The Research Proposal

The Research Proposal

The Research Proposal is a very important part of the application. The proposal you submit at this stage will not commit you to an irrevocable course of research, rather it will allow us to assess the potential of the project, and whether we have sufficient expertise in the area to provide adequate supervision for your project. It will also serve as an indicator of your ability to undertake doctoral studies

Length

Your Research Proposal should aim to be clear and concise but will vary in length according to the subject area

• For Humanities, Languages, Education, Social Sciences and Business Related studies, research proposals should be in the region of 1000-1500 word

• Science, Computing and Engineering research proposals should be in the region of 500-800 words

Content

Your proposal should indicate

• an awareness of academic literature in your field and how your proposal relates to existing research by citing somc relevant literature, including a bibliography

• a detailed statement of the question(s) you wish to research

• some thoughts about the methods you will use for your research - what sources, analytical framework or experiments you propose to use

• the way in which your research will make an original contribution to knowledge