phd proposal sample political science

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How to draft a research proposal

Your research proposal should be no longer than 2,000 words including any references to existing research.

Your title should be concise and descriptive.

Background and rationale

This section sets up why this proposed research is needed. You can briefly summarise the key literature in this area, identifying the gaps in knowledge concerning your topic of interest. Most importantly, you must make a convincing case as to why your research would create valuable and original knowledge.

Research questions

You need to formulate your research questions clearly and concisely. You should have an answerable question that can be investigated thoroughly within the available timeframe. (You will need to judge whether these are most clearly expressed before or after the theoretical framework.) Note: it’s important to keep these questions brief and reasonable in scope to avoid appearing overambitious.

Theoretical framework

In this section you expand on the background by clarifying which theoretical approaches you will be drawing on and why. You can demonstrate your knowledge of the research problem and your understanding of the theoretical context. Give consideration to broad issues within your chosen theoretical framework where appropriate, and note how they will affect the research process. Fully acknowledge those who have laid the groundwork for your research proposal.

This section should describe the practical steps necessary for the execution and completion of your project. If appropriate, you could demonstrate your knowledge of alternative methods, and make the case that your approach is the most appropriate and most valid way to address your research questions. Explain what data (broadly-defined) you will collect; how you will collect them, and what analyses you will perform on them. Explain what research skills you have, or state how you will acquire them. Do not skimp on the methods and practical sections by writing too much one the background and theoretical context.

Practical issues

These must be considered in relation to your methods. If you are intending to undertake fieldwork, consider where this might best be undertaken and for how long. If your fieldwork involves external organisations, then can you demonstrate that they will give you access to all the resources you need. Will your proposed research require specialised training? If so, where can you obtain such training and what will it cost? Does you research involve significant running costs for materials, specialist equipment and consumables? Have you got plans for securing the necessary funds?

It is important that you map out a reasonable schedule of your work so that you can monitor your own progress and manage your project effectively. Start with your intended finishing date and work backwards. Do not underestimate the amount of time that it takes to write a polished final thesis.

Dissemination

Your PhD should produce research of publishable quality. You might briefly note the type of publishable outputs you expect to generate and where you would like them to appear. This is especially important if you wish to pursue a career as an academic in a UK university.

Bibliography

• 1,000 words for a short version of the proposal to identify a potential supervisor
• 2,000 words for the full-length proposal for your formal application

• Department of Politics and International Relations

Writing a research proposal

The key feature of the PhD is that it is yours; the topic, planning, motivation, and thinking all come from you. It will be the most challenging type of academic work you have ever done, but also the most rewarding.

The Research Proposal – an outline

The research proposal constitutes the main way in which the department evaluates the potential quality of your PhD plans. The proposal should be approximately 1,500 words in length and include:

• A provisional title

Question or hypothesis

Value of the phd, existing literature, methods of work.

The title indicates the ‘headline’ character of the PhD. It should include any key concepts, empirical focus, or lines of inquiry that you aim to pursue. For example: ‘Are NGOs practising sustainable development? An investigation into NGO practice in rural Botswana’, or ‘Understanding the Preferential Turn in EU External Trade Strategy: A Constructivist International Political Economy Approach’. You can negotiate changes in the title with your supervisor should you be successful but it is important to devise a title that describes what you aspire to research – and which looks original and exciting.

You need a question or hypothesis to drive the research forward. The question/hypothesis will provide your motivation; to answer the question or prove/disprove the hypothesis. The question/hypothesis will need to be something that has not been posed before. This involves looking at something that no-one has looked at before, or it might mean taking a fresh approach to an existing topic or issue.

The aims of your research should be a short list of answers to the question - what will the PhD do? So, for example ‘this PhD will explore...’ or ‘by carrying out this research, I will contribute to debates about...’. The aims are broader than the questions/hypotheses; they give a prospective statement about the overall destination of the PhD and its potential impact.

The value of the PhD follows closely from the aims. Think about how the ways it might improve our political thinking - a new perspective or the generation of new evidence? To whom might the PhD be interesting - scholars looking at a particular issue, communities within specific institutions or certain groups of people?

A short note of key existing literature situates the PhD in existing research. Literature reviews are not simply descriptive mapping exercises at PhD level. Here you should identify a small number of key texts and say something about how these books are important for your research - whether it is to support, extend, or challenge existing work.

