study how to implement them in our context here once you do that your topic
29:30 - 30:00 becomes significant and important and becomes unique because we don't have answers for that also it's important that does not mean that the question is new but never approach like you even some researchers they select a topic that has been uh selected or researched by many people before but you can show that how you will do it in a unique way how you will go through a personal Endeavor that looks differently to process the topic so don't be afraid and saying yeah I when you look at the
30:00 - 30:30 depository of previous Master CES if you find somebody else before you did the same topic that you are interested in you should not stop take the topic read it well and see how you can do it different once you define this difference and set it as a significant as added value you can guarantee that your research topic is significant and important also your topic should lead to added value at the end of the day you should add value and make sure that you have important and significance has to
30:30 - 31:00 take into account um uh the princip uh account of the principal aim it should be at the end related to your principal aim some other questions you could look at uh questions have to be open in general uh when you describe your topic uh here you can add a list of keywords not included in the title and the motivation is linked to to the context well defining the significance is important now you defined your problem
31:00 - 31:30 your title your aim your objective why is this topic is important how is it significance now comes a very important topic people forget about and I think personally you might start by that the audience why are you doing this study who is going to benefit from this study who you want to reach Define your T target audience very clearly and from the beginning the easier the target audience is described the easier you you can uh do your research many people
31:30 - 32:00 forget that it could be politicians your target your target could be professional Community it could be the research Community it could be uh managers it could be uh uh whoever Community or stakeholders but leaving your research proposal without defining the audience there is no meaning because many people do interesting studies but then they don't contact Their audience if I'm doing a stud for example about the green
32:00 - 32:30 area spaces in leage city so I want to know how much green area per square meter per citizens is in the city of leage and I did a very beautiful analysis and I went through the neighborhoods of leage and ID identified through my analysis how much square meter of green spaces are available for the citizens of leage if at the end of this study I did not contact the community or the local Authority uh of
32:30 - 33:00 leage city or the province and tell them here is my work how can you benefit from them if I didn't go and do an interview with them if I didn't contact them to make sure that the municipality is benefiting from the study then I failed to connect my research to the audience so you must always to make sure what's the re and ask yourself what's the relation between my research topic and the audience and did I allow the audience to intervene in my study in this sense I should have maybe went to
33:00 - 33:30 the municipality and asked the urbanism uh sector or unit and tell them I'm doing a study about leage can you help me with this information is this information for you helpful uh how can this information uh can I modify it to meet a kind of certain requirement from your side so it's very important to Define audience and not to Define it theoretically on paper no you have to go engage with those people contact them before starting your study during your study and after your study you can even
33:30 - 34:00 invite them to your defense if you don't do this step our research will have no impact it will be just theoretical research hidden in research University without having any impact on society so therefore make sure always what is the audience of your research get in contact with these people and as I told why you have to to to reach those people because you have to consider your motives and why you feel this group should be targeted you have to know why you want to reach a particular group and you
34:00 - 34:30 should provide Insight that will help develop effective study and you should say also why should they be interested in my research this is very important once you define that you can start now your research I'm moving now to the step number six but I would say that this is the first chunk of your research proposal it does not need to be more than one or two pages defining clearly from the title going to the keywords talking about your problem statement and
34:30 - 35:00 the background defining the aim of objective the significance of your work and finally the audience once you define this one or two pages I can guarantee you that you have a good topic well defined and make sure that you revise it with your supervisor well you are now ready to Embark and start your topic more clearly but you have to describe another additional component in your proposal this state of the art or the literature review what's a state of the art why do
35:00 - 35:30 we do a research related to State ofth art why do we review literature for a research proposal number one you have to improve your own understanding you have to understand you have to become an expert because now you are talking about a topic you don't know enough uh information about it so you have to understand what has been done before and you have to read literature so number one why you do a literature review to improve the understanding number two you have to build your
