statement of research plans

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Research statement, what is a research statement.

The research statement (or statement of research interests) is a common component of academic job applications. It is a summary of your research accomplishments, current work, and future direction and potential of your work.

The statement can discuss specific issues such as:

• funding history and potential
• requirements for laboratory equipment and space and other resources
• potential research and industrial collaborations
• how your research contributes to your field
• future direction of your research

The research statement should be technical, but should be intelligible to all members of the department, including those outside your subdiscipline. So keep the “big picture” in mind. The strongest research statements present a readable, compelling, and realistic research agenda that fits well with the needs, facilities, and goals of the department.

Research statements can be weakened by:

• overly ambitious proposals
• lack of clear direction
• lack of big-picture focus
• inadequate attention to the needs and facilities of the department or position

Why a Research Statement?

• It conveys to search committees the pieces of your professional identity and charts the course of your scholarly journey.
• It communicates a sense that your research will follow logically from what you have done and that it will be different, important, and innovative.
• It gives a context for your research interests—Why does your research matter? The so what?
• It combines your achievements and current work with the proposal for upcoming research.
• areas of specialty and expertise
• potential to get funding
• academic strengths and abilities
• compatibility with the department or school
• ability to think and communicate like a serious scholar and/or scientist

Formatting of Research Statements

The goal of the research statement is to introduce yourself to a search committee, which will probably contain scientists both in and outside your field, and get them excited about your research. To encourage people to read it:

• make it one or two pages, three at most
• use informative section headings and subheadings
• use bullets
• use an easily readable font size
• make the margins a reasonable size

Organization of Research Statements

Think of the overarching theme guiding your main research subject area. Write an essay that lays out:

• The main theme(s) and why it is important and what specific skills you use to attack the problem.
• A few specific examples of problems you have already solved with success to build credibility and inform people outside your field about what you do.
• A discussion of the future direction of your research. This section should be really exciting to people both in and outside your field. Don’t sell yourself short; if you think your research could lead to answers for big important questions, say so!
• A final paragraph that gives a good overall impression of your research.

Writing Research Statements

• Avoid jargon. Make sure that you describe your research in language that many people outside your specific subject area can understand. Ask people both in and outside your field to read it before you send your application. A search committee won’t get excited about something they can’t understand.
• Write as clearly, concisely, and concretely as you can.
• Keep it at a summary level; give more detail in the job talk.
• Ask others to proofread it. Be sure there are no spelling errors.
• Convince the search committee not only that you are knowledgeable, but that you are the right person to carry out the research.
• Include information that sets you apart (e.g., publication in  Science, Nature,  or a prestigious journal in your field).
• What excites you about your research? Sound fresh.
• Include preliminary results and how to build on results.
• Point out how current faculty may become future partners.
• Acknowledge the work of others.
• Use language that shows you are an independent researcher.
• BUT focus on your research work, not yourself.
• Include potential funding partners and industrial collaborations. Be creative!
• Provide a summary of your research.
• Put in background material to give the context/relevance/significance of your research.
• List major findings, outcomes, and implications.
• Describe both current and planned (future) research.
• Communicate a sense that your research will follow logically from what you have done and that it will be unique, significant, and innovative (and easy to fund).

Describe Your Future Goals or Research Plans

• Major problem(s) you want to focus on in your research.
• The problem’s relevance and significance to the field.
• Your specific goals for the next three to five years, including potential impact and outcomes.
• If you know what a particular agency funds, you can name the agency and briefly outline a proposal.
• Give broad enough goals so that if one area doesn’t get funded, you can pursue other research goals and funding.

Identify Potential Funding Sources

• Almost every institution wants to know whether you’ll be able to get external funding for research.
• Try to provide some possible sources of funding for the research, such as NIH, NSF, foundations, private agencies.
• Mention past funding, if appropriate.

Be Realistic

There is a delicate balance between a realistic research statement where you promise to work on problems you really think you can solve and over-reaching or dabbling in too many subject areas. Select an over-arching theme for your research statement and leave miscellaneous ideas or projects out. Everyone knows that you will work on more than what you mention in this statement.

Consider Also Preparing a Longer Version

• A longer version (five–15 pages) can be brought to your interview. (Check with your advisor to see if this is necessary.)
• You may be asked to describe research plans and budget in detail at the campus interview. Be prepared.
• Include laboratory needs (how much budget you need for equipment, how many grad assistants, etc.) to start up the research.

Samples of Research Statements

To find sample research statements with content specific to your discipline, search on the internet for your discipline + “Research Statement.”

• University of Pennsylvania Sample Research Statement
• Advice on writing a Research Statement (Plan) from the journal  Science

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Graduate School Applications: Writing a Research Statement

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What is a Research Statement?

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

The research statement is a common component of a potential candidate’s application for post-undergraduate study. This may include applications for graduate programs, post-doctoral fellowships, or faculty positions. The research statement is often the primary way that a committee determines if a candidate’s interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

What Should It Look Like?

Research statements are generally one to two single-spaced pages. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application.

Your research statement should situate your work within the larger context of your field and show how your works contributes to, complicates, or counters other work being done. It should be written for an audience of other professionals in your field.

What Should It Include?

Your statement should start by articulating the broader field that you are working within and the larger question or questions that you are interested in answering. It should then move to articulate your specific interest.

The body of your statement should include a brief history of your past research . What questions did you initially set out to answer in your research project? What did you find? How did it contribute to your field? (i.e. did it lead to academic publications, conferences, or collaborations?). How did your past research propel you forward?

It should also address your present research . What questions are you actively trying to solve? What have you found so far? How are you connecting your research to the larger academic conversation? (i.e. do you have any publications under review, upcoming conferences, or other professional engagements?) What are the larger implications of your work?

Finally, it should describe the future trajectory on which you intend to take your research. What further questions do you want to solve? How do you intend to find answers to these questions? How can the institution to which you are applying help you in that process? What are the broader implications of your potential results?

Note: Make sure that the research project that you propose can be completed at the institution to which you are applying.

Other Considerations:

• What is the primary question that you have tried to address over the course of your academic career? Why is this question important to the field? How has each stage of your work related to that question?
• Include a few specific examples that show your success. What tangible solutions have you found to the question that you were trying to answer? How have your solutions impacted the larger field? Examples can include references to published findings, conference presentations, or other professional involvement.
• Be confident about your skills and abilities. The research statement is your opportunity to sell yourself to an institution. Show that you are self-motivated and passionate about your project.

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Research statements for faculty job applications

The purpose of a research statement.

The main goal of a research statement is to walk the search committee through the evolution of your research, to highlight your research accomplishments, and to show where your research will be taking you next. To a certain extent, the next steps that you identify within your statement will also need to touch on how your research could benefit the institution to which you are applying. This might be in terms of grant money, faculty collaborations, involving students in your research, or developing new courses. Your CV will usually show a search committee where you have done your research, who your mentors have been, the titles of your various research projects, a list of your papers, and it may provide a very brief summary of what some of this research involves. However, there can be certain points of interest that a CV may not always address in enough detail.

• What got you interested in this research?
• What was the burning question that you set out to answer?
• What challenges did you encounter along the way, and how did you overcome these challenges?
• How can your research be applied?
• Why is your research important within your field?
• What direction will your research take you in next, and what new questions do you have?

While you may not have a good sense of where your research will ultimately lead you, you should have a sense of some of the possible destinations along the way. You want to be able to show a search committee that your research is moving forward and that you are moving forward along with it in terms of developing new skills and knowledge. Ultimately, your research statement should complement your cover letter, CV, and teaching philosophy to illustrate what makes you an ideal candidate for the job. The more clearly you can articulate the path your research has taken, and where it will take you in the future, the more convincing and interesting it will be to read.

Separate research statements are usually requested from researchers in engineering, social, physical, and life sciences, but can also be requested for researchers in the humanities. In many cases, however, the same information that is covered in the research statement is often integrated into the cover letter for many disciplines within the humanities and no separate research statement is requested within the job advertisement. Seek advice from current faculty and new hires about the conventions of your discipline if you are in doubt.

Timeline: Getting Started with Your Research Statement

You can think of a research statement as having three distinct parts. The first part will focus on your past research and can include the reasons you started your research, an explanation as to why the questions you originally asked are important in your field, and a summary some of the work you did to answer some of these early questions.

The middle part of the research statement focuses on your current research. How is this research different from previous work you have done, and what brought you to where you are today? You should still explain the questions you are trying to ask, and it is very important that you focus on some of the findings that you have (and cite some of the publications associated with these findings). In other words, do not talk about your research in abstract terms, make sure that you explain your actual results and findings (even if these may not be entirely complete when you are applying for faculty positions), and mention why these results are significant.

The final part of your research statement should build on the first two parts. Yes, you have asked good questions and used good methods to find some answers, but how will you now use this foundation to take you into your future? Since you are hoping that your future will be at one of the institutions to which you are applying, you should provide some convincing reasons why your future research will be possible at each institution, and why it will be beneficial to that institution and to their students.

While you are focusing on the past, present, and future or your research, and tailoring it to each institution, you should also think about the length of your statement and how detailed or specific you make the descriptions of your research. Think about who will be reading it. Will they all understand the jargon you are using? Are they experts in the subject, or experts in a range of related subjects? Can you go into very specific detail, or do you need to talk about your research in broader terms that make sense to people outside of your research field, focusing on the common ground that might exist? Additionally, you should make sure that your future research plans differ from those of your PI or advisor, as you need to be seen as an independent researcher. Identify 4-5 specific aims that can be divided into short-term and long-term goals. You can give some idea of a 5-year research plan that includes the studies you want to perform, but also mention your long-term plans so that the search committee knows that this is not a finite project.

Another important consideration when writing about your research is realizing that you do not perform research in a vacuum. When doing your research, you may have worked within a team environment at some point or sought out specific collaborations. You may have faced some serious challenges that required some creative problem-solving to overcome. While these aspects are not necessarily as important as your results and your papers or patents, they can help paint a picture of you as a well-rounded researcher who is likely to be successful in the future even if new problems arise, for example.

Follow these general steps to begin developing an effective research statement:

Step 1: Think about how and why you got started with your research. What motivated you to spend so much time on answering the questions you developed? If you can illustrate some of the enthusiasm you have for your subject, the search committee will likely assume that students and other faculty members will see this in you as well. People like to work with passionate and enthusiastic colleagues. Remember to focus on what you found, what questions you answered, and why your findings are significant. The research you completed in the past will have brought you to where you are today; also be sure to show how your research past and research present are connected. Explore some of the techniques and approaches you have successfully used in your research, and describe some of the challenges you overcame. What makes people interested in what you do, and how have you used your research as a tool for teaching or mentoring students? Integrating students into your research may be an important part of your future research at your target institutions. Conclude describing your current research by focusing on your findings, their importance, and what new questions they generate.

Step 2: Think about how you can tailor your research statement for each application. Familiarize yourself with the faculty at each institution, and explore the research that they have been performing. You should think about your future research in terms of the students at the institution. What opportunities can you imagine that would allow students to get involved in what you do to serve as a tool for teaching and training them, and to get them excited about your subject? Do not talk about your desire to work with graduate students if the institution only has undergraduates! You will also need to think about what equipment or resources that you might need to do your future research. Again, mention any resources that specific institutions have that you would be interested in utilizing (e.g., print materials, super electron microscopes, archived artwork). You can also mention what you hope to do with your current and future research in terms of publication (whether in journals or as a book); try to be as specific and honest as possible. Finally, be prepared to talk about how your future research can help bring in grants and other sources of funding, especially if you have a good track record of receiving awards and fellowships. Mention some grants that you know have been awarded to similar research, and state your intention to seek this type of funding.

Step 3: Ask faculty in your department if they are willing to share their own research statements with you. To a certain extent, there will be some subject-specific differences in what is expected from a research statement, and so it is always a good idea to see how others in your field have done it. You should try to draft your own research statement first before you review any statements shared with you. Your goal is to create a unique research statement that clearly highlights your abilities as a researcher.

Step 4: The research statement is typically a few (2-3) pages in length, depending on the number of images, illustrations, or graphs included.  Once you have completed the steps above, schedule an appointment with a career advisor to get feedback on your draft. You should also try to get faculty in your department to review your document if they are willing to do so.

Additional Resources

For further tips, tricks, and strategies for writing a research statement for faculty jobs, see the resources below:

• The PhD Career Training Platform is an eLearning platform with on-demand, self-paced modules that allow PhDs and postdocs to make informed decisions about their career path and learn successful job search strategies from other PhDs. Select the University of Pennsylvania from the drop-down menu, log in using your University ID, and click the “Faculty Careers” tab to learn more about application documents for a faculty job search.
• Writing an Effective Research Statement
• Research Statements for Humanities PhDs
• Tips to Get Started on Your Research Statement (video)

Explore other application documents:

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Writing the Research Plan for Your Academic Job Application

By Jason G. Gillmore, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Hope College, Holland, MI

A research plan is more than a to-do list for this week in lab, or a manila folder full of ideas for maybe someday—at least if you are thinking of a tenure-track academic career in chemistry at virtually any bachelor’s or higher degree–granting institution in the country. A perusal of the academic job ads in C&EN every August–October will quickly reveal that most schools expect a cover letter (whether they say so or not), a CV, a teaching statement, and a research plan, along with reference letters and transcripts. So what is this document supposed to be, and why worry about it now when those job ads are still months away?

What Is a Research Plan?

A research plan is a thoughtful, compelling, well-written document that outlines your exciting, unique research ideas that you and your students will pursue over the next half decade or so to advance knowledge in your discipline and earn you grants, papers, speaking invitations, tenure, promotion, and a national reputation. It must be a document that people at the department you hope to join will (a) read, and (b) be suitably excited about to invite you for an interview.

That much I knew when I was asked to write this article. More specifics I only really knew for my own institution, Hope College (a research intensive undergraduate liberal arts college with no graduate program), and even there you might get a dozen nuanced opinions among my dozen colleagues. So I polled a broad cross-section of my network, spanning chemical subdisciplines at institutions ranging from small, teaching-centered liberal arts colleges to our nation’s elite research programs, such as Scripps and MIT. The responses certainly varied, but they did center on a few main themes, or illustrate a trend across institution types. In this article I’ll share those commonalities, while also encouraging you to be unafraid to contact a search committee chair with a few specific questions, especially for the institutions you are particularly excited about and feel might be the best fit for you.

How Many Projects Should You Have?

While more senior advisors and members of search committees may have gotten their jobs with a single research project, conventional wisdom these days is that you need two to three distinct but related projects. How closely related to one another they should be is a matter of debate, but almost everyone I asked felt that there should be some unifying technique, problem or theme to them. However, the projects should be sufficiently disparate that a failure of one key idea, strategy, or technique will not hamstring your other projects.

For this reason, many applicants wisely choose to identify:

• One project that is a safe bet—doable, fundable, publishable, good but not earthshaking science.
• A second project that is pie-in-the-sky with high risks and rewards.
• A third project that fits somewhere in the middle.

Having more than three projects is probably unrealistic. But even the safest project must be worth doing, and even the riskiest must appear to have a reasonable chance of working.

How Closely Connected Should Your Research Be with Your Past?

Your proposed research must do more than extend what you have already done. In most subdisciplines, you must be sufficiently removed from your postdoctoral or graduate work that you will not be lambasted for clinging to an advisor’s apron strings. After all, if it is such a good idea in their immediate area of interest, why aren’t they pursuing it?!?

But you also must be able to make the case for why your training makes this a good problem for you to study—how you bring a unique skill set as well as unique ideas to this research. The five years you will have to do, fund, and publish the research before crafting your tenure package will go by too fast for you to break into something entirely outside your realm of expertise.

Biochemistry is a partial exception to this advice—in this subdiscipline it is quite common to bring a project with you from a postdoc (or more rarely your Ph.D.) to start your independent career. However, you should still articulate your original contribution to, and unique angle on the work. It is also wise to be sure your advisor tells that same story in his or her letter and articulates support of your pursuing this research in your career as a genuinely independent scientist (and not merely someone who could be perceived as his or her latest "flunky" of a collaborator.)

Should You Discuss Potential Collaborators?

Regarding collaboration, tread lightly as a young scientist seeking or starting an independent career. Being someone with whom others can collaborate in the future is great. Relying on collaborators for the success of your projects is unwise. Be cautious about proposing to continue collaborations you already have (especially with past advisors) and about starting new ones where you might not be perceived as the lead PI. Also beware of presuming you can help advance the research of someone already in a department. Are they still there? Are they still doing that research? Do they actually want that help—or will they feel like you are criticizing or condescending to them, trying to scoop them, or seeking to ride their coattails? Some places will view collaboration very favorably, but the safest route is to cautiously float such ideas during interviews while presenting research plans that are exciting and achievable on your own.

How Do You Show Your Fit?

Some faculty advise tailoring every application packet document to every institution to which you apply, while others suggest tweaking only the cover letter. Certainly the cover letter is the document most suited to introducing yourself and making the case for how you are the perfect fit for the advertised position at that institution. So save your greatest degree of tailoring for your cover letter. It is nice if you can tweak a few sentences of other documents to highlight your fit to a specific school, so long as it is not contrived.

Now, if you are applying to widely different types of institutions, a few different sets of documents will certainly be necessary. The research plan that you target in the middle to get you a job at both Harvard University and Hope College will not get you an interview at either! There are different realities of resources, scope, scale, and timeline. Not that my colleagues and I at Hope cannot tackle research that is just as exciting as Harvard’s. However, we need to have enough of a niche or a unique angle both to endure the longer timeframe necessitated by smaller groups of undergraduate researchers and to ensure that we still stand out. Furthermore, we generally need to be able to do it with more limited resources. If you do not demonstrate that understanding, you will be dismissed out of hand. But at many large Ph.D. programs, any consideration of "niche" can be inferred as a lack of confidence or ambition.

Also, be aware that department Web pages (especially those several pages deep in the site, or maintained by individual faculty) can be woefully out-of-date. If something you are planning to say is contingent on something you read on their Web site, find a way to confirm it!

While the research plan is not the place to articulate start-up needs, you should consider instrumentation and other resources that will be necessary to get started, and where you will go for funding or resources down the road. This will come up in interviews, and hopefully you will eventually need these details to negotiate a start-up package.

Who Is Your Audience?

Your research plan should show the big picture clearly and excite a broad audience of chemists across your sub-discipline. At many educational institutions, everyone in the department will read the proposal critically, at least if you make the short list to interview. Even at departments that leave it all to a committee of the subdiscipline, subdisciplines can be broad and might even still have an outside member on the committee. And the committee needs to justify their actions to the department at large, as well as to deans, provosts, and others. So having at least the introduction and executive summaries of your projects comprehensible and compelling to those outside your discipline is highly advantageous.

