Writing your proposal
We will expect you to provide evidence of your ability to plan and organise independent research, and of the relevance of your research topic to the interest and expertise of an academic here who could supervise your study.
It's crucial that your research proposal is written to the guidelines specified. Don't risk getting yours rejected simply because you haven't read them.
Proposal format
You should provide approximately 2,000 words, plus your timetable and references or a short bibliography. We do not expect the proposal to be perfect at this stage, nor do we expect you to stick to it very closely as your ideas will almost certainly change once you start to study, but we do expect you to write it as follows:
- Provide an overview of your research question, explaining why it is of academic and or practical importance
- Outline the main objectives of your research, providing details of two or three key aspects
- Write a short literature review, indicating the importance of previous related research and how your own research question might make a useful contribution to the area
- State the main research techniques (interviews, case studies, modelling etc.) you might use
- Indicate your suggested data collection procedures, indicating sources and any possible difficulties
- Explain any analytical techniques you intend to use
- Add your proposed timetable of activities
- Finally, list the references in your proposal or provide a short bibliography.
Please organise your proposal under the following headings:
- Title
- Research question
- Objectives
- Literature reviews
- Research techniques
- References & bibliography
- Prospective supervisors
Common problems
In our experience, there are three very common reasons why proposals from well qualified candidates fail to be accepted.
The first is that their research topic is inadequately specified. You need to write to a very tight format stating what you plan to research, why and how. The format is clearly outlined above.
The second is that while their proposal may identify a practical managerial problem it does not demonstrate its analytical importance. A study that merely aims to discover new empirical information or simply solve an important business problem will probably not be accepted. Your proposal must engage with controversies and demonstrate strong critical insight in one or more academic disciplines to succeed.
The third reason that proposals are rejected is that their geographical focus does not fit with our supervisory competencies. While our perspective is international, some overseas students seek to study an issue exclusively in their home country in which our staff have no research expertise. If this is your intention, you must explain clearly why a supervisor at WBS will find your work interesting and how being at WBS will add value to your work. Generally, a comparative project that involves research both in your home country and the UK is more likely to achieve analytically significant results.