35:30 - 36:00 expertise in the specific domain number three you have to demonstrate knowledge and show that you understand a specific knowledge related to the topic and you have to update the reader with the state of the art because at the end of the of the end of the day the master caeses or the PHD you will submit it to a jury or a reader or you will set it online and you would like the community to read it once they read it they must make sure that they are up to dat to the latest information related to this topic and
36:00 - 36:30 therefore we should do a literature review to do a good literature review you you must guarantee that you have good resources you should look at Major published work you should look at a narrow specific topic and you should start your review the review should cover the major Concepts snapshots relationships classifications and extractions so the literature review actually is like a you go through different Publications
36:30 - 37:00 different sources and you extract the most important uh information and you provide me with a snapshot with a pattern image describing what has been done before what are the major publication related to this topic and like that you can put me up to date to relate it to the topic does one of the criteria uh that anybody would like a professor will look at a research proposal will ask does the proposal Advance the State ofth art does it introduce Innovative approaches this is
37:00 - 37:30 very important and the more you go into this a PhD or a grand proposal the more the answer for these questions is very important is the proposal shows it does it show a good understanding of the major work does it identify the gaps of existing knowledge and so on so this is very important and you should also say what is currently available in leage in Belgium in Europe and worldwide so this is the aim of the literature review to make sure uh what is done also in the North America What's Done in Asia to
37:30 - 38:00 make sure that I am up to dat related to this topic well you should also capture the major concept and ideas related to your research and finally you should ask yourself how is your research um you are doing compared with similar research in other uh context so you should not only uh describe your research topic and forget that others maybe did the same idea 90% of ideas are
38:00 - 38:30 not new we are processing others ideas so 90% of ideas are not new so you should keep in mind put an assumption in your mind that maybe somebody else someone somewhere else try to address the same problem what about looking exploring how did those other people do my work so this is the aim of literature review to make sure that I cover the literature I am up to dat I am covering the major con Concepts and publication that describe the topic and also similar
38:30 - 39:00 studies related to my uh research topic once you did that you can move to the methodology and the methodology uh should describe how you are going to do your research in the proposal and this could not should not be a long uh text it could be a couple of paragraphs or maybe maximum three paragraphs describing how you are going to do your research there is in general different methodologies you can do strategical research you can do applied research you can do experimental research and these are all examples of uh researchers that
39:00 - 39:30 you can do if you like to do lab work and monitoring then it's uh experimental work if you would like to do applied then it's more like simulation case studies system analysis comparison analysis if you're looking to develop Concepts model standards prototypes Solutions you are more into strategical basic research and definitely if you are looking for uh uh developing things Beyond applied research pure basic
39:30 - 40:00 research a theory an equation uh a philosophy uh then you are looking at basic research so you should Define clearly what is your methodology and these are all examples for different methodologies as you can see and every researcher and every speal specialization every group of specialization has its own collection of method IES they use people in social sciences we know that they use a lot
40:00 - 40:30 interview and they use surveying techniques this is their methodology they come up with people working in engineering for example they go more for experimentation and so on and so forth so you must make sure your domain your expertise your field of expertise what are the common methodologies in the field of architecture or buildings in general we use analysis research development research we do a lot case studies research evidencebased design
40:30 - 41:00 parametric research optimization also participatory or action research operational research post occupancy evaluation lab research and system analysis research so just you must be familiar with these types of methodology and describe them in your research proposals and now I will move to another thing which is called a method which means that like in the aims and objective there is a aim and there's a objective here there is something called methodology and Method a method is a
41:00 - 41:30 small action of research done to achieve a methodology for example I can have a case study as a methodology but in order to achieve this methodology I have several methods that I can do I can do some drawings photography videotaping visualization sketching mapping uh process analysis technology review history review these are all methods that I can use in my research to achieve