Good science, written well, makes a good research plan. As you craft and refine your research plan, keep the following strategies, as well as your audience in mind:

• Begin the document with an abstract or executive summary that engages a broad audience and shows synergies among your projects. This should be one page or less, and you should probably write it last. This page is something you could manageably consider tailoring to each institution.
• Provide sufficient details and references to convince the experts you know your stuff and actually have a plan for what your group will be doing in the lab. Give details of first and key experiments, and backup plans or fallback positions for their riskiest aspects.
• Hook your readers with your own ideas fairly early in the document, then strike a balance between your own new ideas and the necessary well referenced background, precedents, and justification throughout. Propose a reasonable tentative timeline, if you can do so in no more than a paragraph or two, which shows how you envision spacing out the experiments within and among your projects. This may fit well into your executive summary
• Show how you will involve students (whether undergraduates, graduate students, an eventual postdoc or two, possibly even high schoolers if the school has that sort of outreach, depending on the institutions to which you are applying) and divide the projects among students.
• Highlight how your work will contribute to the education of these students. While this is especially important at schools with greater teaching missions, it can help set you apart even at research intensive institutions. After all, we all have to demonstrate “broader impacts” to our funding agencies!
• Include where you will pursue funding, as well as publication, if you can smoothly work it in. This is especially true if there is doubt about how you plan to target or "market" your research. Otherwise, it is appropriate to hold off until the interview to discuss this strategy.

So, How Long Should Your Research Plan Be?

Learn more on the Blog

Here is where the answers diverged the most and without a unifying trend across institutions. Bottom line, you need space to make your case, but even more, you need people to read what you write.

A single page abstract or executive summary of all your projects together provides you an opportunity to make the case for unifying themes yet distinct projects. It may also provide space to articulate a timeline. Indeed, many readers will only read this single page in each application, at least until winnowing down to a more manageable list of potential candidates. At the most elite institutions, there may be literally hundreds of applicants, scores of them entirely well-suited to the job.

While three to five pages per proposal was a common response (single spaced, in 11-point Arial or 12-point Times with one inch margins), including references (which should be accurate, appropriate, and current!), some of my busiest colleagues have said they will not read more than about three pages total. Only a few actually indicated they would read up to 12-15 pages for three projects. In my opinion, ten pages total for your research plans should be a fairly firm upper limit unless you are specifically told otherwise by a search committee, and then only if you have two to three distinct proposals.

Why Start Now?

Hopefully, this question has answered itself already! Your research plan needs to be a well thought out document that is an integrated part of applications tailored to each institution to which you apply. It must represent mature ideas that you have had time to refine through multiple revisions and a great deal of critical review from everyone you can get to read them. Moreover, you may need a few different sets of these, especially if you will be applying to a broad range of institutions. So add “write research plans” to this week’s to do list (and every week’s for the next few months) and start writing up the ideas in that manila folder into some genuine research plans. See which ones survive the process and rise to the top and you should be well prepared when the job ads begin to appear in C&EN in August!

Jason G. Gillmore , Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Hope College in Holland, MI. A native of New Jersey, he earned his B.S. (’96) and M.S. (’98) degrees in chemistry from Virginia Tech, and his Ph.D. (’03) in organic chemistry from the University of Rochester. After a short postdoctoral traineeship at Vanderbilt University, he joined the faculty at Hope in 2004. He has received the Dreyfus Start-up Award, Research Corporation Cottrell College Science Award, and NSF CAREER Award, and is currently on sabbatical as a Visiting Research Professor at Arizona State University. Professor Gillmore is the organizer of the Biennial Midwest Postdoc to PUI Professor (P3) Workshop co-sponsored by ACS, and a frequent panelist at the annual ACS Postdoc to Faculty (P2F) Workshops.

Other tips to help engage (or at least not turn off) your readers include:

• Avoid two-column formats.
• Avoid too-small fonts that hinder readability, especially as many will view the documents online rather than in print!
• Use good figures that are readable and broadly understandable!
• Use color as necessary but not gratuitously.

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Home / Professional Development / Resources / Research Statement

• Research Statement

Research institutions increasingly request that applicants for academic positions involving a significant percentage of research time include a research statement with other application materials. This may be more common for postdoctoral scholars applying for research faculty positions, particularly in STEM fields, but is sometimes a request of graduate students and those in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences for faculty positions involving both research and teaching responsibilities.

The research statement describes your current research and plans for future research endeavor. While your CV lists facts about your research, your research statement offers the opportunity to expand and provide personal context, such as why you chose this research subject, difficulties and how you resolved them, and why the research is important. In one to three pages, the statement demonstrates your:

• independent research ability
• writing proficiency
• potential for grant application success

Description of past research should lead to and support the goals you have for future research. The description of current research includes how you will communicate your results, such as publication in a dissertation, paper, book, or other academic forum. The statement should showcase your research success but, more importantly, describe your future research goals and how they are different (and independent from) those you pursued under your faculty adviser. It is key to show your path to research independence, that you developed and followed independent research that you plan to continue to develop wherever you are hired.

If your adviser recommends it, you might want to write different research statements for different institutions and describe how your research goals align with the mission of each institution and program you’re applying to. The most important reviewer of your research statement prior to you sending it with your other portfolio items is your faculty adviser.

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How to write a research plan: Step-by-step guide

Last updated

30 January 2024

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Today’s businesses and institutions rely on data and analytics to inform their product and service decisions. These metrics influence how organizations stay competitive and inspire innovation. However, gathering data and insights requires carefully constructed research, and every research project needs a roadmap. This is where a research plan comes into play.

Read this step-by-step guide for writing a detailed research plan that can apply to any project, whether it’s scientific, educational, or business-related.

• What is a research plan?

A research plan is a documented overview of a project in its entirety, from end to end. It details the research efforts, participants, and methods needed, along with any anticipated results. It also outlines the project’s goals and mission, creating layers of steps to achieve those goals within a specified timeline.

Without a research plan, you and your team are flying blind, potentially wasting time and resources to pursue research without structured guidance.

The principal investigator, or PI, is responsible for facilitating the research oversight. They will create the research plan and inform team members and stakeholders of every detail relating to the project. The PI will also use the research plan to inform decision-making throughout the project.

• Why do you need a research plan?

Create a research plan before starting any official research to maximize every effort in pursuing and collecting the research data. Crucially, the plan will model the activities needed at each phase of the research project .

Like any roadmap, a research plan serves as a valuable tool providing direction for those involved in the project—both internally and externally. It will keep you and your immediate team organized and task-focused while also providing necessary definitions and timelines so you can execute your project initiatives with full understanding and transparency.

External stakeholders appreciate a working research plan because it’s a great communication tool, documenting progress and changing dynamics as they arise. Any participants of your planned research sessions will be informed about the purpose of your study, while the exercises will be based on the key messaging outlined in the official plan.

Here are some of the benefits of creating a research plan document for every project:

Project organization and structure

Well-informed participants

All stakeholders and teams align in support of the project

Clearly defined project definitions and purposes

Distractions are eliminated, prioritizing task focus

Timely management of individual task schedules and roles

Costly reworks are avoided

• What should a research plan include?

The different aspects of your research plan will depend on the nature of the project. However, most official research plan documents will include the core elements below. Each aims to define the problem statement , devising an official plan for seeking a solution.

Specific project goals and individual objectives

Ideal strategies or methods for reaching those goals

Required resources

Descriptions of the target audience, sample sizes , demographics, and scopes

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Project background

Research and testing support

Preliminary studies and progress reporting mechanisms

Cost estimates and change order processes

Depending on the research project’s size and scope, your research plan could be brief—perhaps only a few pages of documented plans. Alternatively, it could be a fully comprehensive report. Either way, it’s an essential first step in dictating your project’s facilitation in the most efficient and effective way.

• How to write a research plan for your project

When you start writing your research plan, aim to be detailed about each step, requirement, and idea. The more time you spend curating your research plan, the more precise your research execution efforts will be.

Account for every potential scenario, and be sure to address each and every aspect of the research.

Consider following this flow to develop a great research plan for your project:

Define your project’s purpose

Start by defining your project’s purpose. Identify what your project aims to accomplish and what you are researching. Remember to use clear language.

Thinking about the project’s purpose will help you set realistic goals and inform how you divide tasks and assign responsibilities. These individual tasks will be your stepping stones to reach your overarching goal.

Additionally, you’ll want to identify the specific problem, the usability metrics needed, and the intended solutions.

Know the following three things about your project’s purpose before you outline anything else:

What you’re doing

Why you’re doing it

What you expect from it

Identify individual objectives

With your overarching project objectives in place, you can identify any individual goals or steps needed to reach those objectives. Break them down into phases or steps. You can work backward from the project goal and identify every process required to facilitate it.

Be mindful to identify each unique task so that you can assign responsibilities to various team members. At this point in your research plan development, you’ll also want to assign priority to those smaller, more manageable steps and phases that require more immediate or dedicated attention.

Select research methods

Once you have outlined your goals, objectives, steps, and tasks, it’s time to drill down on selecting research methods . You’ll want to leverage specific research strategies and processes. When you know what methods will help you reach your goals, you and your teams will have direction to perform and execute your assigned tasks.

Research methods might include any of the following:

User interviews : this is a qualitative research method where researchers engage with participants in one-on-one or group conversations. The aim is to gather insights into their experiences, preferences, and opinions to uncover patterns, trends, and data.

Field studies : this approach allows for a contextual understanding of behaviors, interactions, and processes in real-world settings. It involves the researcher immersing themselves in the field, conducting observations, interviews, or experiments to gather in-depth insights.

Card sorting : participants categorize information by sorting content cards into groups based on their perceived similarities. You might use this process to gain insights into participants’ mental models and preferences when navigating or organizing information on websites, apps, or other systems.

Focus groups : use organized discussions among select groups of participants to provide relevant views and experiences about a particular topic.

Diary studies : ask participants to record their experiences, thoughts, and activities in a diary over a specified period. This method provides a deeper understanding of user experiences, uncovers patterns, and identifies areas for improvement.

Five-second testing: participants are shown a design, such as a web page or interface, for just five seconds. They then answer questions about their initial impressions and recall, allowing you to evaluate the design’s effectiveness.

Surveys : get feedback from participant groups with structured surveys. You can use online forms, telephone interviews, or paper questionnaires to reveal trends, patterns, and correlations.

Tree testing : tree testing involves researching web assets through the lens of findability and navigability. Participants are given a textual representation of the site’s hierarchy (the “tree”) and asked to locate specific information or complete tasks by selecting paths.

Usability testing : ask participants to interact with a product, website, or application to evaluate its ease of use. This method enables you to uncover areas for improvement in digital key feature functionality by observing participants using the product.

Live website testing: research and collect analytics that outlines the design, usability, and performance efficiencies of a website in real time.

There are no limits to the number of research methods you could use within your project. Just make sure your research methods help you determine the following:

What do you plan to do with the research findings?

What decisions will this research inform? How can your stakeholders leverage the research data and results?

Recruit participants and allocate tasks

Next, identify the participants needed to complete the research and the resources required to complete the tasks. Different people will be proficient at different tasks, and having a task allocation plan will allow everything to run smoothly.

Prepare a thorough project summary

Every well-designed research plan will feature a project summary. This official summary will guide your research alongside its communications or messaging. You’ll use the summary while recruiting participants and during stakeholder meetings. It can also be useful when conducting field studies.

Ensure this summary includes all the elements of your research project . Separate the steps into an easily explainable piece of text that includes the following:

An introduction: the message you’ll deliver to participants about the interview, pre-planned questioning, and testing tasks.

Interview questions: prepare questions you intend to ask participants as part of your research study, guiding the sessions from start to finish.

An exit message: draft messaging your teams will use to conclude testing or survey sessions. These should include the next steps and express gratitude for the participant’s time.

Create a realistic timeline

While your project might already have a deadline or a results timeline in place, you’ll need to consider the time needed to execute it effectively.

Realistically outline the time needed to properly execute each supporting phase of research and implementation. And, as you evaluate the necessary schedules, be sure to include additional time for achieving each milestone in case any changes or unexpected delays arise.

For this part of your research plan, you might find it helpful to create visuals to ensure your research team and stakeholders fully understand the information.

Determine how to present your results

A research plan must also describe how you intend to present your results. Depending on the nature of your project and its goals, you might dedicate one team member (the PI) or assume responsibility for communicating the findings yourself.

In this part of the research plan, you’ll articulate how you’ll share the results. Detail any materials you’ll use, such as:

Presentations and slides

A project report booklet

A project findings pamphlet

Documents with key takeaways and statistics

Graphic visuals to support your findings

• Format your research plan

As you create your research plan, you can enjoy a little creative freedom. A plan can assume many forms, so format it how you see fit. Determine the best layout based on your specific project, intended communications, and the preferences of your teams and stakeholders.

Find format inspiration among the following layouts:

Written outlines

Narrative storytelling

Visual mapping

Graphic timelines

Remember, the research plan format you choose will be subject to change and adaptation as your research and findings unfold. However, your final format should ideally outline questions, problems, opportunities, and expectations.

• Research plan example

Imagine you’ve been tasked with finding out how to get more customers to order takeout from an online food delivery platform. The goal is to improve satisfaction and retain existing customers. You set out to discover why more people aren’t ordering and what it is they do want to order or experience. 

You identify the need for a research project that helps you understand what drives customer loyalty . But before you jump in and start calling past customers, you need to develop a research plan—the roadmap that provides focus, clarity, and realistic details to the project.

Here’s an example outline of a research plan you might put together:

Project title

Project members involved in the research plan

Purpose of the project (provide a summary of the research plan’s intent)

Objective 1 (provide a short description for each objective)

Objective 2

Objective 3

Proposed timeline

Audience (detail the group you want to research, such as customers or non-customers)

Budget (how much you think it might cost to do the research)

Risk factors/contingencies (any potential risk factors that may impact the project’s success)

Remember, your research plan doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel—it just needs to fit your project’s unique needs and aims.

Customizing a research plan template

Some companies offer research plan templates to help get you started. However, it may make more sense to develop your own customized plan template. Be sure to include the core elements of a great research plan with your template layout, including the following:

Introductions to participants and stakeholders

Background problems and needs statement

Significance, ethics, and purpose

Research methods, questions, and designs

Preliminary beliefs and expectations

Implications and intended outcomes

Realistic timelines for each phase

Conclusion and presentations

How many pages should a research plan be?

Generally, a research plan can vary in length between 500 to 1,500 words. This is roughly three pages of content. More substantial projects will be 2,000 to 3,500 words, taking up four to seven pages of planning documents.

What is the difference between a research plan and a research proposal?

A research plan is a roadmap to success for research teams. A research proposal, on the other hand, is a dissertation aimed at convincing or earning the support of others. Both are relevant in creating a guide to follow to complete a project goal.

What are the seven steps to developing a research plan?

While each research project is different, it’s best to follow these seven general steps to create your research plan:

Defining the problem

Identifying goals

Choosing research methods

Recruiting participants

Preparing the brief or summary

Establishing task timelines

Defining how you will present the findings

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Do you want to discover previous research faster?

Do you share your research findings with others?

Do you analyze research data?

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The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

Dr. Karen’s Rules of the Research Statement

By Karen Kelsky | September 16, 2016

We’ve looked at the Cover Letter and the CV  and the Teaching Statement .  Today we look at the Research Statement.

An expanded and updated version of this post can now be found in chapter  27 of my book, the professor is in: the essential guide to turning your ph.d. into a job ..

Today, at long last, and in response to popular demand, a post on the Research Statement.

I have, perhaps, procrastinated on blogging about the Research Statement because at some level I felt that the rules might be more variable on this document, particularly with regard to length.

But in truth, they really aren’t.

The RS should be be two pages long for any junior candidate in the humanities or soft social sciences.  Two pages allows for an elaboration of the research well beyond the summary in the cover letter that gives the search committee substantial information to work with. Those junior candidates in the hard sciences and fields like Psychology can have 3-4 page research statements.

I strongly urge all job-seekers to investigate the norms of their individual fields carefully, and follow the advice they receive on this matter from experts in their own fields.  Just never simply ASSUME that longer is better in an RS or in any job document.

By the way, the RS to which I refer here is the document sometimes requested as part of a basic job application.  This is NOT the “research proposal” required by specific fellowship or postdoc applications!   Those will specify a length, and should be written to follow the outline I describe in Dr. Karen’s Foolproof Grant Template .) They are a totally different genre of document; don’t confuse the two!

Anyway, back to the RS: there are undoubtedly a number of excellent reasons that people could give for writing a longer RS, based on thoroughness or detail or concerns for accuracy. And I would acknowledge those principles as valid ones.

But they would all come second to the single most important principle of all job market writing, in my view, which is the principle of search committee exhaustion.

Search committee members are exhausted, and they are overwhelmed and distracted. There simply is no bandwidth in their brains or their psyches to handle the amount of material they are required to read, when searches routinely garner between 300 and 1000 applications.

Anything that feels “long” is going to be resented just by virtue of its length. And resentment is categorically what you don’t want a search committee member feeling about your job application materials.

So, in short, the Research Statement, just like the Teaching Statement , needs to be one to two pages in length, single spaced.  And like the TS, it needs to be in 11 or 12 point font, and have decent one-inch margins.

What are the other rules? Here they are:

• Print the RS on regular printer paper. Do not use letterhead for this or the TS, and do not use any special high grade paper.
• Put your name and the words “Research Statement” centered at the top.
• If unsure how to structure, use a 5-paragraph model as follows:

[… edited… ] 

Here are some additional principles:

• A RS (like a TS) is not tailored to a school overtly. While you may subtly adjust your project descriptions to speak to a specific type of job, you do not refer to any job or department or application in the statement itself.
• Do not refer to any other job documents in the RS (ie, “As you can see from my CV, I have published extensively….”)
• As in all job documents, remain strictly at the level of the evidentiary. State what you did, what you concluded, what you published, and why it matters for your discipline, period. Do not editorialize or make grandiose claims (“this research is of critical importance to…”).
• Do not waste precious document real estate on what other scholars have NOT done. Never go negative. Stay entirely in the realm of what you did, not what others didn’t.
• Do not position yourself as “extending” or “adding to” or “building off of” or … [what follows is edited…]
• Do not refer to other faculty or scholars in the document. The work is your own. If you co-authored a piece…
• Do not refer to yourself as studying “under” anybody…
• Do not forget to articulate the core argument of your research. I am astounded at how often (probably in about 80% of client documents) I have to remind clients to …
• Give a sense of a publishing trajectory, moving from past to present…
• Make sure you are not coming across as a one-trick pony. The second major project must be clearly distinct …
• Use the active voice as much as possible, but beware a continual reliance on “I-Statements”, as I describe in this post, The Golden Rule of the Research Statement.