The resources you require can vary according to the nature of the research: access to a particular archive, specialist library, visits to field sites, the use of analytical software, access to databases, training, workshop attendance and so on. It is important to list any of these resources and give a very brief account of how they will enhance the PhD.

The methods of work is a particularly important section. This is where you can say something about how you will answer your question or prove your hypothesis. It is relatively easy to ask a new question; it is more challenging to set out how you might come up with a convincing answer! Methods do not only mean empirical methodologies such as semi-structured interviews or surveys and statistical interpretation; it also might involve a statement on the kind of theoretical framework you will employ, a certain kind of approach to history or a way to understand political ideas. Methods are, therefore, qualitative, quantitative, theoretical, empirical, positivistic, heuristic... whatever fits with your research.

The research also needs a  timetable . This should be set out over three years with clear indications of how long you will need to prepare for and carry out research (however defined) and allow time for writing up. Try to be as detailed as you can at this stage.

Each of these criteria helps the Department of Politics and International Relations selectors make a good judgement about your proposal. By following these criteria you will have your best chance of getting your proposal accepted.

Three more important points:

• Try to be concise. Do not write too much – be as specific as you can but not wordy. It is a difficult balance to strike.
• Bear in mind that the proposal is a starting point. If you are registered to read for a PhD you will be able to work the proposal through with your supervisor in more detail in the early months.
• Take a look at the department’s  staff profiles . Can you identify possible supervisors and intellectual support networks within the department? The better able the department is to support your research, the better it will be for your proposal.

Related information

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More guidance on writing a research proposal

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Examples of research proposals

How to write your research proposal, with examples of good proposals.

Research proposals

Your research proposal is a key part of your application. It tells us about the question you want to answer through your research. It is a chance for you to show your knowledge of the subject area and tell us about the methods you want to use.

We use your research proposal to match you with a supervisor or team of supervisors.

In your proposal, please tell us if you have an interest in the work of a specific academic at York St John. You can get in touch with this academic to discuss your proposal. You can also speak to one of our Research Leads. There is a list of our Research Leads on the Apply page.

When you write your proposal you need to:

• Highlight how it is original or significant
• Explain how it will develop or challenge current knowledge of your subject
• Identify the importance of your research
• Show why you are the right person to do this research
• Research Proposal Example 1 (DOC, 49kB)
• Research Proposal Example 2 (DOC, 0.9MB)
• Research Proposal Example 3 (DOC, 55.5kB)
• Research Proposal Example 4 (DOC, 49.5kB)

Subject specific guidance

• Writing a Humanities PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
• Writing a Creative Writing PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
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Political Science

Graduate dissertation.

• Graduate Program

The dissertation is a substantial work of original scholarship usually ranging in length from 200 to 450 double-spaced pages.

Once coursework and both preliminary examinations are passed, the student is considered to have Advanced to Candidacy and is officially a Ph.D. candidate.

Before commencing work on the dissertation, the Department requires you to write and defend a dissertation proposal, known as the prospectus. The prospectus is written and defended during the third year in the Ph.D. program. Further information pertaining to the prospectus will be disseminated in the prospectus writing seminar (POLS2050 and POLS2051). Students are required to pass at least one preliminary exam before registering for the prospectus course.  

Selection of the Dissertation Committee

Before beginning work on the prospectus, you should select a principal dissertation advisor to chair your committee. Oftentimes, students begin lining up their principal advisors during their second year in the program; in any event, you should wait no longer than the middle of your fifth semester to have yours in place. Prior to the prospectus defense (see no. 3 below), you must select two additional advisors to serve on your dissertation committee, for a minimum of three committee members. The principal advisor must be tenured and a second committee member must be tenured or tenure-track faculty in the Department of Political Science at Brown unless you obtain an exception from the DGS. One committee member may be from outside the Department of Political Science or outside Brown University.

Drafting of the Prospectus

In consultation with members of the dissertation committee, you must draft a prospectus that is consistent with the spirit if not the letter of the specifications outlined below ("Contents of the Prospectus"). Prospectus drafts (and later dissertation chapters) should be shared with the entire dissertation committee for consistent feedback and communication. The prospectus course (POLS 2050 and POLS2051) is designed to further explain the components of a prospectus and guide students through the creation of a prospectus. Students should be prepared to read and provide constructive feedback on each other's work in the class.

Defense of the Prospectus

Formal approval of the prospectus follows after a successful oral defense of the proposal, which shall be advertised in advance and open to Political Science Department faculty and graduate students.