41:30 - 42:00 my methodology so it's very important in your research proposal that you define in the beginning your research methodological on this level is it uh basic research is it strategical is it applied is it experimental then you pick up a methodology and don't hesitate you can have several methodology in a research you can combine evidence-based design with case studies there is no problem at all but once you define your methodology you have to to pick up a collection of methods a systematic
42:00 - 42:30 review is a method data analysis is a method GIS or simulation visualizing classification and categorization these are all methods so your research proposal should uh address these methods and simply your me your methodology in general should describe how are you going to approach your work so as I said you start with a literature review and from the literature riew you see what has been done by previous researchers
42:30 - 43:00 you have to outline the instrument fix boundaries of diseases and you should look at different methodology describe them well make sure that you have qualitative and quantitative uh approaches for your methodology and make sure how you will collect the information how this information will be robust I give you a very important example here you should keep into account when we talk about methodology one of the big problems we see today uh in research the methodology should be replicable which means that any
43:00 - 43:30 independent researcher is going to do the same research you have been done you are I'm you have been doing he or she should be able to repeat the same methodology and come up with the same research one of the problem we find today in research very common that researchers they do the way the research without describing it well without a clear methodology and as a consequences there is results are fake because they didn't have a methodology and once you
43:30 - 44:00 describe your methodology keep into account that it should be replicable and repeatable by others so this is very important and uh how to to to present a methodology this is how to to to do it you have to come up with a study design a study design is simply a specific plan or a protocol for conducting the study and it allows you to investigate and translate the conceptual hypothesis into
44:00 - 44:30 operational research so actually in this section of methodology I should see this overview design I'm saying that my methodology is based on quantitative and qualitative uh research method methods I have here case studies and so on and so forth and I here have my own other quantitative approaches and you draw it into a sort of diagram and this is another representation I have descriptive analysis I have analytical here I'm going to do a survey here I'm going to do experiment here I'm going to
44:30 - 45:00 do a crosssectional analysis once you think about your methodology and represent it in a graph like that and describe it into a couple of paragraphs you are done with the methodology it's accessible and I have a very interesting uh document you can ask me for it it describes the different research methodologies in architecture so you can go from theoretical research interpretative research experimental
45:00 - 45:30 survey simulation qualitative even action research and for each of these methodologies there are different uh ontological assumptions uh epistemological assumptions also method methodologies how you validate uh how you have examples for each of those so this is very important very helpful you might use it and I would like to ask you to start your methodology by sketching drawing thinking about picking up some
45:30 - 46:00 methods making sure how you will address it you have to Define your method your sample your case studies what are the Target users are you going to use equipment uh analysis this is very important and you can draw a study design scheme for that and the study design scheme like I showed you based on this analysis using uh this um Excel or this uh table I Pro provided uh previously make sure that you draw draw a study uh design scheme and integrated
46:00 - 46:30 in your proposal discuss it with your supervisor explain why it is the most appropriate appropriate to effective answer your research question and you have also to explain what alternatives have been uh considered when uh and why these have been disregarded so these are the golden rules for the methodology don't forget you have to come up with a study design scheme describe your methodology on the level of uh what is the strategical level of your research what is the methodologies you using what
46:30 - 47:00 are the methods and summarize it into uh a scheme and present it and describe it well now I would like to move to the expected results even in a research proposal before doing your research you should describe your expected results this is very important and how are you going to do that it's mainly based on your literature review if you are going to read some major publication related to your topic you can be able to expect
47:00 - 47:30 what will be the results of your work you may fragment you may grab fragments from other studies but you can predict possible outcomes and that's all what you are expected to report in this sense you have to be based on the literature review link to the aims and objectives explain what you will be producing uh something concrete uh evidence-based with numbers you have to Define how is is it going to be usable is it it some rules of some it is it findings is it guidelines is it advice is it a strategy
47:30 - 48:00 uh what it is and for example you can say I'm going to come up with a prototype with a design concept uh with a solution these are all important to Define and the expected results so it's not here meant that you will say exactly what will come out from the study but you will Define what parameters what outcomes you are looking at and these are examples of outcomes you must keep into account that you answer this question very important in your research