I will stop here. Readers, please feel free to add more in the comments.  I will add to this post as further refinements come to mind.

Similar Posts:

• This Christmas, Don’t Be Cheap
• The Dreaded Teaching Statement: Eight Pitfalls
• What is Evidence of Teaching Excellence?
• The Golden Rule of the Research Statement
• How Do I Address Search Committee Members?

Reader Interactions

August 30, 2012 at 12:38 pm

I am interested in applying for Ph.D programs in the UK and they ask for a Research Proposal…is this the same thing as a Research Statement?

August 30, 2012 at 12:59 pm

No, they are looking for what you might think of as a research protocol, so literally your background, literature review, hypotheses and methods. You would need to convey how this is a unique area of research that is novel and adds to the existing literature; they are assessing the novelty of your research and how you would conduct the study. PhD programs in the UK are heavily researched based; you would need to show that you could literally hit the ground running to do your PhD. A major difference is that UK PhD’s usually take 3-4 years full-time and this is stringently enforced. I have a PhD from the UK and there are obviously pros and cons compared to the US system but you need to be a confident researcher if you’re planning to take that route.

August 30, 2012 at 1:28 pm

No: a Research Proposal is intended as a pitch for a specific project, or the research programme you will undertake within a specific timeframe (such as a PhD or a post-doc). A Research Statement is used for applications for jobs and occasionally fellowships, and outlines the research you have *already* completed, and what you plan to pursue next. So your Research Statement will describe your doctoral thesis as a finished (or very nearly finished) product, and list the publications generated by your doctoral work and any subsequent projects.

August 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm

No, a research proposal is a description of what you would like to do for you PhD research. Essentially an outline of your expected PhD thesis (which can of course change later once you’ve been accepted and started working on your research) with a short lit review, an identification of a research gap that you plan to address and a brief outline of proposed methods.

August 30, 2012 at 12:46 pm

What about in the case where you are asked to provide a “Teaching and Research Statement” in addition to a statement of your teaching philosophy? I have gone for a one page statement which focuses on my research but links that to my teaching so as not to repeat too much from my philosophy or my cover letter. Any thoughts from others?

August 30, 2012 at 5:02 pm

I’m preparing a “Teaching and Research Statement” and have kept it at 2 pages (1 page for teaching and 1 for research). Do others think that’s OK? If it’s 1 page total, for both teaching and research, then how much could I really say? That’s so short, less room than a 2-page cover letter.

September 1, 2012 at 9:05 am

Yes, on occasions where jobs ask for that combined statement, I always work with clients to do a two page document, with one page devoted to each part.

September 20, 2017 at 10:09 am

Found the blog this week… I wish I found sooner!! Gongrats! One add-on question: in the case of a combined document, would you start with the RS and then TS, or it doesn’t make much difference?

September 21, 2017 at 9:56 am

I’d start with RS in general, but it would depend on the job – teaching-centric jobs would be the reverse.

September 16, 2021 at 7:13 pm

Hello, so glad I found your blog! The application I am putting together requests a statement of research philosophy, a teaching philosophy, and a combined research and teaching interests statement. In this case, would one page combined be sufficient with a much briefer review of interests in each area (given that so much more detail is available in the philosophy statements)?

August 30, 2012 at 1:21 pm

In my field in R1 jobs it is pretty rare that one is asked to prepare a research statement. This stuff does in the cover letter. Any insight into when one is asked for this?

August 30, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Field dependent, but as KK points out, you should have a research paragraph (or two) in your cover letter anyway…

August 30, 2012 at 1:26 pm

The above echoes my experience. One obvious caveat would be postdocs and such that either stipulate a longer statement length (the ol’ two page Fulbright IIE style), or suggest a wider range of material should be included.

August 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Thanks for the tips – a very useful post! How do these apply to postdoc applications?

– If the required length of the research statement is not stipulated, would one page also be sufficient for a postdoc application?

– Also, what is the convention for naming (with title) your advisor in the cover letter – should this also be avoided?

August 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm

In terms of the 5-paragraph model, where would you include subsequent projects, i.e if you are on your second or third post-doc. Do you give equal time/space to each project you have completed, or just the basic run-down and focus more on current or upcoming work?

August 30, 2012 at 3:46 pm

This is a good question. If you’re well beyond the diss, then you will use the “diss” para to describe your most important recent research, then at the end of that para or in the next one, indicate with a sentence or two the research that preceded it (demonstrating an organic connection between them if possible), with a major publication or two. And then from that, move to the next major project. So it’s a bit more of a zig zag, with the past sandwiched between (and subordinate to) the present and the future.

August 30, 2012 at 3:47 pm

Let me respond in a different way. if you are a senior scholar applying for an associate or full position, then your RS may certainly be longer than one page (although I’d cap it at two, myself). The one page rule applies most to those who are seeking their first or second assistant professor position.

August 30, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Where is the appropriate place to highlight (solo or lead-author) publications developed outside of your dissertation work? For example, a secondary area of inquiry that runs tangential to your core area of research.

September 1, 2012 at 9:08 am

That can get another paragraph. Now, this is tricky. If you have an *extensive* secondary body of work for whatever reason then in that case, you may be one of the people who can go onto two pages. This is rare—most job seekers just have their diss, its pubs, and a planned second project, and that can all go on one page. If you have a small body of secondary research, that can also still fit on one page. So the judgment call comes in knowing how much is “too much” to legitimately fit on one page. Questions like that are what people hire me for!

August 30, 2012 at 5:07 pm

I’m wondering about repeating myself. The 5-paragraph format for the research statement is very similar to the format for the cover letter. So should we more briefly discuss points we’ve fleshed out in the cover letter, to save the space for points that are not in the cover letter? Or is repeating the info in the research statement and cover letter OK/expected? (If you’re repeating yourself, then there’s the issue of figuring out X different ways to say the same thing.)

I answer this in another response, but basically you have the space here to go into far more detail about the scholarship itself—the methods, the theoretical orientation, a very brief and edited literature context, and a strong statement of contribution to the discipline. You can give chapter summaries of about one sentence each, and you can also describe the publications in a sentence or two (not possible in the job letter). And the biggest thing in the RS is the description of the second project. The cover letter devotes a very short paragraph to that, of approximately 2-3 sentences, but in the RS, it can get a full-sized paragraph.

January 21, 2020 at 1:11 pm

This is a very delayed response, but I’m hoping you still get the notification! I want to make sure that it’s appropriate to cite specific authors in describing the lit context. Thank you much!

August 30, 2012 at 7:30 pm

I struggle with para. 4 because I have 3 major post-diss projects in mind. 2 are off-shoots of the diss. material in the sense that they contribute to the same field as my diss. but look at very different aspects than my diss. covered. The 3rd project is a completely different trajectory with little-no connection to my diss. I fear it sounds “out of left field” as they say, but it’s my dream-project. So I’m not sure how to communicate all of these interests. Thoughts?

September 1, 2012 at 9:12 am

This is a huge question, and one that I’m going to edit the post to include. It is critical that no job seeker propose more than one next project. This may seem counter-intuitive. Surely, the more ideas I have, the more intellectually dynamic I look, right? Wrong. Anything above one major post-diss project makes you look scattered and at risk in your eventual tenure case. A tenure case requires a clear and linear trajectory from the diss, its pubs, to a second project, and its pubs.

Now, I hasten to add that this rule applies most firmly in the humanities and humanistically inclined social sciences. In the hard sciences, and experimental or lab-based social sciences, the rhythm of research and publishing is different and different rules might possibly apply, with a larger number of smaller-scale projects possible. But in book fields, you need to do one book…and then a second book…for tenure.

September 4, 2012 at 9:49 am

thanks Karen, I will keep this in mind

October 22, 2016 at 9:01 am

Do you know of a source for more information about this problem from the hard sciences and engineering perspective?

August 30, 2012 at 10:02 pm

In a research proposal (i.e., for a specific postdoc), what is the appropriate length of time for revising a dissertation for publication? My instinct is, for a 3-year program, to devote 2 years to revision/publication, and one year to the new research project. Is this too slow, too fast, too hot, too cold, or just right?

September 1, 2012 at 9:00 am

To my mind that is exactly right. However, I know of a major Ivy League 3-year fellowship that expects 3 years to be spent on the first book. I find that baffling. As a postdoc you have few teaching obligations and almost no committee/service work….why would it require three years to transform your diss to a book in that environment? This particular app does allow you to *optionally* propose a second project for the third year, and I recommend that all applicants do that.

August 30, 2012 at 10:07 pm

Karen, thanks for this and all of your other helpful posts. I’m a sociology phd student at a top department, and served on the hiring committee last year. Not a single applicant made it onto our short list (or even the “semifinalist” list of 30 candidates) with less than a 2 page research statement (and most were 2.5-3 pages). Maybe my institution is unique, or maybe they were poorly written and not as detailed as they could have been in one page. But I just wanted to share my experience for any sociologists reading this blog.

September 1, 2012 at 9:01 am

That’s interesting. That would seem to be fetishizing length qua length…. the work can be described in one page when the one page is well written.

September 4, 2012 at 7:45 am

I’m in a top psychology program, and I echo this– I have read many research statements for short-listed candidates in my department, and I have never seen a research statement shorter than two pages, and typically they are three or four.

September 5, 2012 at 10:27 am

I crowd sourced the question on FB and most responses said they favor a one page version. I suppose this could be a field specific thing. The humanities are def. one page. It strikes me that social sciences and psych in particular might be tending toward longer. I really wouldn’t recommend more than two though.

September 17, 2013 at 8:58 am

I am writing my own R.S. and have asked for copies from colleagues in both psychology and the life sciences. In all cases, the R.S. has been at least 4 pages. So, it doesn’t seem specific to just the social sciences. Maybe it’s a difference in the prestige of the universities, with R-1 preferring lengthier research statements, while liberal arts universities prefer a smaller research statement. Most candidates at R-1s also have lengthier C.V.s which would imply a longer R.S. no?

September 17, 2013 at 9:48 pm

October 15, 2013 at 8:17 pm

I’d seen a lot of recommendations online for RSs to have a hard limit of either one or two pages. When I asked my own (Education) professors about it, they said that two pages sounded short and that they’d seen everything from one page to ten pages but recommended keeping it no longer than 3-4. Right now mine is 2.5 pages.

August 30, 2012 at 10:24 pm

Thanks for this really helpful post! A few quick quick follow up questions that I’m sure may benefit others who have similar concerns. 1. As we situate our dissertation research within our fields (paragraph 2/3) does this mean we have license to use field-specific vocabulary or theoretical language? (as opposed to the cover letter, where we’re writing in a much more accessible voice?) 2. Also, many of the items in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs you suggest would seem to overlap quite extensively with the cover letter, making it hard to properly differentiate what goes where. For schools that require this statement, should we just strip down our cover letter and include some of these details in our research statement? Or, is there something I’m missing? And finally, 3. A bit of a mega-question, but what is the *point* of a research statement? Why do some schools have them? Understanding the reasons some departments request it would be helpful, especially in differentiating from the cover letter. Sincerely, Grad-student-on-the-market

September 1, 2012 at 8:58 am

Never strip down the cover letter. That is the document that opens the door for the reading of the other docs such as TS and RS. The distinction of the RS is that it can be more field-specific and far more detailed than what you can provide in the single para devoted to the research in the job letter. You can also situate the research vis-a-vis scholarship in the field (carefully and within limits, remembering the rules that the work described is YOUR OWN, and never to devote precious real estate to what OTHER PEOPLE have or have not done).

You can also briefly sketch the chapters of the dissertation as long as you give no more than about one sentence per chapter. One of the most tedious pitfalls of the RS is the exhaustive chapter-by-chapter description of the diss.

And re #3: that’s a great question. What IS the point? Basically, if the cover letter and CV open the door to your candidacy for the very first cut in a search comm member’s mind (say, from 500 to 100), then the RS gives more detailed indication that are a hard-hitting scholar with a sophisticated research program and a body of dense scholarship that will yield the publications you need for tenure, and also answer the question more clearly as to your fit for the job and for the department.

August 31, 2012 at 9:32 am

Is the Research statement the same as the diss abstract? My field seems to consistently ask for diss abstract and all the examples I have seen are two pages, with page one being a discussion of the project, it’s contributions, etc. and the second being ch descriptions.

August 31, 2012 at 12:05 pm

No, the diss abs. is an abstract of the diss! Common in English.

November 2, 2012 at 11:26 am

thanks for making this distinction. is there a length limit on the diss abstract?

September 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm

I’m in a STEM field and would disagree with limiting the RS to 1 page. Most research statements that I have seen (for searches at R1 schools) have been 2-3 pages. One aspect of this which may be different in STEM fields compared to social sciences/humanities is that in STEM you really should include between 1 and 3 figures in the research statement. We like data and we want to see yours. My research statements always included at least two figures – one from published work and one from a cool new result that wasn’t yet published (but was either in review or accepted but not in press, making it hard to scoop). Depending on the school I also sometimes included a picture of a cool method (it’s a pretty pic too) – that was typically done for SLAC apps where I was also making the point that I would be able to involve their students in that research. With figures that are actually readable, there is no way to get away with less than 2-3 pages for a research statement. Again I think this may be STEM specific but given how scientists read journals – most folks go straight to the figures and then later look at the text – this is probably a good tactic in those fields.

September 4, 2012 at 12:21 pm

I love the idea that a research statement could include figures. I’ve never seen one like this (I’m in biological anthropology) and have never thought this would be something that could be included.

September 5, 2012 at 10:25 am

In the hard sciences this is not uncommon.

September 1, 2012 at 4:33 pm

Forgive me for bringing up/asking the perhaps obvious. So no master’s thesis mention?

Also, you mention not providing two second projects. Would that still apply if one is far-away foreign, and the other local?

September 4, 2012 at 9:43 am

Another question on the MA – mine was empirical research published in a general science journal (Proc B) so I definitely need to mention it. But my question is whether I should explicitly say that this was my MA project?

I’m entering the job market ABD.

September 5, 2012 at 10:26 am

avoid framing yourself as a student, particularly MA.

September 4, 2012 at 9:32 am

I’d say, especially for humanities fields, the “baseline” of 1 page single-spaced that Karen mentions is correct. As she says in the post, there are obvious exceptions (STEM might want more, specific jobs might want more), but assuming 1 page without any other specific information is a good standard rule. In fact, from my own experience, 1 page generally works for any document that isn’t your vitae or your job letter.

The reason I say this is because you basically want to make a good impression pretty quickly. Job committees have limited time, and they are probably going to scan your document before deciding whether it is worth reading it in full. I’d also suggest reading up on document design, and making your documents easy to scan by putting in effective headers that give a powerful overall impression of your candidacy. You should also design those headers to lure your readers to look at your work more closely.

September 4, 2012 at 12:04 pm

I’m going through the process right now as an ABD, following advice from many quarters including TPII and a number of junior and senior faculty in top departments in my field. I have collected sample statements from 5 successful candidates and they are all in the 3-5 page range, closer to what the sociologist above describes. I have not seen a single statement at one page.

September 4, 2012 at 6:23 pm

When proposing future research, do you still recommend we avoid stating what others have NOT done? Can these types of statements, “yet others have not yet address xxx and yyy”, be helpful in justifying the need for our proposed topic?

It is always good to indicate, rather briskly, “in contrast to other work that has emphasized xxx…” or “no studies to date have examined xxxx.” What I am cautioning against is the very common temptation among young candidates to harp on and on about other scholars’ shortcomings, or how their diss topic is “badly understudied” (a phrase I’d give my right hand never to have to read again). Can the self-righteousness and just describe your work and its contribution.

September 7, 2012 at 12:54 pm

thanks for the post!

I had a question about not giving the sense that one is “extending” past work. As you say in this post: “Avoid the temptation to describe how you will “continue” or “extend” your previous research topics or approaches.”

In my case, my book will be comprised of about half new material and half dissertation research. “Extending” feels like an accurate word to describe the relationship between the diss and the book. Like, ‘Extending my diss research on xxx, the book offers new ways of thinking about issues yyy and zzz. …’

So is this the wrong way to describe the relationship between book and diss (even if it seems accurate?) What are *good* ways to talk about the relationship between the two when the book really does “build on” groundwork laid in the diss?

September 7, 2012 at 2:45 pm

This question actually requires a blog post on its own. There is a weird fixation among job seekers on the word ‘extend.” I don’t get it, and find it mystifying and irritating. Of course books or second projects will typically have some organic connection to the diss. But the insistence on saying that they “extend” the diss makes the DISS primary, and the new work secondary. But on the job market and in your career, the diss must NOT be primary. The diss is something a grad student writes. You are not applying to be a grad student. You are applying to be professor. So it’s the new material that should have primacy. Yet young job seekers are so myopically fixated on their diss that all they ever do is harp on and on about how every single damned thing they’re going to do next is basically a reworking of the diss material. Yuck! Who wants that?

As you can see, I am a bit reactive at this point…

September 7, 2012 at 2:53 pm

ok! I hear you saying that it is more about not giving the sense, throughout the letter, that the book is a mere “extension” of the dissertation, and that typically this word is overused by applicants and thus gives that impression. That makes sense. Personally, the sentence I noted above about is my only reference to the diss–the rest is all about the book and future project since I’m a postdoc and the diss is really in the past. 🙂 thanks!

September 15, 2012 at 7:19 pm

Thanks for the helpful guidelines, Karen!

How would you recommend shifting the focus of the paragraphs for those of us going on the market as postdocs? For me, I’ll have completed 2 years of a postdoc in Education, and so I have many new projects more relevant to my future research than my dissertation was. However, except for a few conference proceedings, I have no publications on my postdoc research yet. In fact, some of my proposed “new” research will be to continue what I began in my postdoctoc. Do hiring committees look down upon this?

Thanks for your advice!

September 22, 2012 at 5:58 am

Does anyone here know if this is an effective format for British Oxbridge postdocs as well? I’m finishing a UK PhD and pretty keen to stay in the country, and obviously these are madly competitive. I know my research is good, but the eternal question of how to make anything in the humanities sound important to other people, you know?

October 13, 2012 at 5:31 pm

Please tag this post so that it appears under the teaching and research statement category!