In consultation with the three committee members and the DGS, you are responsible for scheduling the oral defense well in advance (a minimum of ten days beforehand); please do not forget to inform the DGS well in advance, so that the event can be publicized. Normally, the defense will proceed with the participation of all three committee members. In extraordinary circumstances, the defense may proceed with two examination committee members. If fewer than two committee members are able to attend, the defense must be rescheduled. Prospectus defenses are open to Political Science Department faculty and graduate students only.

The format of a typical oral defense is as follows: (1) introductory remarks by the principal advisor; (2) a brief overview of the proposed thesis project by you; (3) questions from the dissertation committee members; (4) questions from the general public, time permitting. The student will make a 10-15 minute presentation of the prospectus and then will be asked questions by any faculty members first and, time permitting, fellow graduate students in the room.

Immediately following the question session, the dissertation committee shall meet in executive session to determine whether the prospectus should be approved. There are three options available to the committee:

Once the committee has reached a decision in executive session, you will be called back into the room and informed immediately. The principal advisor will also inform the DGS of the committee's decision.

The purpose of what follows is to create a set of shared expectations among both students and faculty about the contents and organization of the prospectus. This statement is not meant to be compulsory, but it should work to the advantage of most students and their advisors.

The prospectus is typically 10-20 pages in length; indeed, the shorter the better, since it is then more easily converted into a formal proposal for external funding. The purpose of the prospectus is to pose a precise question, to set the proposed dissertation topic in an appropriate theoretical context, to allude to the relevant literature, and to describe the proposed research methods. The prospectus is not a legal contract, but a proposal. It is a beginning, the first step in a long journey. As your research progresses, you are almost certain to depart from your prospectus blueprint. Knowledge of this fact should make the exercise a less imposing hurdle. The goal of the prospectus is not to demonstrate that you know all the answers in advance. Rather, it is to establish that the question you intend to address is worth asking, and that your proposed course of action is feasible and potentially valuable in terms of its contribution to knowledge.

A satisfactory prospectus contains four basic components: a question; a statement of theoretical context; a research design; and a working bibliography.

The Question

"What is the dissertation about?" The prospectus should begin by stating the central question or puzzle that is to be addressed in the dissertation. The question should be phrased precisely, since it will determine what is or is not germane to the dissertation. Whether the puzzle is "Does Marx have a political theory?", "Why are some American regulatory agencies more effective than others?", or "What are the effects of the organization of worker training programs in Sweden, Germany, Japan, and the United States?", it should be stated within the first or second paragraph, and as clearly and succinctly as possible. This is also the appropriate place to identify the general approach adopted in the dissertation: historical, interpretive, quantitative, etc. It is also important to qualify the question in terms of geographical, temporal, and/or substantive scope: What country or countries will be examined, and over what time period? What range of an author's works will be evaluated? What kinds of bureaucratic agencies will be studied? What kinds of effects are at issue (social, economic, political)?

Treat this as an opportunity to state with clarity and conviction exactly what the core of the dissertation will be. Do not get carried away with the need to qualify here; there is plenty of time for that in Part C. This section should be no longer than two pages in length. If it feels like writing an abstract, then it's probably coming out right.

Statement of Theoretical Context

This part of the prospectus addresses the frustrating but important question, "so what?" In other words, why should one devote a thesis to the question set out in the preceding section? An effective answer requires two distinct arguments. First, you should provide a well-focused summary of the current debate(s) in your chosen subfield. This will allow your committee to see how you situate your project in the existing theoretical literature. Second, you should outline in precise terms the specific contribution(s) your dissertation will make to the subfield. If you believe you are studying a neglected yet significant subject, specify what of substance has been missed, and how your study will fill the gap. If you are building on an important literature in the field, say what has been achieved, and how your proposal adds to it. If your proposal is a case study or a comparison of multiple cases (countries, policy areas, etc.), this is an appropriate place to justify your selection of cases with reference to theory.

Five or six pages should suffice for this part of the prospectus, although in cases where the resolution of contending interpretations is an especially important part of the thesis, a bit more detail is appropriate. Whatever you do, do not set out to review the literature in depth here. Instead, write this part on the assumption that both you and your committee are familiar with the field.