48:00 - 48:30 proposal because if you are just putting facts they are called Data if you are classifying them they can become information they will become only knowledge if you are adding an analysis an interpretation uh kind of working the information into a useful uh uh uh information and once you have knowledge you can help in decisions and actually that's the cycle of knowledge so your fees is mainly looking to collect the data and information and process them to
48:30 - 49:00 generate knowledge so that this knowledge can help the community and the decision makers to take decision and become more informed more uh knowledgeable well what could be examples of outcomes this is a series of outcomes it could be a product rules of thumb guidelines a manual a website an application even an app don't hesitate to develop an app for your master CES this could be interesting a map a tool a website a program a book a infographic a
49:00 - 49:30 a card cartographic guide equation model Benchmark simulation a checklist Sometimes some students come up with their Master outcome a checklist a policy a strategy a theory you must be sure that you come up with a concrete outcome that you will present at the end of your season and you link this outcome to the audience as described previously so this is very important and to to validate that you have good expected result describe describe how the work
49:30 - 50:00 will be validated you are you must make sure that your outcomes and what you are going to present will be compared with results published in other works are you going to use a user group or a case study to this test this outcome because it's not enough to tell me I will come up with a map or a tool and then it was not used by anyone or it was not tested by anyone make sure that your have a validation process and in the validation process you have uh some groups or users
50:00 - 50:30 who make sure that your outcome that you use was developed for them use in a useful way and you should look for internal and external validity of your result If This research is repeated by someone uh else would they get the same results you did or not is your work accurate enough do you have a systematic approach can the result be generalized uh in another similar context these are interesting discussion questions that you can use to develop
50:30 - 51:00 your final uh conclusion later in the seasons but also you could address them in your proposal writing to make sure that you are not only looking to produce an information and through it without making sure that it works that it function that will have a effect and impact well by that I am approaching almost the end now you are described you have described those major topics from the keywords on until uh the uh research
51:00 - 51:30 uh results and outcomes now it's time to talk about outline and talk in the language of professional language professional language this is not a research uh topic this is more related to professionalism and any institution should talk about it once you go through any professional document you must develop an organizational chart a organizational chart it's a chart that tells me what are the parts and the component of your research or your research thesis in this
51:30 - 52:00 sense you should have a description of your chapters maybe you can put your chapters you can put the topics you are talking about and it should represent your uh work and it should predict the possible progress of your work so here I'm drawing all the component of my research in one diagram in French we call it organigram in English it's called the organizational chart and any research proposal must must include an organizational chart to describe the components of the work and the main work
52:00 - 52:30 packages that you will do and in every work packages I have Associated activities this is very important to clarify the topic I have many Master students they come up at the end of their Master Theses and they are not able even to write a structure or a table of content of their own thesis why because they didn't do an organizational chart once you do it early enough you know that you will start with an introdu uction chapter you will have something about a methodology what are your case
52:30 - 53:00 studies your results what would be the validation part what would be your conclusion part the discussion so therefore it's very important it's also important to be added you can add it in the annex of your research proposal don't hesitate to do that and you should do use it also to discuss with your supervisor in the beginning how are you going to proceed with your master CES or your PhD dissertation very important to include it another important uh
53:00 - 53:30 organizational chart related to the professional work the gun chart any Master student graduating from Liah University he or she must know what is a gun chot because without that you are not going to be able to process task on long term a gun chart is a professional uh diagram it is a methodology used to define milestones and work packages and activities and in this sense you describe your work in sufficient details
53:30 - 54:00 and you set up deliverables steps deadlines very important more detailed than the organizational chart so if you look at the organization chart it's mainly chunky it's looking at Big scale uh component of your research while here you are going more into detail and it's very important to be also placed in the annex of your research proposal as you can see here's a list of activities here is the master seases it takes an average in leage four months I can Define every