October 13, 2012 at 9:05 pm

October 29, 2012 at 4:38 pm

Karen: “Just never simply ASSUME that longer is better in an RS or in any job document”

Yours Truly: “Just never simply ASSUME that they are going to read what you write. Often they a long CV, RS, and list of publications to tick all the boxes and cover their backs.”

November 20, 2012 at 1:35 pm

If I consider teaching and curriculum development part of my research, is it okay to mention this in the RS–specifically if written for a university more focused on teaching than research? My assumption is that R1 schools would look down on this…?

November 20, 2012 at 2:56 pm

Unless you’re in the field of education, you can’t include teaching or curric. in a RS.

December 16, 2012 at 11:44 pm

Than you very much Karen. A valuable guide

December 31, 2012 at 7:37 pm

Does the rule of no more than one future project description apply to the field of developmental psychology?

*Please delete above post with my full name, I did not realize it would post

January 1, 2013 at 9:35 am

You would need to investigate that among your profs and colleagues. I don’t know the expectations of all fields well enough to advise.

September 18, 2013 at 4:10 pm

I wrote a research statement and asked a friend in my department look at it. She said I should include a paragraph on collaborative work I’ve done as well. The problem is that all of my “collaborative” work is really “assistance”. I do not want to frame myself as a graduate student, but I also see the value in highlighting my ability to produce scholarship with other people. Any thoughts on this, Karen or others?

September 27, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Many thanks! I searched through a tone of sites for samples and examples, but yours is the most helpful.

September 29, 2013 at 7:32 am

Does one use references and include a reference list in a research statement?

October 24, 2013 at 10:40 am

I’d like to know the answer to this question, too.

Karen’s advise (Do not refer to other faculty or scholars in the document. The work is your own. If you co-authored a piece, do not use the name of the co-author. Simply write, “I have a co-authored essay in the Journal of XXX.”) sounds like you shouldn’t, but I personally see more advantages (that’s what scholars are used to, you can reference one paper multiple times without much space, you give the full information of your papers) then disadvantages (mention other authors).

So some remarks on using reference lists/bibliographies would be really interesting.

October 11, 2013 at 2:17 pm

You mention that P4 should include: “A summary of the next research project, providing a topic, methods, a theoretical orientation, and brief statement of contribution to your field or fields.”

How specific do you need to get with that information? I want the review committees to see that I have good, viable ideas for future research, but at the same time I’m worried that by giving too many details my ideas are liable to get stolen…not to mention that more detail means a lot more space on the document and I’m already finding it really hard to keep it to 2 pages even just using pretty general info. All the example research statements from my field that I’m reading make generalized statements like, “This area of my research will focus on developing and characterizing the structure of smart multifunctional materials for infrastructure applications,” but that just doesn’t seem like enough…

Thanks for the advice! Your blog has been so valuable as I am preparing my application package. 🙂

October 24, 2013 at 8:52 am

Hi Karen, I am applying for a few Phd positions & programs around the world, and some programs ask for a research statement, some for a statement of purpose. I fell Ill during my master’s studies and it had impacted my studies to the point of taking a leave of absence(and is known by my referees). As I understand, I can mention that in a SOP, but not in a research statement. Is there anyway I can communicate to the admissions committee about my situation (within the scope of my application) ?

October 30, 2013 at 7:13 am

Hello, Karen, I am an old follower returning. In a research statement, do you give considerably less space to what is already published, books and articles, and much more space and detail to describe projects(s) in progress or about to be launched as research proposal applications?

October 31, 2013 at 7:32 am

I recommend balancing about half and half; in the case of very young/junior candidates, though, the previous/current stuff is going to far outweigh the future stuff.

November 6, 2013 at 12:32 am

I am applying to an R1 and part of the app package asks for a “statement of research interests”. it sounds self-evident, but this is different from a research statement, right? They are, in fact, wanting to know what my future research projects are, to ascertain if i am a good prospect, correct?

Many thanks, Karen and co.!!!

November 8, 2013 at 10:40 am

No. it’s the same thing.

November 8, 2013 at 2:35 pm

Hi, I am applying to graduate school, and some programs ask for a research statement. I have not done any independent research, but have worked in a lab under a postdoc for three years. As a undergrad, is it okay to refer to the postdoc by name and say that I was assisting? Should this be structured any differently than the model you gave above? Thanks!

January 20, 2014 at 5:02 am

I’m applying for a PhD scholarship and I’m required to write a research statement. Is there any different format for a PhD student to be or just follow the same as per above?

Thanks a lot!

February 7, 2014 at 10:58 am

Hi, Could you please let me know if it is proper to mention some of projects in a certain master course that one took? I asked this because I am applying for a position that almost there is not a direct relation between my master thesis and my prospective PhD supervisor’s research interests. Thank you in advance.

February 21, 2014 at 11:23 pm

If some of your research background was for a government agency and your results went to government documents and forms, are you allowed to include it in your research statement. For example, I am applying for a job that calls for a research statement in which I would be designing stream sampling plans and in the past I worked for state government designing and implementing SOPs for stream sampling and EPA reports. This experience is much more applicable to the job than my dissertation research is. In other words, is the RS more to show I can do research and think like a researcher or that I have done similar research in the past?

March 6, 2014 at 10:00 am

Hi, This post has been really helpful to me. I have a question about citations in a research statement. Should I cite relevant or seminal studies? Or is a research statement assumed to be written out of the authors own confidence, experience, and general knowledge of their field of study? If yes to citations, is there an optimal amount? Thank you!

April 26, 2014 at 11:01 am

I dont understand why I cannot name who I collaborated with, or worked with and claim complete ownership. Most of all disseration ideas comes out of a collaborative effort. Seems kinda lame to suddenly act like every idea is all mine without giving due credit.

April 26, 2014 at 12:00 pm

it’s not claiming ownership. It’s focusing on the work that YOU did as part of the project and not dispersing attention to other scholars, in this particular document.

April 28, 2014 at 10:09 am

I disagree. All of your recommendations are valid except for this one. In science and engineering, almost all dissertation work is collaborative; that’s how it works, either through industry applications, a reagent or mathematical technique, opportunity to apply theory to projects etc. Of course, the student has to compe up with the research questions and hypothesis and methodologies but it is very rare for one lab to have everything that the student needs in-house and even rarer for the work to be done in complete isolation (you don’t see that many two author papers in STEM fields these days). Including names of other people would actually be a good thing as it shows a willingness to interact and collaborate with a diverse set of people, picking up new skills and perspectives; this is how science is done these days. Of course the research thrust should be from the individual, but that is like a given.

October 26, 2014 at 8:00 pm

I am also in a STEM field, and all of my research has been collaborative to one degree or another. In my tenure-track applications last year, I mainly phrased my research statement to say that I work with YYY group on YYY, lead studies of ZZZ within the ZZZ Collaboration, and so on. I didn’t get any interviews.

This year I received some feedback from a new letter writer (and current collaborator), who thought that last year’s statement made it hard for outsiders to tell what specific ideas I had and what I specifically did about those ideas. When I rewrote my research statement to focus on those issues this year, I ended up with a stronger document that didn’t need to mention my collaborators at all — not because I tried to claim credit for everything, but because I wrote about my own contributions rather than the corporate identity.

Since jobs go to individuals and not corporations, I am strongly inclined to agree with Karen’s advice, even for STEM fields. In fact, it may be even more important for those of us with highly collaborative research to discuss our own contributions and leave our colleagues out of our research statements. The CV/publication list makes it clear that we interact and collaborate with others. The difficulty is to demonstrate what I actually did as author #13 (in alphabetical order) that makes me actually worth hiring.

April 29, 2014 at 5:03 am

Dear Karen, I am applying for a faculty position and have been asked to provide along with the usual CV and cover letter “Research Program Plan” and “Teaching philosophy”. Could you please or anyone inform me if the “Research Program Plan”is the same as the RS or a detailed research proposal? Additionally, should I include in the teaching philosophy an experience in my undergraduate that has shaped my teaching philosophy? Finally, should my TP include any courses ever taught or course proposals? Your candid response will be appreciated. Thanks

April 29, 2014 at 8:00 am

The RPP is the same as a RS. Please read all my posts on the Teaching Statement for more on that—do NOT include your undergrad experiences. Check out my column in Chronicle Vitae for more on that question–it’s the column on how to apply to a Small Liberal Arts College (SLAC) job.

July 16, 2014 at 3:39 am

Dear Karen, I am applying for a postdoc position in Spain and have been asked to provide along with CV and references, a “cover letter with a description of research accomplishments and statement of overall scientific goals and interests (approximately 1000 words)”. This messes up the usual structure I have in mind. What do you suggest? Two different files or a hybrid between them in one file? thanks

September 17, 2014 at 1:12 pm

Hi Dr. Karen,

I just wanted to say thanks for such an awesome article and the pointers.

Cheers Sajesh

October 13, 2014 at 4:15 pm

I am a bit confused about what a “statement of previous researc” looks like. Any insights?

October 14, 2014 at 12:59 pm

basically this RS doc, without anything about future research.

October 22, 2014 at 5:49 pm

I’m applying for a tenure track position in Strategic Management but my dissertation was on a topic related to my field, pharmaceuticals. How do I craft a RS if I really haven’t thought about future research in topics related to management but my teaching experience and work experience (line management) is directly related to management/leadership?

October 27, 2014 at 12:38 pm

Hi, Dr. Karen,

I’m applying for tenure-track positions in Computer Science. My current research focus (and for the last year and a half in my postdoc) has been in “data science”, primarily applied to biology; my dissertation work was in computational biology. I don’t want to focus on the biology aspect; I see this research being more broadly applicable. I also have significant industry experience from before my PhD; I spent 6 years doing work that was very relevant to this field of data science (in finance and in global trade), and I’d like to tie that industry work into my research statement. What do you think about this? Some have told me I should just talk about my postdoctoral research, while others have said the industry experience, since it’s very relevant, makes me a stronger candidate and I should tie it and my dissertation work into my postdoc and future research.

What are your thoughts? Thanks!

October 31, 2014 at 7:41 am

I am a young scholar in Communication. My research plan includes a description of past and current research projects (dissertation + 4 subsequent projects) and a description of short and long term projects (work in progress and three major research projects I want to undertake). I have been told this is not enough and I need more projects in my proposal. Only 2 pages for so many projects (including a detailed timeline) does not seem feasible.

November 3, 2014 at 7:50 pm

Dear Dr. Karen, First, let me thank you for your website. I’ve been reading it carefully the past few weeks, and I’ve found it very informative and helpful. I’m in something of a unique situation, so I’m not sure how to best make use of your advice on the RS, which seems aimed at newly minted PhDs. I have been in my current position, teaching at a community college, since 1997. During this time, I completed my doctorate (awarded in 2008). I taught abroad on a Fulbright scholarship in 2010-11, and during that time revised and expanded my dissertation for publication (this included contextual updates and one complete new chapter). I was fortunate enough to get a contract, and the book appeared in 2012; the paperback is coming out this month. Given my experiences, I want to make the move to a 4-year institution, if possible (I realize the odds are slim). A few of the ads I’m looking at are asking for a research statement. So, how do I best handle my circumstance in the RS? The dissertation and book are largely the same. Where should I provide the detailed description of my project and the chapter summaries (as you’ve recommended)? How can I avoid redundancies? Your advice is appreciated.

November 5, 2014 at 3:02 am

Dear Dr Karen,

I have read parts of your blog with great interest .. I need some advice.. if you have a research statement where one is combining two different streams of research, is this generally a good idea or would it be better to have a single stream? At the moment mine RS is nearly 4 pages (I have a short 3 page version of this).

Can you also give advice about an “academic plan” is this simply the 1-2 page “teaching statement”? Do yo have pointers/advice for this?

best regards,

November 9, 2014 at 10:50 am

Greetings Dr. Karen, hope this message finds you well.

I am applying for my first post-doc fresh out of my PhD. But I also did a Master’s prior to my PhD which resulted in publications and a thesis. That being said, do you think I should add my Master’s research to my research statement? I planned on putting it just above my PhD research. Thanks a lot 🙂

November 10, 2014 at 11:46 am

I’m wondering if it’s acceptable to mention personal qualities in an RS, such as being a collaborative worker or being able to acquire new skills rapidly (with concrete examples, that is). Normally I would put that in a cover letter, but it seems that cover letters are a thing of the past.

November 10, 2014 at 10:01 pm

No, that is not the place for that. Really, no part of the academic job application is the place for that.

November 19, 2014 at 6:47 am

Dear Karen, a special question… how do your rules above changing when writing a research statement for someone who has 4+years of AP experience and tons of research after dissertation?

Yours and other suggestions seem to be from the point of view of a grad/post-grad. Need some good insight/advise on how to to tailor a description of your research that spans many different threads and is perhaps quite a bit different from your dissertation.

November 26, 2014 at 9:51 pm

Dear Karen,

Thank you for this useful post. What about career goals? Does one mention those in the research statement or cover letter, if at all? For example, for NIH career development awards one has to write a one-page personal statement that includes career and research goals. The two are often aligned.

More specific, can /should one say things along the lines of: “My primary career goal is to become a successful independent investigator focused on xxx research.” or “I plan to secure a faculty position at a major university or research institute where I can engage in cutting edge research on xxx.”

Thank you for your insights.

Best regards,

November 27, 2014 at 9:19 am

This is more industry/business talk and not typical for academia. If you are articulating a complex research and teaching plan, it is UNDERSTOOD that you’re aiming for an academic career.

November 30, 2014 at 9:58 am

Dear Prof Karen Greeting, hope this greeting finds you well I have read this blog with great interest…In my opinion, writing teaching and research statements are very difficult than writing a PhD research… For your info that I have finished my PhD research with 17 publications in 2 years and 4 months and since that time (2 years)still writing my research statement and not finish yet..

November 30, 2014 at 10:13 pm

Thank you for your reply! Leaving this out will save me a lot of space. Best regards

January 14, 2015 at 11:17 am

I am applying for a grad program in engineering and the university requires me to write a research statement. I have no prior research experience nor have I thought about any topics for research. How do I approach this problem?

January 14, 2015 at 2:29 pm

I’m sorry, I don’t provide advice on applications to grad programs.

January 16, 2015 at 1:07 am

Okay, thank you.

January 23, 2015 at 11:33 pm

Hi, can I cite a reference in statement of research interests for a postdoctoral position? If so, do I include the reference of the citation at the bottom of the page? Also, do I title my statement of research interests page as ” statement of research interests”? Thank you.

February 4, 2015 at 10:18 am

I am applying for a 1 yr postdoc in the social science and humanities. The initial position is offered for one year with a possibility of renewal for up to one more year.

My plan is to use the postdoc opportunity to convert my dissertation into a book manuscript. I have a 2 yr plan which i believe is realistic. Roughly first yr review expand literature, reassess chapters, conduct addition interviews to build on insights. The second year would be analysis of data and writing and revising. How do I reduce this to a yr? Or do I propose it as a two yr endeavor?

February 5, 2015 at 9:39 am

to be blunt, you should skip the expanding of the literature, the reassessing, and the additional interviews. Things like this are what delay books. Transform your diss into a book mss with a one-year writing plan, and submit it for publication by the end of that year. Early in the year (or before you arrive) you send out proposals for advance contracts. This is what makes for a competitive postdoc app.

February 27, 2015 at 9:31 am

Thanks for your post. I am writing my RS with your comments as my reference. However, I have some concerns and wish you could offer some suggestions.

You mentioned that when writing RS, we should 1) Do not waste precious document real estate on what other scholars have NOT done. Never go negative. Stay entirely in the realm of what you did, not what others didn’t; and 2) Do not position yourself as “extending” or “adding to” or “building off of” or “continuing” or “applying” other work, either your own or others.

My doctoral thesis is to theoretically extend a theoretical model and empirically test it, which implies that the developer of the original model missed something to consider and I help do it. But if I take (1) and (2) into account. I may not be able to describe the rationale of my dissertation and further show the contribution.

In addition, (part of) my future directions is to increase the generalizability of the extended model, which means that I may apply it to my future research; and to discuss a potential issue in the extended model. However, if I take (2) into account, it seems that I cannot address it in the RS. Interesting enough, I found a number of model developers applied their developed theoretical models throughout the year with different research focuses and to validate the model. Should not such a way recommended to be addressed in the RS? Just a bit confused.

Would you please kindly help with the above? Thanks a lot.

March 4, 2015 at 2:16 pm

I am in public health and am a generalist so I have conduct research on a wide variety of topics. My masters thesis was on cesarean delivery guidelines and my dissertation is on the effect of legislation that bans certain breeds of dogs. I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into a specific topic area, but also don’t want to seem scattered. My research is all related, because it is on health systems or health policy, so I am trying to unify my RS with the theme of research that improves population health. Would you suggest that I list only my dissertation work and a future project that aligns with that, or should I also list my masters work and/or a separate project on a maternal and child theme?

March 11, 2015 at 6:19 pm

With regard to your recommendation to leave names of others out of the research statement, I am struggling with what to do for an edited volume with some *very* prominent contributors. I am the sole editor for the book, and I brought these contributors together. Should their names still be excluded from the research statement, or perhaps included elsewhere (perhaps in the cover letter or CV)?

Thank you for your very helpful postings.

March 12, 2015 at 7:20 pm

I find that many people overestimate the importance/prominence of the names and their value for any job doc. But if they include, like, Judith Butler and her ilk, then sure mention 1-2 such names in the RS.

July 7, 2015 at 12:51 pm

When applying for a faculty position (first job as assistant professor), would you recommend sharing the link of the applicant’s PhD dissertation thesis (if it is available online), if so where exactly?

Thank you very much for all the valuable information!

July 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

Dear Karen –

I have a question for those out there encountering job openings for technical staff (like myself) with BS degrees requesting research statements. How do I write a RS based on this? Everything I’ve seen online has been geared towards RS for graduate programs or for those with newly minted PhDs.

August 14, 2015 at 6:19 pm

Dear Karen, Is there a difference between a “one page Research Plan” and a “Research Statement” ? Thank you for your generous advice through this blog.

August 29, 2015 at 8:39 pm

Thank you for the helpful posts. I am a postdoc applying for faculty positions, and they all ask something similar but different. It’s either a research statement, a statement of research interests, or a research plan. Do mean my previous research experience, what I plan to do, or both? A research statement sounds like a research summary, but I feel like I’m missing something. I appreciate any clarity you can bring on the subject.

September 2, 2015 at 9:22 am

Dear Dr. Karen, Some of the postdocs require to submit a C.V. and a list of publications. Does it mean that, for these particular applications, the C.V. should not include publications at all? Thanks!