Research Design

This part answers the question, "How will you answer the question set out in Part A?" Part B showed that the game is worth the candle; Part C must show that you will, in fact, finish the contest with some answers in hand. Depending on the field, this part will cover different elements, but all will need to address the following: What do you intend to do, and what does each step contribute to the project as a whole? In what order do you intend to proceed? If your investigation is empirical, what sort of evidence will you consider? If theoretical, what material will you cover and what will you do with it? Are you planning to do library work, field work, and/or quantitative analysis?

Obviously, you will not know everything you would like about this part at the time you have to defend your prospectus. But you should be able to provide your best, educated guess. In the end, your committee will be looking for evidence that (1) if everything goes according to plan, you will be able to complete a satisfactory dissertation, and (2) there is a reasonable chance that everything will in fact go well.

Six to ten pages should be enough to cover this material. You should try to provide the following sorts of information:

Working Bibliography

This is self-explanatory, but essential.

Extension of Candidacy

It is University policy that the dissertation should be completed within five years of advancing to candidacy. Since students often require more time, candidacy may be extended in cases where the faculty believes the student will finish and accepts the reasons for delay.

Annually the Graduate School will remind active students whose candidacy is about to expire that they must write to the DGS, explain why they are taking so long, and request an extension if they intend to finish. If the DGS, after consulting with the principal dissertation advisor, believes an extension is justified, s/he will make a formal request to the Graduate School. Extensions to seven years may be granted by the Graduate School; extensions longer than seven years require a vote of the Graduate Council.

Dissertation Defense and Submission

Graduate students are eligible to have degrees conferred, and to receive their diploma, at three different times over the course of the academic year. All deadlines are firm. Please review the Graduate School's Dissertation Guidelines for the most up-to-date information.

Students are required to submit a full draft of the dissertation to their dissertation committee four weeks prior to the expected defense date. If you anticipate problems meeting any of these deadlines, consult the Director of Graduate Studies or the Graduate School .

A complete description of the format of the dissertation can be found on the  Graduate School website . All directions from the Graduate School must be followed exactly.

In special cases and with the permission of the dissertation committee, students may submit a dissertation consisting of three or more individual papers instead of a single book-length project.

PhDs are generally presumed to be single-authored. No more than one-third of the substantive material of a student’s Ph.D. dissertation may be co-authored (that is, one paper of a three paper dissertation, or one-third of the substantive chapters of a monograph dissertation).  

Co-authorship must have the consent of all members of the dissertation committee. Students must obtain that consent via email. Faculty members may choose not to serve on committees that include co-authorship.

If multiple students co-author a chapter or paper, it may be included in each dissertation.

Students are generally advised against co-authoring with a member of the dissertation committee, as it can lead to confusion or misattribution of responsibility. All committee members are encouraged to be attentive to the importance of the student making a unique individual contribution to scholarship within the dissertation.

Any co-authored chapter or paper must be accompanied by a disclosure statement that clearly notes the student’s contribution. This statement must be signed by all co-authors (including any faculty) and forms part of the deposited dissertation. It is the student’s responsibility to let all co-authors know this statement will be required.

In the year the student plans to graduate, students are required to submit a full draft of the dissertation four weeks prior to the expected defense date.

Students should plan to defend at the latest a few days to a couple weeks before the final submission deadline to allow for final edits. Graduate students are eligible to have degrees conferred, and to receive their diploma, at three different times over the course of the academic year.

Once your dissertation committee has approved your thesis-in-draft in principle, you should agree on a date for the defense well in advance (a minimum of ten days beforehand) with your committee members and also inform the Graduate Program Coordinator so that the event can be publicized. You are responsible for scheduling the oral defense. You must complete a  Dissertation Defense Information Form  which must be submitted to the Graduate School at least 2 weeks prior to the defense. Normally, the defense will proceed with the participation of all three committee members in the room. In extraordinary circumstances, the defense may proceed with two examination committee members. If fewer than two committee members are able to attend, the defense must be rescheduled.

The defense is open to the public, which typically includes faculty members and other graduate students. The format of a typical oral defense is as follows:

• introductory remarks by the principal advisor;
• a brief overview of the dissertation by you;
• questions from the dissertation committee members;
• questions from the general public, time permitting.

Immediately following the question session, the dissertation committee shall meet in executive session to determine whether the dissertation should be approved. You will be called back in to hear the decision privately, as well as any further recommendations from the dissertation committee. The committee members may address the strengths and weaknesses of your dissertation, your future plans for it, and the direction you expect your work to take in the next few years.