54:00 - 54:30 month in two weeks and Define with this dark bars when I'm going to do the literature review the interviews the case study analysis the simulation work when I'm going to start to write my thesis very important to do that as early as possible to make sure that you go psychologically through the process of your thesis writing because if you leave everything till the end you will be improvised in and improvising you can never become professional with improvision as long you have a lot of
54:30 - 55:00 time and in fact you don't have time you must write your CES to graduate so this is the best way to do it as early possible and try to explore previous Master seeders of older students who graduated and see how they did it to make sure that what could be the tasks and activities that you must come up and how much time they will take some people would say I will do a literature review in two months in reality it might need three months maybe it will need uh 8 weeks you never know uh 6 weeks you never know so it's
55:00 - 55:30 very important to have this translation into deliverables steps and time and it's very important once you finish this that you have a section in your research proposal called project outline the project outline you link it to the organizational chart and you link it to your gun chart and your proposal must describe where are you going to start you say when are you going to start what steps are you going to do and what where are you going uh where are you heading
55:30 - 56:00 to where will you get to how you will get there very important if you don't do this in the project outline the the certainty that you will do successful work is very weak so make sure that you have defined the step of your research you say where you starting describe what's the problem the literature view where are you heading and make sure that you will uh describe that accurately and what are the final aim to go for uh well
56:00 - 56:30 um the last step that you should look at uh before leaving that I just forgot to say that you should describe every Milestone into activity description and evidence of progress the last thing you should look at is the impact and biography this is the last part of your proposal and the last element that you should address in your proposal and the impact and pro first I will start is the impact it's very important to identify does the proposal clarify uh clearly uh
56:30 - 57:00 uh how it is relevant and realistic on the short term and long term by definition impact is the effect or influence on short term to long-term scientific technological or socioeconomical changes produced by a research directly or indirectly intended or in intended and you should ask yourself are are the impacts identifi IED by The Proposal relevant to the society at large can the impact be listed and
57:00 - 57:30 realistically achieved and let me give some example the impact should be able to be explained it is different from the objective and it's the only way to do an impact is to publish your work because if I'm going to spend maybe six months of my life on a manuscript for a cesis or maybe four years for my PhD work if this document is going to be in the depository of the library of Li University no one on earth will access
57:30 - 58:00 it even it's not on Google so forget about it the only way to make sure that your work has an impact and other researcher and other professional and the society in large is going to access it read it benefit from it is to publish the work and study or look at the impact of your work here is an example of a work uh I will read you I will read you this very fast energy certification labels increases the awareness of energy
58:00 - 58:30 consumption and enables consumers to compare buildings there therefore providing Builders with an incentive to improve Energy Efficiency in buildings improving Energy Efficiency in building is one of the most coste effective way across all sectors to reduce energy consumption enhance Green Gas House emissions Energy Efficiency is the most costeffective method to improve energy security from the house household perspective Energy Efficiency seems to be profitable you are telling how Energy
58:30 - 59:00 Efficiency or the lables are you how is this impact of this topic energy efficient lighting and appliances can save about 465 EUR per year per household in energy bills much more savings can be easily ured when the whole building is energy efficient the Energy Efficiency of buildings can only be guaranteed by credit building energy label so here you are describing what is the impact of
59:00 - 59:30 your research you are saying that while studying the labeling of buildings already I can promise to have a cost effective savings and I can guarantee a security and independence from fossil fuel and you try to quantify it with some example saying that for example a building that has an energy label a for example can save up to 465 per year so Give an example so this is a very important aspect that you should include what would be the impact
59:30 - 60:00 of your study and this is difficult you have to brainstorm you have to think if I come up with my research and I publish it could it be useful examples for dissemination activities also to spread dissemination means uh uh spreading your your research findings is there a clear or attainable plan for dissemination for results this is a question uh is the dissemination plan targeted clear and attainable is it relevant and you have a clear exploit
