RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Research Proposal

You are about to commence a new research project in a field of your choice. You are

expected to write a report that constitutes a research proposal. You should carry out the

following tasks and document them in your report:

1. Undertake a literature review highlighting the current state of the art.

2. Taking into account the current state of the art highlight the novelty and contribution

to knowledge upon successful completion of your project.

3. Do a feasibility study to assess the likelihood of the project being completed and

producing useful results. If possible, the feasibility study should contain some

preliminary results (e.g. a pilot data set and initial data analysis).

4. Present the research methodology you plan to follow. Include a description of your

planned approach for data analysis including the statistical techniques you are

planning to use.

5. Produce a project plan for your research project (ideally to be presented with the aid of

a Gantt chart) showing the breakdown of processes constituting the project,

highlighting the dependencies between them and hence showing those that can be run

in parallel. Decide and present the various deadlines, milestones and deliverables. If

more than one person is to be involved specify which tasks will be delegated to whom.

As part of your project plan comment on your contingency plan i.e. what alternative

steps you have to follow in case your original planning fails.

6. Produce a costing report for the various resources you will need (manpower,

equipment, consumables, consultancy, travel etc).

7. Highlight the relevance to beneficiaries, i.e. who will benefit by the business/research

findings and how.

8. Briefly mention how the business/research findings will be disseminated (e.g.

conferences, workshops, seminars, journal publications, press releases).

9. Present the track record of the investigators involved, demonstrating why they would

be capable of undertaking and completing such a project.

10. Conclude and summarize your report.

11. Include a reference and bibliographical list. Make sure you use a formal referencing

scheme (e.g. Harvard, Vancouver).

12. If necessary include appendices to provide additional material relevant to the

document.

The word limit of your report is 2000 (minimum) and 3000 (maximum) words.