Writing a social sciences PhD proposal

For many academics, each new year brings a flurry of email enquiries about PhD supervision. In my experience these tend to range between a vague notion about a topic (or a few possible topics) and a detailed account of a research idea, usually drawn from a successful MA thesis or an area of professional interest. What I hardly ever get, however, is a proper draft proposal that I can start working up with an applicant.

For me, having at least a rough draft of your proposal before you contact potential supervisors is good practice, for a number of reasons:

• it shows you have given the matter some thought
• it identifies you as someone who is able to work independently
• it allows you to take ownership of your work from the start (and some supervisors WILL take over if you let them).

If you are planning to apply for Research Council funding, a draft gives you a valuable head start – I also see the process of feedback and amendment for these high-profile applications as an excellent insight into what a student will be like to supervise (I generally ask for several redrafts before I will sign off).

A PhD proposal does not need to be long. In fact, I encourage applicants to be as concise as they can – Research Council application forms generally allow a couple of sides, 10 pt font minimum, so I would stick to that. For a social science PhD, proposals will contain a number of common elements:

A short paragraph describing your topic, stating why it is important. First and foremost, you should be proposing a project which is fresh and interesting rather than repeating previous studies. This doesn’t necessarily mean a completely new topic (and there are no completely original arguments), but it could mean, for instance: looking at an existing topic in a new way; asking slightly different questions; researching a specific population; or bringing together two theories that haven’t been used together, or haven’t been used to explore this topic, before.

The best research in my field tends to be both policy/society-relevant  and  able to make a contribution to academic debates, so look for a social need  and  gaps in the relevant literature. Your project should pass the ‘so what?’ test on both intellectual and practical grounds. This is especially the case if you want to work with a marginalised group as an outsider – your study needs to have clear benefits for your participants, and it should be obvious that you are the right person to do it and are doing it for the right reasons (if you’re not sure this is the case, perhaps  read this post  and reflect). If you’re applying for research funding, your project rationale should also link to the strategic priorities of the funding body.

Research questions

Two or three  specific questions you will answer. They must be ones which have not been asked before in the particular way you will ask them. They should usually be open but narrow, focusing on aspects of issues or relationships between phenomena (e.g. ‘what are the causes of violence against sex workers?’ is too broad, but ‘what are sex workers’ experiences of violence under different legal/regulatory models?’ is more promising). You should also be realistic – what exactly are you going to be able to find out? Be wary of questions which are too ambitious – in social research this often means causal, categorical, or conclusive. Avoid making assumptions that will threaten the validity of your analysis (e.g. ‘how can parents who formula-feed be made aware of the benefits of breastfeeding?) Never ask something you feel you already know.

The trick is to develop research questions which both create a do-able project and account for the complexity of the social world, and to represent these as simply as you possibly can. This is difficult! Your research questions will probably go through several iterations with your prospective supervisor, so they don’t have to be perfect first time.

Literature review

This is directly linked to your rationale and research questions – a summary of existing relevant work, identifying the gaps (both empirical and theoretical) your project will fill. You may be looking at several areas of literature – some providing general context while others relate to particular issues. In a project on violence against sex workers under different legal/regulatory models, you would probably be making use of general work on violence against women/sexual violence, more specific literature on violence against sex workers (of all genders) and violence against particular groups who may be more at risk within the industry (women of colour and trans women, for example), and literature covering different models of sex industry regulation and their implications. Studies would probably be both empirical and more conceptual in focus.

Don’t just write a list in this section – introduce different bodies of literature, summarise key themes and points, identify gaps, and make explicit how all this frames your particular project. Be clear in your mind about how you are using the literature at hand, and how you might feed back into the literature and make new contributions when you have completed your research.

Theoretical framework

The conceptual material in your literature review might inform your theoretical framework – the concepts most central to your research project. You might be focusing on gender as a key category of analysis; you might (should) also be taking an intersectional approach. You might be making use of other concepts such as agency or stigma, or developing the work of particular theorists. You need to have an idea of how all this relates together and whether there are any useful connections or knotty contradictions at work.

Your theoretical framework will and should change as you develop your PhD project, coming to fruition when you have finished your data analysis and are (hopefully) ready to say something new. It need not be fully developed in your proposal. In fact, if I see a PhD proposal which has an elaborate theoretical framework already, it often raises questions about whether the student is setting out to confirm things they feel they already know. Nevertheless, your proposal should contain some indication of the theories and concepts you find relevant to your research questions, and (most importantly) some thoughts about how you might operationalise these. How can you identify agency, for example? How might you measure stigma? How can you  put intersectionality into practice?

