A research proposal is an important part of your application. It should outline the area of research you wish to undertake, demonstrate your knowledge of the subject area and summarise the question you want to answer through your research.

Research proposals need to persuade the assessors that your research proposal should be supported and is feasible.

A research proposal usually:

• is between 1,500 and 3,000 words long
• needs to have a clear, original, precise, interesting research question
• explains the relevance and value of your proposed research
• describes the data or source material your research requires
• outlines the methods you will use to answer the research question
• states what you hope to discover at the end of your research
• is written in English.

Always carefully check any guidelines and instructions offered by your chosen PhD programme. These will vary and include word limits, suggested structure, formatting guidelines, etc.

You may want to consider including the following sections in your research proposal.

Provide a concise provisional title for your intended research. You will be able to revise your title during the course of your research if you are accepted for admission. It should be simple, descriptive and informative, identifying the topic and/or approach that will be taken.

Provide a brief background to the research area that you aim to explore. You can provide a short literature review in which you will discuss your proposed research within the framework of the existing literature, demonstrate that you understand the theoretical underpinnings and main debates/issues in your research and how your research will make an original and important contribution to the subject. Ideally, you could demonstrate how your proposed research fills a gap in the literature, makes a contribution to existing knowledge in your field and demonstrates scholarly integrity.

It can be tempting to over-prepare this section and seek to demonstrate everything you have learned so far, detailed information on how you got to this specific research topic, and your opinions on debates in the field. Rather, assessors will be generally seeking to understand that you have a solid awareness of the wider intellectual context of your topic.

Discuss the central aim(s) and questions that will guide your research. The research aim(s) and objectives determine the scope, depth and the overall direction of the research. You could emphasise what you ultimately want to achieve with your thesis, complemented by focused and feasible objectives i.e., the steps that you will take to answer each of your research questions.

Introduce your overall approach to the research. Depending on your discipline and approach, you might begin with a discussion of the rationale and assumptions underpinning your methodology (i.e. key concepts, paradigms, ideas). Then you should outline, how you plan to conduct the research (i.e., different studies included in the PhD) and the data sources that you will use.

You could discuss the type of empirical research (statistical work, interviews, ethnography, surveys etc.) that you will be doing and how you are going to collect and analyse data. You could discuss the methods that you will use for each phase/study of the PhD and why the proposed methods are particularly advantageous or appropriate for answering the research questions.

You need to consider and justify the context of the research, as well as the participants (e.g., individuals, small or large groups).

Briefly discuss any potential ethical issues related to the proposed area of research. For example, you might consider the sensitivity of your topic to social groups, individuals or special-interest groups and discuss how you would seek to mitigate any potential difficulties or conflicts of interest arising as part of your research. Key ethical issues such as anonymity, confidentiality and informed consent in the context of your research should also be briefly discussed.

If applicable, you may consider including brief details of any proposed publications stemming from your PhD thesis, and/or any conferences in your field you plan to present your research at.

Provide an estimated timeline of the PhD thesis, considering whether you are applying for full or part-time study. Consider what you would be doing in each year of your PhD and when each of the different phases of the PhD will start and finish (e.g., upgrade process, literature review, fieldwork, analysis, writing-up etc). This will help assessors to evaluate the feasibility of the project.

Check your programme’s specific instructions for reference styles and providing a reference list/bibliography, and whether this is included in the word count.