September 2, 2015 at 9:49 pm

Sorry, just realized that had a wrong tab opened while typing the question.

September 24, 2015 at 10:01 pm

Hi Karen, This is a very helpful website indeed. I’ve been teaching university for 5 years (ever since finishing my PhD), and now am at a top 10 university (at least according to the QS rankings, if you put any stock in them). However, I’m applying for what I think is a better job for me at a research museum, one that would have me doing research and supervising grad students as well as doing outreach (something I’ve got piles of experience with). The application asks for a 2-page statement of scientific goals. I’m a little unclear as to how this differs from the research statement. Does it? If so, how? Thanks so much.

October 13, 2015 at 7:09 am

This was really helpful in writing a research statement. Thanks

November 11, 2015 at 1:17 pm

I see that some applications require a vision statement: “no longer than two pages, that outlines one or more major unsolved problems in their field and how they plan to address them.”. Any thoughts about the differences from a research statement?

January 14, 2016 at 7:28 am

How long should the research statement be if it has been requested as part of the cover letter?

May 20, 2016 at 8:24 am

Thank you very much for the very helpful advice, Karen!

I’m a final year PhD in psychology and applying for a postdoc now. The postdoc project seems very prescribed, to the extent that the announcement includes how many studies are planned to be conducted, what the broad hypotheses are and the broad theoretical background. Yet, the application involves an RS. What is the best way to frame a future research project here? Just tailor my diss to fit into the proposed postdoc topic?

July 1, 2016 at 3:10 pm

The place in this blog that should contain the 5-paragraph model doesn’t seem to be present. Instead I get a […]. Possibly a web configuration problem?

July 7, 2016 at 4:58 pm

Please read the para at the top of the post. This and a handful of other posts (about 5 in total) have been shortened so as not to overlap with the content of my book.

August 15, 2016 at 7:43 am

Thank you so much for your wonderful advice.

I have a question regarding the relationship between future research and the title of the position in question and how much overlap there should be between the two. Is it acceptable to propose research that is (this is history-based) from a slightly later/earlier period, or a slightly different geographical region than the position focuses on? Or is it better to align oneself entirely with the constraints of the position?

Many thanks!

August 23, 2016 at 9:46 am

I plan to limit my RS to two pages, but my career trajectory and publication record is a bit unusual. I’m a nationally regarded thirty-three year veteran high school teacher and recent postdoc (2013) from a top tier history department. I’ve been teaching alma mater’s most popular summer session course since 2014. It’s my mentor’s course, but he’ll be replaced with a tenured professor with an endowed chair upon retirement – as well he should. Cornell Press is “interested” in my diss, but…I’m currently revising the original proposal. I’ve also published as often in International Journal of Eating Disorders, Psychology of Women Quarterly and International of Alzheimer’s & Other Dementias as I have in The Journal of Urban History, Long Island Historical Journal and New York Irish History. I teach “the best and the brightest” at a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse public high school. I often publish with my adolescent students, so my scholarship is pretty eclectic. How, exactly, do I sell that to a hiring committee upon retirement from high school/transition to university teaching in June 2017?

September 12, 2016 at 6:29 pm

What is your take on using headings to organize the RS?

October 16, 2016 at 12:28 pm

I am up for tenure this year, and am applying for a tenured position at another school (mainly because I am trying to resolve a two-body problem). Given that I have been out of grad school for quite a while, have a book and many papers published, another book in progress, etc, should my tenure statement be longer than 1-2 pages? What would be a typical length for a mid-career statement?

October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm

You can go onto a third page, if you’re on a second book.

October 19, 2016 at 4:08 pm

Hi Karen, I’m applying for tenure track jobs in English, and some applications ask for a research statement instead of a dissertation abstract, which is the more common of the two. I’ve been told that even if a dissertation abstract isn’t asked for, I should send one in with my application materials. If I’m asked for a research statement, do I still have to send a dissertation abstract as well? I’m a little worried about some overlap between the two (the obvious repetitions in contribution to the field, etc).

October 29, 2016 at 8:09 pm

I am being asked for a Scholarly Philosophy. Is this the same as a research statement? Are their any nuances of difference that I ought to attend to?

November 2, 2016 at 11:40 am

I’ve actuallynever heard that term. But I’d say it’s about the same as an RS, but perhaps with a bit more focus on wider contribution to the field.

November 8, 2016 at 10:55 am

Hello Karen,

I am a biologist on the market for a TT position (for more years than I would like to admit). I have always wondered whether including 1-2 figures or diagrams that help to illustrate your research plan would be helpful, and maybe even appreciated. I would like to know what you think.

We all know how overburdened search committees are. Pictures might help. Scientists are used to seeing such images in evaluating fellowship applications or grant proposals, why not research statements? I would think it would be a welcome change. So the potential benefit is you stand out and are more memorable, but you may also run the risk of alienating or offending someone, especially because this is uncommon.

Thanks for your posts and your book. I enjoy reading them.

November 10, 2016 at 9:53 am

Yes, in the sciences, diagrams are acceptable. It’s why science RSs are often 3-4 pages long. NOT in your cover letter of course.

January 12, 2017 at 11:56 am

Is it appropriate to put a date at the top or bottom of your statements?

August 4, 2017 at 5:32 am

I have been working as a fellow at a SLAC in the sciences and am directing undergraduate research that does not completely fit the mold of my usual work. Is it acceptable to mention these projects in the RS? Should I only mention ones that we will be trying to publish? Thanks

September 16, 2017 at 3:16 pm

Found some adjuncting this year after basically taking a year off last year. During that time, I was still working on getting material published from graduate school. This includes an article based on my dissertation. That articles is currently going through a revise and resubmit. The revise involves reframing and changing the names of important hypotheses. Do I discuss the work in my RS as it was discussed in my dissertation or talk about it as presented in this article yet to be expected for publication?

September 16, 2017 at 3:17 pm

accepted not expected

September 29, 2017 at 3:43 am

The part about not presenting your work as being better than other peoples’ is hard because constantly in your thesis you are setting up arguments like that! This is why my findings are interesting – because they are better than what other people did/found previously. The old paradigm was limited/wrong, hence my contribution is new/better. That is part of the academic writing genre! But I can see it will come across as much more mature if you downplay that in an application letter.

October 7, 2017 at 12:00 pm

Thanks for this great blog and the book!

I’m applying for a two-year postdoc. They say they want a “research statement,” but I really think they mean a proposal. This is short term, non-TT. I feel like the advice you give about “timeline, timeline, timeline!” is what will make this work better for this application.

Said otherwise, there is no time for a second project in this postdoc (or maybe you beg to differ?) Therefore it seems odd to talk about it.

October 7, 2017 at 2:11 pm

correct, they want a research proposal. Please read the chapters about that in my book. There is time in a two year postdoc to begin to launch a second project.

January 12, 2018 at 1:08 pm

I am just starting my higher education career. I only have my dissertation as published work. How do you suggest I handle to writing of my research statement given those circumstances?

August 27, 2019 at 6:26 am

Hi, I am a fresh PhD about to apply for my first job. I’ve been asked to write a scholarly agenda and am struggling to find what should be included in this. Any help would be great. The position is at a liberal arts college for a tenure track position in the biology department. Thanks

August 27, 2019 at 9:56 am

That would be the RS, and this blog post is about that. Also, check my book out, it has a chapter on this as well, updated from this post. If you need personal help, contact us at [email protected] to get on the calendar for editing help.

September 17, 2019 at 9:22 pm

Thank you for your excellent blog and book. I’m applying for a TT job where they don’t ask for a cover letter, but for a combined statement on research & teaching max 3p. In this case, do I still skip the letterhead and formal address? And what structure/format would you suggest?

Thank you in advance!

September 18, 2019 at 5:00 pm

if it’s truly not meant to be a letter, then don’t make it a letter! Just send a two page Rs and a one page TS nicely integrated into a single doc, with your name at the top.

December 23, 2019 at 6:23 am

Dear Karen, thank you for your wonderful advice here and in the book.I wonder regarding the the 1st para of the research statement. I have seen that many start by stating “I am a historian of X. My work focuses on Y in order to Z …

Is this what you mean by “A brief paragraph sketching the overarching theme and topic of your research,situating it disciplinarily”? would love to see an example of a good 1st para…

December 23, 2019 at 11:12 am

Lili, I provide examples to clients, so if you’d like to work with me, do email at [email protected] !

January 13, 2020 at 4:39 pm

I am just graduating as an undergrad and looking for entry-level research. Should I put something short on my interests if I do not have research experience, or is this section better to be left blank?

October 12, 2020 at 10:49 pm

Any differences with corona? I have two small ongoing projects related to covid. Other than that, I only have my thesis. Would mentioning these two projects be ‘too much’? They are not similar to each other: one has a clear logical link to my thesis, while the other is a new avenue that I want to pursue. They are not big enough to be my second project, but they are my current research. Should I mention them both? One? None?

January 6, 2022 at 11:51 am

Thank you for such detailed information! I searched on your site today in attempt to answer the question “what is a scholarly agenda,” and was pointed to this posting, which doesn’t seem correct, but I at least wanted to ask the question. Is the scholarly agenda a typical piece of writing for tenure processes? I’m about to go up for my three year review in a humanities-based tenure track position, where I am asked for one, and although I’ve written a draft, the university has no template, and in truth, I really don’t understand the aim of the scholarly agenda beyond the general idea of ‘where I want to be as a scholar and professor in three years.’ I’m looking for a blow-by-blow / paragraph-by-paragraph idea of how to structure the piece. I can’t find examples beyond law schools, which isn’t so helpful. Do you have any recommendations?

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How to Write a Research Statement

Last Updated: April 25, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 66,827 times.

The research statement is a very common component of job applications in academia. The statement provides a summary of your research experience, interests, and agenda for reviewers to use to assess your candidacy for a position. Because the research statement introduces you as a researcher to the people reviewing your job application, it’s important to make the statement as impressive as possible. After you’ve planned out what you want to say, all you have to do is write your research statement with the right structure, style, and formatting!

Research Statement Outline and Example

Planning Your Research Statement

• For example, some of the major themes of your research might be slavery and race in the 18th century, the efficacy of cancer treatments, or the reproductive cycles of different species of crab.
• You may have several small questions that guide specific aspects of your research. Write all of these questions out, then see if you can formulate a broader question that encapsulates all of these smaller questions.

• For example, if your work is on x-ray technology, describe how your research has filled any knowledge gaps in your field, as well as how it could be applied to x-ray machines in hospitals.
• It’s important to be able to articulate why your research should matter to people who don’t study what you study to generate interest in your research outside your field. This is very helpful when you go to apply for grants for future research.

• Explain why these are the things you want to research next. Do your best to link your prior research to what you hope to study in the future. This will help give your reviewer a deeper sense of what motivates your research and why it matters.

• For example, if your research was historical and the documents you needed to answer your question didn’t exist, describe how you managed to pursue your research agenda using other types of documents.

• Some skills you might be able to highlight include experience working with digital archives, knowledge of a foreign language, or the ability to work collaboratively. When you're describing your skills, use specific, action-oriented words, rather than just personality traits. For example, you might write "speak Spanish" or "handled digital files."
• Don’t be modest about describing your skills. You want your research statement to impress whoever is reading it.

Structuring and Writing the Statement

• Because this section summarizes the rest of your research statement, you may want to write the executive summary after you’ve written the other sections first.
• Write your executive summary so that if the reviewer chooses to only read this section instead of your whole statement, they will still learn everything they need to know about you as an applicant.
• Make sure that you only include factual information that you can prove or demonstrate. Don't embellish or editorialize your experience to make it seem like it's more than it is.

• If you received a postdoctoral fellowship, describe your postdoc research in this section as well.
• If at all possible, include research in this section that goes beyond just your thesis or dissertation. Your application will be much stronger if reviewers see you as a researcher in a more general sense than as just a student.

• Again, as with the section on your graduate research, be sure to include a description of why this research matters and what relevant skills you bring to bear on it.
• If you’re still in graduate school, you can omit this section.

• Be realistic in describing your future research projects. Don’t describe potential projects or interests that are extremely different from your current projects. If all of your research to this point has been on the American civil war, future research projects in microbiology will sound very farfetched.

• For example, add a sentence that says “Dr. Jameson’s work on the study of slavery in colonial Georgia has served as an inspiration for my own work on slavery in South Carolina. I would welcome the opportunity to be able to collaborate with her on future research projects.”

• For example, if your research focuses on the history of Philadelphia, add a sentence to the paragraph on your future research projects that says, “I believe based on my work that I would be a very strong candidate to receive a Balch Fellowship from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.”
• If you’ve received funding for your research in the past, mention this as well.

• Typically, your research statement should be about 1-2 pages long if you're applying for a humanities or social sciences position. For a position in psychology or the hard sciences, your research statement may be 3-4 pages long.
• Although you may think that having a longer research statement makes you seem more impressive, it’s more important that the reviewer actually read the statement. If it seems too long, they may just skip it, which will hurt your application.

Formatting and Editing

• For example, instead of saying, “This part of my research was super hard,” say, “I found this obstacle to be particularly challenging.”

• For example, if your research is primarily in anthropology, refrain from using phrases like “Gini coefficient” or “moiety.” Only use phrases that someone in a different field would probably be familiar with, such as “cultural construct,” “egalitarian,” or “social division.”
• If you have trusted friends or colleagues in fields other than your own, ask them to read your statement for you to make sure you don’t use any words or concepts that they can’t understand.

• For example, when describing your dissertation, say, “I hypothesized that…” When describing your future research projects, say, “I intend to…” or “My aim is to research…”

• At the same time, don’t make your font too big. If you write your research statement in a font larger than 12, you run the risk of appearing unprofessional.

• For instance, if you completed a postdoc, use subheadings in the section on previous research experience to delineate the research you did in graduate school and the research you did during your fellowship.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/graduate_school_applications/writing_a_research_statement.html
• ↑ https://www.cmu.edu/student-success/other-resources/handouts/comm-supp-pdfs/writing-research-statement.pdf
• ↑ https://postdocs.cornell.edu/research-statement
• ↑ https://gradschool.cornell.edu/academic-progress/pathways-to-success/prepare-for-your-career/take-action/research-statement/
• ↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/executivesummary
• ↑ https://www.niu.edu/writingtutorial/style/formal-and-informal-style.shtml
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/editing-and-proofreading-techniques

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How to write a convincing research statement

Research statements are a common requirement in academic job applications. A research statement presents an applicant’s research profile, past accomplishments and future research plans. Writing a convincing research statement is an art that can be learnt, and should be practised early on.

Purpose of academic research statements

A research statement provides more in-depth information on your research profile. It showcases your ability to reflect on your unique contributions to science. It also needs to convey your research ambitions and motivations, coupled with a concrete plan of how to implement them in the future.

Key components of a research statement

A typical research statement presents your research profile, past accomplishments and future research plans. So it helps to think in terms of three components:

Research statement structures

Chronological structure.

When using a chronological structure, you divide your research statement into three main sections. You start with the past, then move into the present, and finally elaborate on your plans.

Topic-centric structure

Note that this structure only works when you had a handful of concrete topics of interest since the beginning of your academic career.

The writing style of research statements

* Not only bullet points of course. But you can describe your research ambition, for example, and then write: “Concretely, I aim to establish the following three lines of research. 1. … 2. … 3. …).

Bonus tips for research statements

If you need to submit a teaching statement as part of your application as well, make sure to link it with your research statement. Add a sentence here and there referring to the teaching statement in your research statement, and vice versa. Research-driven teaching tends to be appreciated. And it helps you to profile yourself comprehensively.

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July 8, 2013, by dan cosley | july 8, 2013, writing a research statement (for a tenure package).

tl/dr : Research statements should demonstrate that you have made or will make an impact through effective, clear storytelling about what you have done and how it connects to your research community. Careful organization and clear evidence of impact can help you make this case to the many different kinds of people who will read your statement.

One of the main docs you write as part of the tenure process is a research statement, and before revising mine, I wanted to spend some time thinking about what makes for an effective statement. We also write these during the job search and various other times during the career, so hopefully this post will have broad appeal. The thoughts below are based on my own thinking, talking with other professors, and looking at my own and other people’s past research statements for tenure [0].

We’ll start with a few key points up front. First, in line with the typical tenure and promotion criteria at research universities [1], a main goal of the statement is to demonstrate that your work has had, and will continue to have, an impact on your research community. So a glorified annotated bibliography of your work is not going to cut it. You need to talk about how your work fits into the broader conversation, why it’s interesting and exciting and important.

Second, as stated by Mor Naaman in a comment on my original tenure post , not everyone who reads your statement (or your dossier [2]) is going to be an expert in your field. So, a glorified annotated bibliography of your work is not going to cut it. Not only do you need to position your work in your community, you need to do this in a way that letter writers, your dean, and faculty across the university will appreciate.

Third, even for those who are experts, they’re not likely to be experts on you, meaning that your research statement has real impact on how and when people think about you [3]. So, a glorified… well, you get the picture, but the key insight here is that the research statement is telling a story about you just as much as it is about the research [4].

So, how do research statement writers go about accomplishing these goals? For the most part, what I saw was a lot of work around organizing the story and showing current impact in ways that was broadly accessible, but less on the questions of ‘so what’ and ‘what next’.

Organizing the story

Based on the statements I looked at, the general approach was to focus on some small number of broad topical themes that represent research questions or areas that people claim to make key contributors to. The work itself is used to illustrate the contributions, possibly with some sub-themes inside the area to help readers group the individual papers. Then, an overall story ties the areas together with some kind of bigger picture and/or longer-term research goals.

How broad the goals, themes, and sub-sections are depends in part on how long you’ve been in the game and how broad your interests are–which implies that your research statement will continue to evolve over time [5]. For instance, my fall 2007 job hunt statement  and spring 2011 third year review statements  are organized quite differently because I had another 3.5 years of deepening and broadening my work and thinking both on specific projects and on how the different strands tied together [6]. (I wrote a bit about this evolution in “ The Incredible Evolving Research Statement “, which is a reasonable companion to this post.)

Most of the statements were broadly chronological, especially within areas. I think this on balance was used to show the accumulation, evolution, and deepening of one’s own work in an area. Some (including mine), but not all, were also chronological across the areas, which as a reader I saw as illustrating the person’s career arc. None was comprehensive, and some work was left out; instead, the statements focused on telling a more or less coherent story [7].