N.B. Not all proposals will have a separate literature review and theoretical framework: if your project is heavily conceptual these might be merged into one longer section, or if you are conducting a large empirical study which will generate an entirely new dataset you may not need to be so focused on the theory.

Methodology

This is probably the most important part of your proposal – a description of what you are going to do in very precise terms. This should include your your broad methodological approach – is it quantitative or qualitative? Are you using a particular research design, for instance ethnography or case study? Are you situated within a specific epistemological framework, and why? It should also include any specific methodological techniques or elements of research design – for instance, if you are trying to explore the interactions between phenomena, how will you measure and establish these? (e.g. in a qualitative study exploring how breastfeeding impacts on mothers’ experiences of bonding with their babies, you would need to consider how you would tease out the role of breastfeeding from other factors).

Your methodology should give details of your planned sources of data and how you will sample them. Be specific: if you are doing interviews, how many? What types of people will you hope to recruit as participants, and why? If you are working with documents, how many and how will they be selected? You need to give assurances that you are not just cherry-picking your sample to confirm what you feel you already know – for instance, a proposed study on whether the media contains racist bias will be stronger if you are not just working with content from the  Daily Mail . You should also give details of how you will negotiate access to your sources, and the more groundwork you can do in advance the better, especially if you are working on sensitive issues or with marginalised communities. Your methods should then be described as accurately as you possibly can, as well as your planned techniques of data analysis, with full attention paid to how you might operationalise your theories.

Your methodology section should be primarily descriptive – your prospective supervisor needs to be confident that you have thought your project through and are in a good position to carry it out. It should also be mostly practical: although reflexivity is essential to qualitative social research, your PhD proposal is probably not the best place to present your autobiography. You need to show that you are conversant with the methodological literature and with other, similar studies, and have thought about your planned project with reference to these. Of course, your methodology will evolve during the course of your project and it is always possible to change it – but it is essential to be thinking like a researcher from the start.

Sometimes this section will be part of your methodology; sometimes it will be separate. If you are doing any research with human subjects you will probably undergo a rigorous ethical review process within your institution, before you are cleared for fieldwork. If your topic is sensitive or you are working with marginalised communities, this can take a while and can involve various requests for amendments. This section is your chance to show that you have engaged with the literature on research ethics and thought about any potential issues for your study: use it to identify these and talk about how you might address them. Power relations, informed consent, anonymity/confidentiality, risk/harm, participant and self-care all need to be covered.

University ethics committees can be conservative;  you  can take a critical perspective, especially where notions of ‘risk’ and ‘harm’ are concerned, and particularly in relation to the differences between working with more marginalised and more elite groups. However, you should also be aware that this is a bureaucratic process that could potentially stand between you and the successful completion of your research: some hoop-jumping may be necessary.

As the last section, your proposal should present a description of how you will break your research into manageable tasks and deadlines in order to get your PhD finished within the time you have (3-4 years full-time, 6-8 years part-time). It is best to present this in the form of a table, specifying dates by which you will have completed particular tasks. This timeline may change – but it is useful to have done some advance planning to show potential supervisors and funders that you are organised and likely to be able to deliver.

Finally, remember that you should probably try to fit all this on to two sides of A4. This usually includes references, so be strategic/sparing with these, and remember that you can allude to wider reading by using phrases such as ‘such as’, or ‘amongst others’ as part of your citations (this last tip is for PhD proposals only – you must not do this in your final thesis!)

Alison Phipps is Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Sussex. She was Chair of the Feminist and Women's Studies Association UK and Ireland, 2009-2012. You can visit her blog at https://genderate.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter @alisonphipps.

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How to write a phd research proposal.

In order to help you with your application, the information below aims to give some guidance on how a typical research proposal might look.

Your research proposal is a concise statement (up to 3,000 words) of the rationale for your research proposal, the research questions to be answered and how you propose to address them. We know that during the early stages of your PhD you are likely to refine your thinking and methodology in discussion with your supervisors.

However, we want to see that you can construct a fairly rigorous, high quality research proposal.