60:00 - 60:30 exploitation of the results these are all uh uh important topics and you can disseminate your work by publishing it by having internal seminars regular reporting publication conferences exhibition or reaching out communicating with the community if you go to a NGO and tell them I would like to present my Master season to you I would like to share with you my document these are all important docu activities you must
60:30 - 61:00 guarantee to make sure that you are disseminating your knowledge in a PhD it's very important to do a lot of time effort to disseminate the information in a Master season it would be enough to uh publish in a conference or publish in a journal your results and this is the only way to validate and make sure that your information now is available to the public it's accessible and it could be shared and Ben become beneficial to the
61:00 - 61:30 society last part is the biography in your research proposal you should include a biographic bibliographical sector you should have references cited in a specific format in my lab I prefer the APA uh standard and I have a presentation on that but you should make sure that many reviewers they go at the end of your research proposal and read the biography and based on the quality of biography they find they started to
61:30 - 62:00 say this is a good research or not this means that you the more you are describing the key publication related topic it means that you did your homework you read and you should pay attention how you write it because there are rules in citation you should write for example the family name and then the year and then the title and then the city and so on there is different styles make sure that you are on the right using the right style you just ask your supervisor um for that and you can show your motivation on the subject also
62:00 - 62:30 based on that use a reference management system there's many softwares previously there was a software called end note today the most commonly used is zoto and I advise you to use zoto well I'm going to the end this is it this is the research proposal it sounds uh maybe dense very informative but keep in mind that a research proposal does not need to be more than five six pages some sometimes the research proposal a large European project can be something like uh uh 25
62:30 - 63:00 Pages I'm talking about funding of millions so in your case you all you need to have five pages six pages describing and covering these issues and just start to write and go through it I give you some golden final uh tips structure your text make sure you have headings address every topic into a heading structure section and write under it uh write short sentences this is a very important thing many uh I figured out that in the French speaking
63:00 - 63:30 word many students seems to write long sentences chop your sentence keep it short and follow your ideas and don't make it complex just write you can write down first in a sketch what ideas you want to communicate and start to make them short sentences in a row use bullets bullets are very important because readers get bored when they find a full block of text try to make bullets to highlight them important topics provide images charts I already told you that you need a gun chart an
63:30 - 64:00 organizational chart a study research design for the methodology try as maximum to have a kind of visual component don't make it exceed 30 40% of The Proposal so that the proposal is readable and accessible and the keys are to success are important that you should assure that all relevant chapters of The Proposal have been addressed accurately the 10 themes that I described are add add in detail be brief and concise as possible you should support your uh
64:00 - 64:30 information with empirical and proof try to have always statistics numbers references uh to site your work right don't hesitate don't leave it till the end if you have time write a part of The Proposal later on write another part so just keep writing it's very easy it's not a difficult thing is just that you have to get used to answer these kind of questions and do it and improvise it ask for peers you can send it to colleagues to a teaching assistant to your
64:30 - 65:00 supervisor don't hesitate to do that to review the proposal and improve it you can make draft one draft two until you are satisfied and uh willing to submit it you can get expert help you can talk to the audience people you can talk to somebody who knows about the problem go consult a professor or any person who's professional you should be well organized synthesized and don't forget that we are looking for a master student a master student who has a critical appraisal who can criticize who can
65:00 - 65:30 build up a case with new information and this is very important by describing any controversies that you find in the objectives include uh the evidence uh as possible whether it's against or uh with your proposition these are the key rules of success I would like to go back just to remind you that this is very important to respect this structure cover it Go step by step until you have
65:30 - 66:00 a good proposal one thing I can promise you if you developed and invested as much as possible time in writing your research proposal your master thesis process will go as smooth as possible because you thought ahead about what you are going to do so instead of going reactive and just reacting on everyday crisis the simulation is not working the interviews is not doing you have here something that protects you it makes you
66:00 - 66:30 more certain stable and you see what are you going to do and already you are certain that you can achieve their goal easier so this is very important I would like to thank you for your presentation here are my reference and do don't hesitate to contact me I'm looking forward for your proposals thank you very much