There are other ways to tell the story of your research besides chronology plus research areas. For instance, I could imagine talking about my own work as a grid where levels of analysis (individual, dyad, group/community) are on one axis and major research area/question (recommendation, user modeling, system-building, reflection) is on the other [8], then positioning work in the grid cells. This would be particularly useful for showing breadth across a couple of intersecting areas, maybe for highlighting interdisciplinarity. If I wanted to emphasize my techy/system-building bits, I could imagine organizing the statement around the systems that I’ve built, supervised, and studies along the way, with research questions emerging as themes that repeatedly occur across the systems [9]. But the overall story plus themes and chronological evolution model feels both fairly common and effective, and I do like the 2011 version a lot — so I’m likely to do an update but not rework of it for the tenure package.

Showing (current) impact

Much of the discourse on this side focused on various forms of evidence that other people, mostly in the academic community, cared about the work.

Most folks worked in some mention of support for their work, notably grant funding. Funding is direct evidence that people think you and your work are interesting enough to spend money on [10]. Yes, this is in your CV, but so are many other things you’ll talk about in the statements, and yes, done to excess or done badly it could feel a little off-putting. But it is honest and valuable to acknowledge support and it is pretty easy to make it part of the story (e.g., “I received an NSF grant to help answer my questions around X”).

Likewise, everyone talked about collaborators and students they’ve worked with. Much as with grants, collaboration says people think you and your work are interesting enough to spend time on [11]. Further, to some extent we’re known by the company that we keep, and collaborating with good people reflects well on you. Again, done as an exercise in name-dropping this could be tedious, but again, it’s easy to work naturally into the conversation–and again, it’s a worthy and honest thing to point out that you had help along the way.

People also mentioned how the work connected to and through groups or workshops they organized, led, and contributed to that are directly related to their research [11a]. To some extent, this overlaps with the service statement , but as with direct collaboration, if people are willing to band together with you it shows that people value the kinds of work that you do and see you as a positive influence.

Some folks talked about citations, h-indices, and other citation metrics. Citations are a proxy for attention, interest, and quality in your work, both the particular work being cited and in your reputation more generally (because well-known and -regarded people are more likely to come to mind). There are some problems with quantitative metrics of scholarly impact: differing practices and sizes across fields affects numbers; not all citations are positive; to do it right you’d probably need to compare to peers’ citation activity; etc. But citations have some value as an indicator of impact [12]. It’s a little harder to weave this in naturally, though you can use the numbers to point out particularly impactful papers, or use the data to give an overview to make the case that your career as a whole has been noticed.

For the most part, those were the high points. I do want to point out that there are lots of other ways one might talk about making impact. I’ll pass the torch to Elizabeth Churchhill’s discussion of impact more generally  that among other things riffs off of Judy Olson’s Athena award talk about the many paths to scholarly impact at CSCW 2012 . A group called altmetrics is pushing on other ways to think about impact, and other folks such as danah boyd [13] and Johnny Lee have carved careers out of making impact beyond research papers. These kinds of impact are worth talking about. However, for all that academia is pretty liberal politically, it’s fairly conservative in how it measures impact, and so a diversified portfolio with a fair percentage invested in traditional impact measures is probably less risky.

The statements didn’t have so much to say about potential future impact and work directly. There was sometimes a discussion of the next questions on a current line of work, and sometimes the overarching research question was used to highlight a general next line or lines. I guess this makes sense, because our next research moves are shaped by resources, people, contexts, and events [14], but it was a little surprising given the ‘future continued potential’ part of the tenure evaluation process.

Likewise, there was not as much “so what” as there probably could be, especially. There were reasonable connections to other work at a high level [15], to help make novelty claims and make the ‘so what’ case within the field. But there is much less of an argument about why the work is important to do in the grand scheme of things. This may be in part an artifact of length restrictions (there’s not a formal limit, but most of the tenure-time ones seem to clock in around 4-5 pages plus references). Our values around academic freedom also probably help us out when folks in other fields look at our tenure cases, even if they don’t see obvious indicators of importance, and our external letter writers are probably close enough to our work to appreciate it for its own sake. But I was still surprised at how little this was addressed in our statements.

So, that’s it for now–I should probably stop writing about writing research statements and get on to the business at hand. It was, however, useful spending some time thinking about what might make for a good research statement and hopefully some of this thinking will help future fellow travelers out.

[0] Web search turns up a variety of other useful resources and perhaps I should have just read them rather than writing my own. However, spending some time writing and analyzing myself felt valuable, and most of those I did find seem to be tuned toward research statements for the graduating PhD seeking a job rather than tenure. Many also seem to have been generated by searching for other articles about writing research statements. That said, this article on research statements from Penn’s career services  looked useful and had pointers to some examples. Oregon Academic Affairs also has some thoughtful slides on writing tenure statements, including the research statement.

[1] Here’s an example of promotion guidelines from Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences .

[2] Also part of Cornell ADVANCE’s  “Successful Tenure Strategies” document .

[3] I haven’t been on a tenure committee yet, because you don’t get to vote on tenure cases until you have it, but for faculty hiring a number of recommendation letters look a lot like the candidate’s research statement or dissertation proposal/outline. I am guessing similar effects will happen for tenure letter writers.

[4] John Riedl often gave me talk advice that a key takeaway, in addition to the main points, should be that you’re awesome (not via self-aggrandizing–not John’s style–but through being interesting and demonstrating competence). It seems apropos here as well.

[5] Dan Frankowski , a research scientist at GroupLens when I was there, once claimed that the main thing we learn in grad school is how to tell bigger and better stories about the work.

[6] I made a followup post about how these statements evolved with some behind-the-scenes thinking, but this is already a pretty long post in its own right.

[7] It is fine to leave side projects out. A piece of career/tenure advice I have received from multiple sources is that it’s good to become known as “the X guy” for some very small number of X’s (often 1). Thus, focusing on the coherent and compelling story of ($1 to Richard Hamming) You and Your Research is probably best. Your side stuff will be in your CV and your online portfolio, and if people care about them and/or they’ve had an impact, you’ll get to talk about them.

[8] Joe Konstan sometimes talks about the grid as a useful way to organize a research story. For instance, for a dissertation you might try different items on the axes (levels of analysis, research questions, time periods, systems, theories, etc.), and think about a research path that cuts across a column, a row, or (to sample the space) a diagonal. If I were to do this for my tenure case, it feels like most of the cells should be filled in, at least some.

[9] Unless you’re in a clearly systems areas, though, focusing on systems runs the risk of pigeonholing you. You probably want to study recommender systems, not GroupLens; crisis informatics, not Katrina; collaboration, not Wikipedia; crowd work, not Mechanical Turk. I know that some people think of me as a “Wikipedia guy”, and that’s part of my story, but only part.

[10] The contrapositive is not true; if work isn’t funded, it still might be important and impactful. There are lots of ways to not get funding.

[11] Again, the contrapositive isn’t true; some disciplines and traditions value solo research more than my home area of HCI, and some people are just more comfy working alone and don’t seek collaborators.

[11a] Folks who are creating or colonizing quite new areas may find it useful to do a bunch of community-building through workshops, special issues, and the like to build and connect to fellow travelers.

[12] Here, unfortunately, the contrapositive is more plausible: you do want your work to be cited.

[13] Who has enough impact that, at least as I was writing this, if you typo her name to “danah body” Google will give you a “Did you mean: danah boyd”.

[14] FYI, although this is a true answer to kind of “Where do you see yourself in N years” question that you might get asked during a job interview, it is not a good answer. This I can attest from personal experience.

[15] Not many citations though, which was a little surprising, because that could both help ground the work and suggest appropriate tenure letter writers.

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Very helpful – thank you so much for taking the time to share this.

Welcome and hopefully it’s actually useful down the road. If so, feel free to share with your friends. 🙂

thanks a ton. Nice post, great for centering my mind around this daunting task! Merci! -Chris @whiteliesbook

Yeah, good point on making clear what the request is, and when it’s needed. A post on making effective requests would be pretty useful. slope game

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Faculty Application: Research Statement

Criteria for success.

• Clearly articulate your brand.
• Demonstrate the impact of your past work.
• Show that you are credible to carry out your proposed future research.
• Articulate the importance of your research vision.
• Match the standards within the department to which you are applying.
• Show that you are a good fit for the position.
• Polish. Avoid typos.

Structure Diagram

The typical structure and length of research statements vary widely across fields. If you are unsure of what is typical in the field where you are applying, be sure to check with someone who is familiar with the standards. 

In electrical engineering and computer science, research statements are usually around three pages long with a focus on past and current work, often following the structure in the diagram below.

Identify Your Purpose

Your cover letter and CV outline your past work and hint at a general direction of your future work but do not go into detail. Therefore, the purpose of a research statement is to emphasize the importance of your past work and describe your research vision. Both your past/current work and future work presented in the research statement should reflect your branding statement .  

In EECS, faculty research statements focus on past/current work. However, it is important to also include your vision for the future, which should build on your previous work. This statement should convince the committee that your future work is important, relevant, and feasible. The future work section should go beyond direct extensions of your doctoral or postdoctoral work; it should cover a 5-10 year span. Proposed future work should show scientific growth and convince the committee that you propose strong research directions for your future group. Your research statement can also include possible funding sources and collaborations.

Analyze Your Audience

Your audience is a faculty search committee, which is made up of professors from across the department, not just the ones in your research area. A typical search committee member is probably very busy reviewing lots of applications, and hence may not read your statement in depth until you make it to later rounds of the hiring process.

Knowing details of the job posting and what the faculty search committee is looking for will help you tailor your statement. If the call is for a specific research area (e.g., language processing, bioinformatics, algorithms, machine learning, systems), it is beneficial to motivate and emphasize the importance of your work in the language of that area whenever possible.

Structure your statement

Although there is usually no mandated structure for a research statement, it can be very helpful to a reader if the content flows naturally.

Use the hourglass concept. It makes a compelling introduction if a research statement presents motivation starting from the high-level picture and then zooms in to the main topic(s) of research. This is helpful for two reasons. First, a research statement is typically read by committee members from several research areas, so starting with a high-level picture gives members a gentle guidance to the meat of a work. Second, providing general motivation helps in showing how different pieces of research fit in a big puzzle.

After talking about specific results, the story typically zooms back out by discussing impact and future directions. It is best if future work has some concrete research directions and also widens up to touch on a broader perspective of research plans.

The diagram below summarizes the hourglass concept and provides one potential flow of content.

Use good formatting to help retain focus . A successful research statement is typically organized into three main parts: Introduction and motivation; past work/achievements; and vision/future work. Each of these parts can be divided into subsections.

In addition, you can help a reader focus their attention on the important content by:

• making each section/paragraph title tell a message;
• using bullet points and itemization while listing;
• using bold or italics to emphasize important keywords or sentences. 

Some institutions set constraints on the format of research statements, primarily constraints on length . Make sure that your research statement is tailored to the guidelines. It is helpful to prepare two versions of your statement — a long one and a short one. The short version is usually the long one stripped of many details with the emphasis on high-level pictures and ideas.

Say who you are

Your research statement tells a story about you. Think who you want to be in the eyes of committee members (e.g., a programming languages person, a machine learning expert, a theory professor) and which of your achievements you want them to remember.

Make your research statement echo your branding one . A successful research statement builds a story around the author’s branding statement. A strong point is made if past and future work are echoes of the same brand. 

Successful candidates outline their research agenda before stating actual results and after providing a background. Sometimes this is done even before giving background and motivation. In the latter case, the research agenda is typically stated briefly, and then reiterated with more context after providing the background.

Show credibility for your future work by your past work

Your past work is an excellent way to illustrate that you are fit for the future work you are proposing. Refer to some of your past work when outlining feasibility of your proposed future directions. Even if you aim to change your field of research, your past experience should still serve as a justification for why you are well suited for the new line of work.

Dedicate space to your strongest results . Describe your strongest results in the most detail. If you want to mention many papers, organize them into several themes. A successful statement communicates how obtained results affect a field or a research community. Impact of papers can be shown by awards, high number of citations, or follow up papers by other research groups. A reader will have limited time to go over your statement, so make sure that the reader’s attention is spent on your most impactful work. Note that your strongest results do not necessarily have to be your most recent ones; they can even be several years old. Nevertheless, it is still a good idea to also mention some of your recent work as it shows that you have been active lately as well.

Importantly, a research statement should be a coherent story about ideas and impact, not only an overview of published articles. Hence, it is often the case that a research statement does not discuss all papers published or all work done by the applicant.

Use figures to support important claims . Consider including figures . They can be used to support your claims about your results and/or in the future work section to illustrate your research plans. A well-made figure can help the reader quickly understand your work, but figures also take up a large amount of space. Use figures carefully, only to draw attention to the most important points.

Devote time!

Getting out a job application package takes an indefinitely long time (writing, addressing feedback, polishing, addressing feedback … aaaand polishing)! Start early and invest time.

Get feedback . Your application package will be read by committee members that are not necessarily in your research area. It is thus important to get feedback about your research statement from colleagues with different backgrounds and seniority. Note that it might take time for other people to share their feedback (remember, others are busy as well!), so plan ahead.

MIT EECS affiliates can also make an appointment with a Communication Fellow to obtain additional feedback on their statements.

Resources and Annotated Examples

Amy zhang research statement.

Submitted in 2018-2019 by Amy Zhang, now faculty at University of Washington 1 MB

Elena Glassman Research Statement

Submitted in 2017-2018 by Elena Glassman, now faculty at Harvard University 2 MB

Write Your Research Plan

In this part, we give you detailed information about writing an effective Research Plan. We start with the importance and parameters of significance and innovation.

We then discuss how to focus the Research Plan, relying on the iterative process described in the Iterative Approach to Application Planning Checklist shown at Draft Specific Aims  and give you advice for filling out the forms.

You'll also learn the importance of having a well-organized, visually appealing application that avoids common missteps and the importance of preparing your just-in-time information early.

While this document is geared toward the basic research project grant, the R01, much of it is useful for other grant types.

Table of Contents

Research plan overview and your approach, craft a title, explain your aims, research strategy instructions, advice for a successful research strategy, graphics and video, significance, innovation, and approach, tracking for your budget, preliminary studies or progress report, referencing publications, review and finalize your research plan, abstract and narrative.

Your application's Research Plan has two sections:

• Specific Aims —a one-page statement of your objectives for the project.
• Research Strategy —a description of the rationale for your research and your experiments in 12 pages for an R01.

In your Specific Aims, you note the significance and innovation of your research; then list your two to three concrete objectives, your aims.

Your Research Strategy is the nuts and bolts of your application, where you describe your research rationale and the experiments you will conduct to accomplish each aim. Though how you organize it is largely up to you, NIH expects you to follow these guidelines.

• Organize using bold headers or an outline or numbering system—or both—that you use consistently throughout.
• Start each section with the appropriate header: Significance, Innovation, or Approach.
• Organize the Approach section around your Specific Aims.

Format of Your Research Plan

To write the Research Plan, you don't need the application forms. Write the text in your word processor, turn it into a PDF file, and upload it into the application form when it's final.

Because NIH may return your application if it doesn't meet all requirements, be sure to follow the rules for font, page limits, and more. Read the instructions at NIH’s Format Attachments .

For an R01, the Research Strategy can be up to 12 pages, plus one page for Specific Aims. Don't pad other sections with information that belongs in the Research Plan. NIH is on the lookout and may return your application to you if you try to evade page limits.

Follow Examples

As you read this page, look at our Sample Applications and More  to see some of the different strategies successful PIs use to create an outstanding Research Plan.

Keeping It All In Sync

Writing in a logical sequence will save you time.

Information you put in the Research Plan affects just about every other application part. You'll need to keep everything in sync as your plans evolve during the writing phase.

It's best to consider your writing as an iterative process. As you develop and finalize your experiments, you will go back and check other parts of the application to make sure everything is in sync: the "who, what, when, where, and how (much money)" as well as look again at the scope of your plans.

In that vein, writing in a logical sequence is a good approach that will save you time. We suggest proceeding in the following order:

• Create a provisional title.
• Write a draft of your Specific Aims.
• Start with your Significance and Innovation sections.
• Then draft the Approach section considering the personnel and skills you'll need for each step.
• Evaluate your Specific Aims and methods in light of your expected budget (for a new PI, it should be modest, probably under the $250,000 for NIH's modular budget).
• As you design experiments, reevaluate your hypothesis, aims, and title to make sure they still reflect your plans.
• Prepare your Abstract (a summary of your Specific Aims).
• Complete the other forms.

Even the smaller sections of your application need to be well-organized and readable so reviewers can readily grasp the information. If writing is not your forte, get help.

To view writing strategies for successful applications, see our Sample Applications and More . There are many ways to create a great application, so explore your options.

Within the character limit, include the important information to distinguish your project within the research area, your project's goals, and the research problem.

Giving your project a title at the outset can help you stay focused and avoid a meandering Research Plan. So you may want to launch your writing by creating a well-defined title.

NIH gives you a 200 character limit, but don’t feel obliged to use all of that allotment. Instead, we advise you to keep the title as succinct as possible while including the important information to distinguish your project within the research area. Make your title reflect your project's goals, the problem your project addresses, and possibly your approach to studying it. Make your title specific: saying you are studying lymphocyte trafficking is not informative enough.

For examples of strong titles, see our Sample Applications and More .

After you write a preliminary title, check that

• My title is specific, indicating at least the research area and the goals of my project.
• It is 200 characters or less.
• I use as simple language as possible.
• I state the research problem and, possibly, my approach to studying it.
• I use a different title for each of my applications. (Note: there are exceptions, for example, for a renewal—see Apply for Renewal  for details.)
• My title has appropriate keywords.

Later you may want to change your initial title. That's fine—at this point, it's just an aid to keep your plans focused.

Since all your reviewers read your Specific Aims, you want to excite them about your project.

If testing your hypothesis is the destination for your research, your Research Plan is the map that takes you there.

You'll start by writing the smaller part, the Specific Aims. Think of the one-page Specific Aims as a capsule of your Research Plan. Since all your reviewers read your Specific Aims, you want to excite them about your project.

For more on crafting your Specific Aims, see Draft Specific Aims .

Write a Narrative

Use at least half the page to provide the rationale and significance of your planned research. A good way to start is with a sentence that states your project's goals.

For the rest of the narrative, you will describe the significance of your research, and give your rationale for choosing the project. In some cases, you may want to explain why you did not take an alternative route.

Then, briefly describe your aims, and show how they build on your preliminary studies and your previous research. State your hypothesis.

If it is likely your application will be reviewed by a study section with broad expertise, summarize the status of research in your field and explain how your project fits in.