We use your research proposal to help us decide whether you would be a suitable candidate to study at PhD level. We therefore assess your proposal on its quality, originality, and coherence. It also helps us to decide if your research interests match those of academics in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) and whether they would be able to provide suitably qualified supervision for your proposed research.

Format of the research proposal

Your proposal should include the following:

Title. A short, indicative title is best.

Abstract. This is a succinct summary of your research proposal (approximately 200-300 words) that will present a condensed outline, enabling the reader to get a very quick overview of your proposed project, lines of inquiry and possible outcomes. An abstract is often written last, after you have written the proposal and are able to summarise it effectively.

Rationale for the research project. This might include a description of the question/debate/phenomenon of interest; an explanation of why the topic is of interest to you; and an outline of the reasons why the topic should be of interest to research and/ or practice (the 'so what?' question).

Aims and initial research question. What are the aims and objectives of the research? State clearly the puzzle you are addressing, and the research question that you intend to pursue. It is acceptable to have multiple research questions, but it is a good idea to clarify which is the main research question. If you have hypotheses, discuss them here. A research proposal can and should make a positive and persuasive first impression and demonstrate your potential to become a good researcher. In particular, you need to demonstrate that you can think critically and analytically as well as communicate your ideas clearly.

Research context for your proposed project. Provide a short introduction to your area of interest with a succinct, selective and critical review of the relevant literature. Demonstrate that you understand the theoretical underpinnings and main debates and issues in your research area and how your proposed research will make an original and necessary contribution to this. You need to demonstrate how your proposed research will fill a gap in existing knowledge.

Intended methodology. Outline how you plan to conduct the research and the data sources that you will use. We do not expect you to have planned a very detailed methodology at this stage, but you need to provide an overview of how you will conduct your research (qualitative and/or quantitative methods) and why this methodology is suited for your proposed study. You need to be convincing about the appropriateness and feasibility of the approaches you are suggesting, and reflective about problems you might encounter (including ethical and data protection issues) in collecting and analysing your data.

Expected outcomes and impact. How do you think the research might add to existing knowledge; what might it enable organisations or interested parties to do differently? Increasingly in academia (and this is particularly so for ESRC-funded studentships), PhD students are being asked to consider how their research might contribute to both academic impact and/or economic and societal impact. (This is well explained on the ESRC website if you would like to find out more.) Please consider broader collaborations and partnerships (academic and non-academic) that will support your research. Collaborative activity can lead to a better understanding of the ways in which academic research can translate into practice and it can help to inform and improve the quality of your research and its impact.

Timetable. What is your initial estimation of the timetable of the dissertation? When will each of the key stages start and finish (refining proposal; literature review; developing research methods; fieldwork; analysis; writing the draft; final submission). There are likely to overlaps between the stages.

Why Bristol? Why – specifically – do you want to study for your PhD at Bristol ? How would you fit into the School's  research themes and research culture . You do not need to identify supervisors at the application stage although it can be helpful if you do.

Bibliography. Do make sure that you cite what you see as the key readings in the field. This does not have to be comprehensive but you are illustrating the range of sources you might use in your research.

We expect your research proposal to be clear, concise and grammatically correct. Prior to submitting your research proposal, please make sure that you have addressed the following issues:

• Have you included a clear summary of what the proposed research is about and why it is significant?
• Have you clearly identified what your proposed research will add to our understanding of theory, knowledge or research design?
• Does it state what contributions it will make to policy and/or practice?
• Does the proposal clearly explain how you will do the research?
• Is the language clear and easy to understand by someone who is not an expert in the field?
• Is the grammar and spelling correct?

• Graduate School

Oxford PhD Proposal Sample: The Best Proposal

An Oxford PhD proposal sample, like Oxford personal statement examples , should give you an idea of how to structure and write your own PhD proposal, which is a key element of how to get into grad school . Should you pursue a master's or PhD , you should know that, with few exceptions, all graduate programs require that applicants submit a research proposal. It can vary in length (usually between 1,000 and 3,000 words) and must outline your main research goals and methods and demonstrate your facility with the topic. The almost 35,000 applications Oxford received in a recent year should give you some idea of how competitive getting into a master's or PhD program is.

Writing a stellar proposal is important to make your application stand out, so, to that end, this article will show you an expert-approved Oxford PhD proposal sample based on the actual requirements of an Oxford graduate program. 

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free initial consultation here <<

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Oxford phd proposal sample.