In the narrative part of the Specific Aims of many outstanding applications, people also used their aims to

• State the technologies they plan to use.
• Note their expertise to do a specific task or that of collaborators.
• Describe past accomplishments related to the project.
• Describe preliminary studies and new and highly relevant findings in the field.
• Explain their area's biology.
• Show how the aims relate to one another.
• Describe expected outcomes for each aim.
• Explain how they plan to interpret data from the aim’s efforts.
• Describe how to address potential pitfalls with contingency plans.

Depending on your situation, decide which items are important for you. For example, a new investigator would likely want to highlight preliminary data and qualifications to do the work.

Many people use bold or italics to emphasize items they want to bring to the reviewers' attention, such as the hypothesis or rationale.

Detail Your Aims

After the narrative, enter your aims as bold bullets, or stand-alone or run-on headers.

• State your plans using strong verbs like identify, define, quantify, establish, determine.
• Describe each aim in one to three sentences.
• Consider adding bullets under each aim to refine your objectives.

How focused should your aims be? Look at the example below.

Spot the Sample

Read the Specific Aims of the Application from Drs. Li and Samulski , "Enhance AAV Liver Transduction with Capsid Immune Evasion."

• Aim 1. Study the effect of adeno-associated virus (AAV) empty particles on AAV capsid antigen cross-presentation in vivo .
• Aim 2. Investigate AAV capsid antigen presentation following administration of AAV mutants and/or proteasome inhibitors for enhanced liver transduction in vivo .
• Aim 3. Isolate AAV chimeric capsids with human hepatocyte tropism and the capacity for cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) evasion.

After finishing the draft Specific Aims, check that

• I keep to the one-page limit.
• Each of my two or three aims is a narrowly focused, concrete objective I can achieve during the grant.
• They give a clear picture of how my project can generate knowledge that may improve human health.
• They show my project's importance to science, how it addresses a critical research opportunity that can move my field forward.
• My text states how my work is innovative.
• I describe the biology to the extent needed for my reviewers.
• I give a rationale for choosing the topic and approach.
• I tie the project to my preliminary data and other new findings in the field.
• I explicitly state my hypothesis and why testing it is important.
• My aims can test my hypothesis and are logical.
• I can design and lead the execution of two or three sets of experiments that will strive to accomplish each aim.
• As much as possible, I use language that an educated person without expertise can understand.
• My text has bullets, bolding, or headers so reviewers can easily spot my aims (and other key items).

For each element listed above, analyze your text and revise it until your Specific Aims hit all the key points you'd like to make.

After the list of aims, some people add a closing paragraph, emphasizing the significance of the work, their collaborators, or whatever else they want to focus reviewers' attention on.

Your Research Strategy is the bigger part of your application's Research Plan (the other part is the Specific Aims—discussed above.)

The Research Strategy is the nuts and bolts of your application, describing the rationale for your research and the experiments you will do to accomplish each aim. It is structured as follows:

• Significance
• You can either include this information as a subsection of Approach or integrate it into any or all of the three main sections.
• If you do the latter, be sure to mark the information clearly, for example, with a bold subhead.
• Possible other sections, for example, human subjects, vertebrate animals, select agents, and others (these do not count toward the page limit).

Though how you organize your application is largely up to you, NIH does want you to follow these guidelines:

• Add bold headers or an outlining or numbering system—or both—that you use consistently throughout.
• Start each of the Research Strategy's sections with a header: Significance, Innovation, and Approach.

For an R01, the Research Strategy is limited to 12 pages for the three main sections and the preliminary studies only. Other items are not included in the page limit.

Find instructions for R01s in the SF 424 Application Guide—go to NIH's SF 424 (R&R) Application and Electronic Submission Information for the generic SF 424 Application Guide or find it in your notice of funding opportunity (NOFO).

For most applications, you need to address Rigor and Reproducibility by describing the experimental design and methods you propose and how they will achieve robust and unbiased results. The requirement applies to research grant, career development, fellowship, and training applications.

If you're responding to an institute-specific program announcement (PA) (not a parent program announcement) or a request for applications (RFA), check the NIH Guide notice, which has additional information you need. Should it differ from the NOFO, go with the NIH Guide .

Also note that your application must meet the initiative's objectives and special requirements. NIAID program staff will check your application, and if it is not responsive to the announcement, your application will be returned to you without a review.

When writing your Research Strategy, your goal is to present a well-organized, visually appealing, and readable description of your proposed project. That means your writing should be streamlined and organized so your reviewers can readily grasp the information. If writing is not your forte, get help.

There are many ways to create an outstanding Research Plan, so explore your options.

What Success Looks Like

Your application's Research Plan is the map that shows your reviewers how you plan to test your hypothesis.

It not only lays out your experiments and expected outcomes, but must also convince your reviewers of your likely success by allaying any doubts that may cross their minds that you will be able to conduct the research.

Notice in the sample applications how the writing keeps reviewers' eyes on the ball by bringing them back to the main points the PIs want to make. Write yourself an insurance policy against human fallibility: if it's a key point, repeat it, then repeat it again.

The Big Three

So as you write, put the big picture squarely in your sights. When reviewers read your application, they'll look for the answers to three basic questions:

• Can your research move your field forward?
• Is the field important—will progress make a difference to human health?
• Can you and your team carry out the work?

Add Emphasis

Savvy PIs create opportunities to drive their main points home. They don't stop at the Significance section to emphasize their project's importance, and they look beyond their biosketches to highlight their team's expertise.

Don't take a chance your reviewer will gloss over that one critical sentence buried somewhere in your Research Strategy or elsewhere. Write yourself an insurance policy against human fallibility: if it's a key point, repeat it, then repeat it again.

Add more emphasis by putting the text in bold, or bold italics (in the modern age, we skip underlining—it's for typewriters).

Here are more strategies from our successful PIs:

• While describing a method in the Approach section, they state their or collaborators' experience with it.
• They point out that they have access to a necessary piece of equipment.
• When explaining their field and the status of current research, they weave in their own work and their preliminary data.
• They delve into the biology of the area to make sure reviewers will grasp the importance of their research and understand their field and how their work fits into it.

You can see many of these principles at work in the Approach section of the Application from Dr. William Faubion , "Inflammatory cascades disrupt Treg function through epigenetic mechanisms."

• Reviewers felt that the experiments described for Aim 1 will yield clear results.
• The plans to translate those findings to gene targets of relevance are well outlined and focused.
• He ties his proposed experiments to the larger picture, including past research and strong preliminary data for the current application. 

Anticipate Reviewer Questions

Our applicants not only wrote with their reviewers in mind they seemed to anticipate their questions. You may think: how can I anticipate all the questions people may have? Of course you can't, but there are some basic items (in addition to the "big three" listed above) that will surely be on your reviewers' minds:

• Will the investigators be able to get the work done within the project period, or is the proposed work over ambitious?
• Did the PI describe potential pitfalls and possible alternatives?
• Will the experiments generate meaningful data?
• Could the resulting data prove the hypothesis?
• Are others already doing the work, or has it been already completed?

Address these questions; then spend time thinking about more potential issues specific to you and your research—and address those too.

For applications, a picture can truly be worth a thousand words. Graphics can illustrate complex information in a small space and add visual interest to your application.

Look at our sample applications to see how the investigators included schematics, tables, illustrations, graphs, and other types of graphics to enhance their applications.

Consider adding a timetable or flowchart to illustrate your experimental plan, including decision trees with alternative experimental pathways to help your reviewers understand your plans.

Plan Ahead for Video

If you plan to send one or more videos, you'll need to meet certain standards and include key information in your Research Strategy now.

To present some concepts or demonstrations, video may enhance your application beyond what graphics alone can achieve. However, you can't count on all reviewers being able to see or hear video, so you'll want to be strategic in how you incorporate it into your application.

Be reviewer-friendly. Help your cause by taking the following steps:

• Caption any narration in the video.
• Choose evocative still images from your video to accompany your summary.
• Write your summary of the video carefully so the text would make sense even without the video.

In addition to those considerations, create your videos to fit NIH’s technical requirements. Learn more in the SF 424 Form Instructions .

Next, as you write your Research Strategy, include key images from the video and a brief description.

Then, state in your cover letter that you plan to send video later. (Don't attach your files to the application.)

After you apply and get assignment information from the Commons, ask your assigned scientific review officer (SRO) how your business official should send the files. Your video files are due at least one month before the peer review meeting.

Know Your Audience's Perspective

The primary audience for your application is your peer review group. Learn how to write for the reviewers who are experts in your field and those who are experts in other fields by reading Know Your Audience .

Be Organized: A B C or 1 2 3?

In the top-notch applications we reviewed, organization ruled but followed few rules. While you want to be organized, how you go about it is up to you.

Nevertheless, here are some principles to follow:

• Start each of the Research Strategy's sections with a header: Significance, Innovation, and Approach—this you must do.

The Research Strategy's page limit—12 for R01s—is for the three main parts: Significance, Innovation, and Approach and your preliminary studies (or a progress report if you're renewing your grant). Other sections, for example, research animals or select agents, do not have a page limit.

Although you will emphasize your project's significance throughout the application, the Significance section should give the most details. Don't skimp—the farther removed your reviewers are from your field, the more information you'll need to provide on basic biology, importance of the area, research opportunities, and new findings.

When you describe your project's significance, put it in the context of 1) the state of your field, 2) your long-term research plans, and 3) your preliminary data.

In our Sample Applications , you can see that both investigators and reviewers made a case for the importance of the research to improving human health as well as to the scientific field.

Look at the Significance section of the Application from Dr. Mengxi Jiang , "Intersection of polyomavirus infection and host cellular responses," to see how these elements combine to make a strong case for significance.

• Dr. Jiang starts with a summary of the field of polyomavirus research, identifying critical knowledge gaps in the field.
• The application ties the lab's previous discoveries and new research plans to filling those gaps, establishing the significance with context.
• Note the use of formatting, whitespace, and sectioning to highlight key points and make it easier for reviewers to read the text.

After conveying the significance of the research in several parts of the application, check that

• In the Significance section, I describe the importance of my hypothesis to the field (especially if my reviewers are not in it) and human disease.
• I also point out the project's significance throughout the application.
• The application shows that I am aware of opportunities, gaps, roadblocks, and research underway in my field.
• I state how my research will advance my field, highlighting knowledge gaps and showing how my project fills one or more of them.
• Based on my scan of the review committee roster, I determine whether I cannot assume my reviewers will know my field and provide some information on basic biology, the importance of the area, knowledge gaps, and new findings.

If you are either a new PI or entering a new area: be cautious about seeming too innovative. Not only is innovation just one of five review criteria, but there might be a paradigm shift in your area of science. A reviewer may take a challenge to the status quo as a challenge to his or her world view.

When you look at our sample applications, you see that both the new and experienced investigators are not generally shifting paradigms. They are using new approaches or models, working in new areas, or testing innovative ideas.

After finishing the draft innovation section, check that

• I show how my proposed research is new and unique, e.g., explores new scientific avenues, has a novel hypothesis, will create new knowledge.
• Most likely, I explain how my project's research can refine, improve, or propose a new application of an existing concept or method.
• Make a very strong case for challenging the existing paradigm.
• Have data to support the innovative approach.
• Have strong evidence that I can do the work.

In your Approach, you spell out a few sets of experiments to address each aim. As we noted above, it's a good idea to restate the key points you've made about your project's significance, its place in your field, and your long-term goals.

You're probably wondering how much detail to include.

If you look at our sample applications as a guide, you can see very different approaches. Though people generally used less detail than you'd see in a scientific paper, they do include some experimental detail.

Expect your assigned reviewers to scrutinize your approach: they will want to know what you plan to do and how you plan to do it.

NIH data show that of the peer review criteria, approach has the highest correlation with the overall impact score.

Look at the Application from Dr. Mengxi Jiang , "Intersection of polyomavirus infection and host cellular responses," to see how a new investigator handled the Approach section.

For an example of an experienced investigator's well-received Approach section, see the Application from Dr. William Faubion , "Inflammatory cascades disrupt Treg function through epigenetic mechanisms."

Especially if you are a new investigator, you need enough detail to convince reviewers that you understand what you are undertaking and can handle the method.

• Cite a publication that shows you can handle the method where you can, but give more details if you and your team don't have a proven record using the method—and state explicitly why you think you will succeed.
• If space is short, you could also focus on experiments that highlight your expertise or are especially interesting. For experiments that are pedestrian or contracted out, just list the method.

Be sure to lay out a plan for alternative experiments and approaches in case you get negative or surprising results. Show reviewers you have a plan for spending the four or five years you will be funded no matter where the experiments lead.

See the Application from Drs. Li and Samulski , "Enhance AAV Liver Transduction with Capsid Immune Evasion," for a strong Approach section covering potential. As an example, see section C.1.3.'s alternative approaches.

Here are some pointers for organizing your Approach:

• Enter a bold header for each Specific Aim.
• Under each aim, describe the first set of experiments.
• If you get result X, you will follow pathway X; if you get result Y, you will follow pathway Y.
• Consider illustrating this with a flowchart.

Trim the fat—omit all information not needed to make your case. If you try to wow reviewers with your knowledge, they'll find flaws and penalize you heavily. Don't give them ammunition by including anything you don't need.

As you design your experiments, keep a running tab of the following essential data on a separate piece of paper:

• Who. A list of people who will help you for your Key Personnel section later.
• What. A list of equipment and supplies for the experiments you plan.
• Time. Notes on how long each step takes. Timing directly affects your budget as well as how many Specific Aims you can realistically achieve.

Jotting this information down will help you Create a Budget and complete other sections later.

After finishing a draft Approach section, check that

• I include enough background and preliminary data to give reviewers the context and significance of my plans.
• They can test the hypothesis (or hypotheses).
• I show alternative experiments and approaches in case I get negative or surprising results.
• My experiments can yield meaningful data to test my hypothesis (or hypotheses).
• As a new investigator, I include enough detail to convince reviewers I understand and can handle a method. I reviewed the sample applications to see how much detail to use.
• If I or my team has experience with a method, I cite it; otherwise I include enough details to convince reviewers we can handle it.
• I describe the results I anticipate and their implications.
• I omit all information not needed to state my case.
• I keep track of and explain who will do what, what they will do, when and where they will do it, how long it will take, and how much money it will cost.
• My timeline shows when I expect to complete my aims.

If you are applying for a new application, include preliminary studies; for a renewal or a revision (a competing supplement to an existing grant), prepare a progress report instead.

Describing Preliminary Studies

Your preliminary studies show that you can handle the methods and interpret results. Here's where you build reviewer confidence that you are headed in the right direction by pursuing research that builds on your accomplishments.

Reviewers use your preliminary studies together with the biosketches to assess the investigator review criterion, which reflects the competence of the research team.

Give alternative interpretations to your data to show reviewers you've thought through problems in-depth and are prepared to meet future challenges. If you don't do this, the reviewers will!

Though you may include other people's publications, focus on your preliminary data or unpublished data from your lab and the labs of your team members as much as you can.

As we noted above, you can put your preliminary data anywhere in the Research Strategy that you feel is appropriate, but just make sure your reviewers will be able to distinguish it. Alternatively, you can create a separate section with its own header.

Including a Progress Report

If you are applying for a renewal or a revision (a competing supplement to an existing grant), prepare a progress report instead of preliminary studies.

Create a header so your program officer can easily find it and include the following information:

• Project period beginning and end dates.
• Summary of the importance of your findings in relation to your Specific Aims.
• Account of published and unpublished results, highlighting your progress toward achieving your Specific Aims.

Note: if you submit a renewal application before the due date of your progress report, you do not need to submit a separate progress report for your grant. However, you will need to submit it, if your renewal is not funded.

After finishing the draft, check that

• I interpret my preliminary results critically.
• There is enough information to show I know what I'm talking about.
• If my project is complex, I give more preliminary studies.
• I show how my previous experience prepared me for the new project.
• It's clear which data are mine and which are not.

References show your breadth of knowledge of the field. If you leave out an important work, reviewers may assume you're not aware of it.

Throughout your application, you will reference all relevant publications for the concepts underlying your research and your methods.

Read more about your Bibliography and References Cited at Add a Bibliography and Appendix .

• Throughout my application I cite the literature thoroughly but not excessively, adding citations for all references important to my work.
• I cite all papers important to my field, including those from potential reviewers.
• I include fewer than 100 citations (if possible).
• My Bibliography and References Cited form lists all my references.
• I refer to unpublished work, including information I learned through personal contacts.
• If I do not describe a method, I add a reference to the literature.

Look over what you've written with a critical eye of a reviewer to identify potential questions or weak spots.

Enlist others to do that too—they can look at your application with a fresh eye. Include people who aren't familiar with your research to make sure you can get your point across to someone outside your field.

As you finalize the details of your Research Strategy, you will also need to return to your Specific Aims to see if you must revise. See Draft Specific Aims .

After you finish your Research Plan, you are ready to write your Abstract (called Project Summary/Abstract) and Project Narrative, which are attachments to the Other Project Information form.

These sections may be small, but they're important.

• All your peer reviewers read your Abstract and narrative.
• Staff and automated systems in NIH's Center for Scientific Review use them to decide where to assign your application, even if you requested an institute and study section.
• They show the importance and health relevance of your research to members of the public and Congress who are interested in what NIH is funding with taxpayer dollars.

Be sure to omit confidential or proprietary information in these sections! When your application is funded, NIH enters your title and Abstract in the public RePORTER database.

Think brief and simple: to the extent that you can, write these sections in lay language, and include appropriate keywords, e.g., immunotherapy, genetic risk factors.

As NIH referral officers use these parts to direct your application to an institute for possible funding, your description can influence the choice they make.

Write a succinct summary of your project that both a scientist and a lay person can understand (to the extent that you can).

• Use your Specific Aims as a template—shorten it and simplify the language.
• In the first sentence, state the significance of your research to your field and relevance to NIAID's mission: to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
• Next state your hypothesis and the innovative potential of your research.
• Then list and briefly describe your Specific Aims and long-term objectives.

In your Project Narrative, you have only a few sentences to drive home your project's potential to improve public health.

Check out these effective Abstracts and Narratives from our R01  Sample Applications :

• Application from Dr. Mengxi Jiang , "Intersection of polyomavirus infection and host cellular responses"
• Application from Dr. William Faubion , "Inflammatory cascades disrupt Treg function through epigenetic mechanisms"
• My Project Summary/Abstract and Project Narrative (and title) are accessible to a broad audience.
• They describe the significance of my research to my field and state my hypothesis, my aims, and the innovative potential of my research.
• My narrative describes my project's potential to improve public health.
• I do not include any confidential or proprietary information.
• I do not use graphs or images.
• My Abstract has keywords that are appropriate and distinct enough to avoid confusion with other terms.
• My title is specific and informative.