PhD Program : DPhil in Migrant Studies

Research Proposal Length: minimum 2000 - maximum 3000 words

To: Matthew J. Gibney, Professor of Politics and Forced Migration

Name: Adrian Toews

Title: Wired and Hungry Masses: Social Media, Migrants and Cultural Bereavement in the Digital Sphere

Proposed Research Topic: Does social media help migrants cross the cultural barriers of their adopted home and succeed in helping them preserve touchstones of their home culture? 

Abstract: The ascendance of social media platforms has increased and, strangely, decreased interconnectedness among disparate groups in society. But, while social media has been implicated, rightly, as a catalyst for the rise of disinformation, hate speech, and other anti-social behaviors, I would argue that its ubiquity and prevalence provide those experiencing cultural bereavement with a more-effective coping mechanism, as social media is able to replicate, in a non-physical space, the culturally specific mechanisms they know and which, prior to digital communications, could not be replicated in new, adopted countries and cultures.

Objective: I want to present social media as an informal networking tool, expressive outlet, and cultural road map with which migrants who are experiencing cultural bereavement can engage for two specific reasons: 1) to assuage the grief that accompanies anyone who has left their homeland as a migrant or refugee, and 2) to help them assimilate into their new identity by giving them a window into the cultural norms and practices of their new country or culture. 

An Oxford PhD proposal sample like this one is only one version of what a proposal can look like, but it should contain at least these basic elements. You should know how to choose a PhD topic at this point in your career, but if you still feel like you need help, then you can hire PhD admission consultants to help you choose your topic and research interests.

Above all, you should know why you want to do a PhD . Answering this question first will be effective in helping you ultimately decide on a program, which can then make it easier for you to write any number of different doctorate-related texts, such as a PhD motivation letter and a statement of intent .

Understanding your true motivations, passions, and research interests is doubly important when pursuing a PhD since you do not want to invest so much time and resources in a subject you are only partially interested in. If you can honestly answer why you want to pursue a PhD, you can then take concrete steps toward defining your research goals and how they can be fulfilled by the program you choose.

Your Oxford PhD proposal should adhere to the requirements set forth by the program you wish to enter. Regardless of your discipline or field, almost all PhD programs at Oxford require that you submit a research proposal of between 2,000 and 3,000 words. 

A statement of intent is another type of essay that applicants are often asked to submit to graduate schools. It involves talking about your past academic experiences and achievements, what you intend to do in graduate school, and why you want to go there. A PhD proposal, on the other hand, contains no personal details or experiences.

Instead, a PhD proposal should be a focused, concrete road map built around a specific research question. In your proposal, you list the theoretical approaches that you are going to use, research methods, past scholarship on the same topic, and other investigative tools to answer this question or present evidence from this research to support your argument. 

A statement of purpose is another common essay that graduate school applicants must submit. The line between a statement of purpose and a statement of intent is a fine one, but the line between a statement of purpose and a PhD proposal is much more prominent, and there is no mistaking the two. So, you should not read over graduate school statement of purpose examples to learn how to write a PhD proposal.

A statement of purpose can also be research-focused, but in an undefined way. A PhD proposal combines theory and practice and requires that you demonstrate your knowledge of proper scientific research, investigative methods, and the existing literature on your topic. 

You should include a title page where you list your name, the program you are applying to, and a title for your research project. You should address it to a specific faculty member, who can perhaps, if they agree, show you how to prepare for a thesis defense . The proposal itself should include an abstract, an overview of the existing scholarship on your topic, research questions, methods, and a bibliography listing all your sources. 

The usual length of PhD proposals is between 1,000 and 3,000 words, but your program may have different requirements, which you should always follow. 

There are up to 350 different graduate programs at Oxford, all with their own particular requirements, so the university does not set forth a universal set of requirements for all graduate programs. Many of these programs and their affiliated schools offer students advice on how to write a PhD proposal, but there are few, if any, stated requirements other than the implied ones, which are that you have familiarity with how to conduct graduate-level research and are knowledgeable in the field you are researching. 

A majority of programs do, yes. There are always exceptions, but a fundamental part of pursuing a PhD involves research and investigation, so it is normal for any PhD program to require that applicants write a PhD proposal. 

It is quite possible for your research interests and direction to change during your research, but you should not be discouraged. Graduate programs understand that these things happen, but you should still do your best to reflect the current state of research on your topic and try to anticipate any changes or sudden shifts in direction while you research. 

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