Previous Step

Have questions.

A program officer in your area of science can give you application advice, NIAID's perspective on your research, and confirmation that your proposed research fits within NIAID’s mission.

Find contacts and instructions at When to Contact an NIAID Program Officer .

WTO / Education / 11 Perfect Academic Research Statement Examples (with Guide)

11 Perfect Academic Research Statement Examples (with Guide)

Academic documents are often needed as we progress through our lives and careers. Among the most commonly used academic documents is the research statement. A research statement is usually a document not exceeding three pages that convince the board or school on a research topic. This document aims at explaining what the research you are about to conduct is about and what you hope to find out by the end of it. The document is, for the most part, short, well defined and robust.

Samples & Examples

Academic Research Statement Examples guide researchers in organizing their thoughts, presenting their ideas effectively, and highlighting the significance of their work. To further enhance convenience, here are free downloadable templates that will enable you to easily access and adapt them to suit their specific needs.

Purpose of Research Statement

The research statement is as mentioned above aimed at convincing the reader on the essence of the research you are about to start. It usually covers the main points on your plans and expected results in brief. When done properly, it should explain why you think the research is relevant, what you expect to find, what factors you plan to consider during your research, methodologies, and data collection methods, what your motivation is, and how it can benefit other academic subjects or researchers.

How a Research Statement Works for You

A research statement allows your readers to understand your potential, expertise, and skill in the field you may want to conduct your research in. By doing this; you can explain how your research can help them as well as the common good. It is used for various purposes. One common use is in helping in the hiring process.

Once a panel can determine your level of experience and expertise, they can then know whether you are a good fit to work as part of a research project. It is also a good way of gaining funding. The statement is usually an overview of a research proposal . When done right, it has the potential to encourage an investor to fund your research.

How to Write a Research Statement

For a research statement to get its message across, a good format is required, poor formatting may have you lose structure and deliver your points in a disorderly fashion. A great statement should follow the following format:

Introduction

As any other academic document, a research statement needs a good introduction. The introduction aims at defining your research agenda. This section allows you to convince your reader that you are strong and ready to embark on the research challenge. You can state your previous achievements, foundation, as well as express your passion in the subject matter. This section can detail your expertise on the research topic and any other ongoing research topics that may aid your research.

State your focus

This section works to identify the problem your research aims at solving. You can state what the problem is, why the research has not been undertaken before by other people, how you plan to work on the challenge as well as the approach you plan to use.

Importance of your research and academics

As part of convincing your reader, this section aims at making them understand how your previous experience and interests can help in the research. This section convinces your reader that you are the right person for the job.

 Summarize

As part of your conclusion, this section works to summarize your earlier mentioned points. This includes your research goals and project.

Proper delivery of the statement will convince your reader of your ability to undertake the challenge as well as your long-term goals. Following the above-described flow assures a flow of information that best explains all points needed in a systematic manner.

Format of Academic Research Statements

The objective of the research statement is to introduce yourself to a search committee. Which will most likely contain scientists both in and outside your field of study, and get them excited about your research.

To encourage people to read the statement:

• Use bullets
• Make the margins a reasonable size
• Make it one or two pages long, three at most
• Use informative section headings and subheadings
• Use an easy to read font type and size

Writing a great and effective research statement is not as easy as it may sound; even the most seasoned practitioners encounter problems and challenges daily. The statement needed might seem obvious to them but difficult to describe to non-specialists. One may not have thought about how to quantify it or how to justify the required statement concerning other agencies or national priorities. A serious challenge to them might not even be on a decision maker’s radar screen.

If, at first, you fail to succeed, don’t lose hope. If your statement is not selected, try to find out why. If possible, get the reviewer’s comments. Were they able to understand your research statement? If not, what could you have done differently to make it easily understandable to them? Did they consider it as a good statement but not a top priority or high potential payoff? Do not be embarrassed or discouraged by constructive reviews; they are the best guidance you can get to write better statements.

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Research interests statement

How to write your statement of research interests

Eleanor C Sayre

A statement of research interests is a way for you to articulate what you are interested in, your relevant past experience, and your concise future plans for research. You can think of it like a teaching philosophy, but for research; a future-oriented bio statement; or a narrative account of your research activity and plans.

Why write a statement of research interests?

Broadly speaking, statements of research interest are used in three ways:

• As part of your application package for graduate school or for a faculty job which includes research (1-2pp)
• As generative writing to clarify to yourself and your immediate (prospective) collaborators what you want to do. (1p)
• As part of an advertisement for you and your work, such as in a bio statement or on your website. (0.5p)

Let’s focus on the middle way right now, as it’s a good place to start. Your goal in this statement is to clarify to yourself about what kind of (research) work you want to be doing, and how it connects to the work you’ve already done.

Getting started

What are you curious about.

Research is fundamentally about creating new knowledge. It is a creative, inventive process. If you’re new to research, it can be a bit intimidating to start. Some options:

Spend some time working through the research design exercises to familiarize yourself with questions, access, methods, and theories. Instead of planning a specific research project, though, your goal is to design an ideal project.

When you read a paper, particularly a paper published in the last 18 months, ask yourself what is interesting or cool about this paper. It might not be their conclusions; it might be the clever way they connected hypotheses or the surprising population they worked with.

I am curious about how people develop professional identity as scientists. I’m not particularly interested in student learning of specific topics in physics, except inasmuch as they are indicative of student learning across multiple topics.

Don’t worry if someone else might have already done the research you want to do. If there’s already a large body of literature around your chosen topics, that means you have a lot of opportunity to look for nuance and compare other people’s ideas against each other.

Conversely, if nobody has ever done the research you want to do and you don’t know of anyone doing anything similar, then your interests are probably too esoteric and/or your keywords are too narrow. That’s ok eventually, but right now you need to describe your interests in more general terms.

Some people have a hard time imagining what they’re curious about. They want someone else to tell them what project to work on, how to move forward, and which topics to focus on. If that’s you, now is a good time for introspection: why do you want to do research?

How would you like to change the world?

This is a really big question about the intended impact of your research. Some people want the knowledge they generate to have practical, immediate applications. For example, you might be curious about how first generation college students fare in your program because you want increase their completion rate. Or you might be curious about how students understand topic X because you want to teach it better. The world is a really big place; you don’t have to change all of it. How would you like to change your teaching practice, your department, your town, etc?

I would like academic science to be a more equitable and just place, which means that some of my research is about how marginalized students navigate occasionally hostile pathways through undergraduate degrees. Separately, I want to help emerging researchers learn how to do research in education, so I do research on the best ways to teach graduate students and faculty about how to do education research. These two interests are not the same, but I can pursue both of them in the same project.

It’s ok if you want to change the world in multiple different ways at different scales. For example, you might want to do research on how physics students in general operate in lab classes because you want to develop a vision of undergraduate labs that better prepare students for research, while at the same time you want to improve the learning of students in the classes at your institution.

Who do you want to work with, and in what capacity?

For some researchers, this is a highly constrained topic; for others, it is quite open. Think about the following questions:

• Do you want local or remote collaborators on the same project?
• Do you want to be part of a research group of people on related projects?
• Do you want to be the sole PI with many students? One of a few PIs? Not a PI?
• How much time, realistically, can you devote to research endeavors?
• How many projects do you want to keep going at the same time?
• How much money do you have access to? Do you need to be externally funded? Who should be responsible for acquiring your funding?

I thrive when I have a large collaborative research group to talk to. Some of the people in it should be working on the same projects as me, but some of them can be working on different things in similar ways. I thoroughly enjoy being one PI of many, though I’m ok being a sole-PI or occasional consultant. I need to have several projects going at the same time, and it’s ok with me if that means engaging substantially in multiple research groups.

Some of my collaborators thrive when they can focus on one main project and keep some other things on the back burner. Other collaborators are primarily interested in advising projects that their students are interested in, while still others only want to work on projects that closely align with their own interests.

The best options are the ones that make you happy. There’s no right answer that works for everyone.

What experience do you have?

Even though these are called statements of research interests, they’re often used as to link your past experience with your future plans. Past experience is a pretty good indicator of future plans, so think about what you’ve already done. You can start with just talking about each project: the major goals, the work you personally performed, the products that have (or are planned to) come out of it.

You can use your past experience to teach you about what you like about the research process, and also to teach you what you don’t want your future work to look like. Did you learn that you strongly dislike sitting alone in front of a computer? love working closely with one person? Rather like the idea of observational astronomy but not that particular project? Love computational work but find computational biophysics not as appealing as you previously thought?

Be reflective here, and honest. You are learning about you. In the next stage you’ll work on refining your reflections into a statement for a particular audience.

Write your statement

Generative writing.

Write about one page for each of these questions. It’s ok to leave out questions you’re not sure about the answers for, but strive to be thorough. If you have multiple interests or past projects, it’s ok to write a paragraph about each of them. Look for similarities across projects and experiences to help you synthesize across projects.

Using the ideas in the flow handout , reverse outline your generative writing. A common structure for research statements is:

• Big idea about interests and changing the world
• Your experience & past work on this topic
• Future plans for this topic
• Another topic? Link and repeat.
• Closing thoughts about who you want to work with and in what capacity.

Most statements of research interests are 1-2 pages long. Your generative writing is a lot longer than that! Use the refining process to make your statement more concise.

Many students’ statements of research interests start with a paragraph about how much they have always loved this topic. Something like “ever since I was a young child, I have loved science.” Don’t do this. Our narratives about what “has always been true” are constructed in the present, and they are generally only selectively accurate renditions of the past.

Another common opening is to quote some famous scientist, usually Einstein or Feynman, about the wonder of the natural world or the majesty of science. Don’t do this. It’s trite and boring.

Think about audience

If you have a lot of ideas or interests, the audience for your research statement can help you decide what to focus on.

For example, if you’re writing an application essay to graduate school, your future plans probably aren’t very detailed. You can still have a big idea for changing the world, but it might be difficult to link your prior experience to your research interests. Many undergraduate research experiences teach participants that they enjoy research, just not that kind of research. In this statement, you need to name potential advisors in the department, and link their work to your interests. For help with that linking, I very strongly encourage you to email with and have an informational interview with each prospective advisor after your generative writing, but before you polish your statement. Receiving emails from prospective grad students is a totally normal part of being a research advisor, and I do it pretty much every week in application season. As an advisor and member of my department’s grad admissions committee, I look more favorably on applications which clearly fit the kinds of research we do in the department.

Alternately, if you are applying to faculty jobs , linking your past experience and future plans is very important. You will need to adjust your future plans so that they fit well into the kind of job you’re applying for, and specifically into the interests and resources of the department. Depending on the department, you might need to emphasize your goals around working with undergraduate students, attracting external funding, working with k12 teachers, or developing lab materials. In my department, to get tenure you need to demonstrate intellectual independence from your grad/postdoc work, so it is important that applicants’ research plans are not merely a continuation of their dissertations.

If you’re writing your statement of research interests for internal purposes only, to clarify what you’re looking for in your research life, then you should focus on whatever parts of the statement you need to work through to bring clarity to yourself. At different times in my life, I’ve focused on how to make my different projects sound like a coherent whole, how to finesse bad research experiences as learning opportunities, particular funding opportunities, and who I want to work with (both number and names).

Make it pretty

With your audience in mind, go through the last two exercises on the flow handout . You’re looking to make your statement feel like a cohesive whole that best shows off your goals, experience, and future plans, as moderated by the resources available in a particular context.

When it feels reasonably ok – not perfect! – send it to a trusted beta-reader to get feedback on your writing. This could be your advisor, a mentor in the field, or someone you know that knows a lot about the kind of position you’re looking for. You can also visit with your university writing center or career center (even after graduation!) for help with flow. They’re not usually specialized into statements of research interests, but they are good at general writing help.

Sometimes people ask me if I would be willing to read their statements ahead of time. For my current and former students (& collaborators), the answer is always yes. I will always help you do the thing you want to do next in your professional life. For prospective students, prospective collaborators, or other community members this is a little more complicated. Among these groups, I prioritize statements from BIPOC, women, and people whose research interests are aligned with my own. My availability for this kind of service to the community is limited, especially during application season. You should contact me to ask before you send your statement.

Additional topics to consider

Generative writing.

How to make the first draft of your research paper.

Writing better papers

How to make a coherent and easy-to-read research paper.

Planning research projects

How to develop a timeline for an education research project that makes space for emergence.

This article was first written on June 1, 2018, and last modified on May 30, 2024.

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FACT SHEET: Biden- ⁠ Harris Administration Announces New AI Actions and Receives Additional Major Voluntary Commitment on   AI

Nine months ago, President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). This Executive Order built on the voluntary commitments he and Vice President Harris received from 15 leading U.S. AI companies last year. Today, the administration announced that Apple has signed onto the voluntary commitments, further cementing these commitments as cornerstones of responsible AI innovation. In addition, federal agencies reported that they completed all of the 270-day actions in the Executive Order on schedule, following their on-time completion of every other task required to date . Agencies also progressed on other work directed for longer timeframes. Following the Executive Order and a series of calls to action made by Vice President Harris as part of her major policy speech before the Global Summit on AI Safety, agencies all across government have acted boldly. They have taken steps to mitigate AI’s safety and security risks, protect Americans’ privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more. Actions that agencies reported today as complete include the following: Managing Risks to Safety and Security: Over 270 days, the Executive Order directed agencies to take sweeping action to address AI’s safety and security risks, including by releasing vital safety guidance and building capacity to test and evaluate AI. To protect safety and security, agencies have:

• Released for public comment new technical guidelines from the AI Safety Institute (AISI) for leading AI developers in managing the evaluation of misuse of dual-use foundation models. AISI’s guidelines detail how leading AI developers can help prevent increasingly capable AI systems from being misused to harm individuals, public safety, and national security, as well as how developers can increase transparency about their products.
• Published final frameworks on managing generative AI risks and securely developing generative AI systems and dual-use foundation models. These documents by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will provide additional guidance that builds on NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework, which offered individuals, organizations, and society a framework to manage AI risks and has been widely adopted both in the U.S. and globally. NIST also submitted a report to the White House outlining tools and techniques to reduce the risks from synthetic content.
• Developed and expanded AI testbeds and model evaluation tools at the Department of Energy (DOE). DOE, in coordination with interagency partners, is using its testbeds to evaluate AI model safety and security, especially for risks that AI models might pose to critical infrastructure, energy security, and national security. DOE’s testbeds are also being used to explore novel AI hardware and software systems, including privacy-enhancing technologies that improve AI trustworthiness. The National Science Foundation (NSF) also launched an initiative to help fund researchers outside the federal government design and plan AI-ready testbeds.
• Reported results of piloting AI to protect vital government software.  The Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported findings from their AI pilots to address vulnerabilities in government networks used, respectively, for national security purposes and for civilian government. These steps build on previous work to advance such pilots within 180 days of the Executive Order.
• Issued a call to action from the Gender Policy Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy to combat image-based sexual abuse, including synthetic content generated by AI. Image-based sexual abuse has emerged as one of the fastest growing harmful uses of AI to-date, and the call to action invites technology companies and other industry stakeholders to curb it. This call flowed from Vice President Harris’s remarks in London before the AI Safety Summit, which underscored that deepfake image-based sexual abuse is an urgent threat that demands global action.

Bringing AI Talent into Government Last year, the Executive Order launched a government-wide AI Talent Surge that is bringing hundreds of AI and AI-enabling professionals into government. Hired individuals are working on critical AI missions, such as informing efforts to use AI for permitting, advising on AI investments across the federal government, and writing policy for the use of AI in government.

• To increase AI capacity across the federal government for both national security and non-national security missions, the AI Talent Surge has made over 200 hires to-date, including through the Presidential Innovation Fellows AI cohort and the DHS AI Corps .
• Building on the AI Talent Surge 6-month report , the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced new commitments from across the technology ecosystem, including nearly $100 million in funding, to bolster the broader public interest technology ecosystem and build infrastructure for bringing technologists into government service.

Advancing Responsible AI Innovation President Biden’s Executive Order directed further actions to seize AI’s promise and deepen the U.S. lead in AI innovation while ensuring AI’s responsible development and use across our economy and society. Within 270 days, agencies have:

• Prepared and will soon release a report on the potential benefits, risks, and implications of dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available, including related policy recommendations. The Department of Commerce’s report draws on extensive outreach to experts and stakeholders, including hundreds of public comments submitted on this topic.
• Awarded over 80 research teams’ access to computational and other AI resources through the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot —a national infrastructure led by NSF, in partnership with DOE, NIH, and other governmental and nongovernmental partners, that makes available resources to support the nation’s AI research and education community. Supported projects will tackle deepfake detection, advance AI safety, enable next-generation medical diagnoses and further other critical AI priorities.
• Released a guide for designing safe, secure, and trustworthy AI tools for use in education. The Department of Education’s guide discusses how developers of educational technologies can design AI that benefits students and teachers while advancing equity, civil rights, trust, and transparency. This work builds on the Department’s 2023 report outlining recommendations for the use of AI in teaching and learning.
• Published guidance on evaluating the eligibility of patent claims involving inventions related to AI technology,  as well as other emerging technologies. The guidance by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will guide those inventing in the AI space to protect their AI inventions and assist patent examiners reviewing applications for patents on AI inventions.
• Issued a report on federal research and development (R&D) to advance trustworthy AI over the past four years. The report by the National Science and Technology Council examines an annual federal AI R&D budget of nearly $3 billion.
• Launched a $23 million initiative to promote the use of privacy-enhancing technologies to solve real-world problems, including related to AI.  Working with industry and agency partners, NSF will invest through its new Privacy-preserving Data Sharing in Practice program in efforts to apply, mature, and scale privacy-enhancing technologies for specific use cases and establish testbeds to accelerate their adoption.
• Announced millions of dollars in further investments to advance responsible AI development and use throughout our society. These include $30 million invested through NSF’s Experiential Learning in Emerging and Novel Technologies program—which supports inclusive experiential learning in fields like AI—and $10 million through NSF’s ExpandAI program, which helps build capacity in AI research at minority-serving institutions while fostering the development of a diverse, AI-ready workforce.

Advancing U.S. Leadership Abroad President Biden’s Executive Order emphasized that the United States lead global efforts to unlock AI’s potential and meet its challenges. To advance U.S. leadership on AI, agencies have:

• Issued a comprehensive plan for U.S. engagement on global AI standards.  The plan, developed by the NIST, incorporates broad public and private-sector input, identifies objectives and priority areas for AI standards work, and lays out actions for U.S. stakeholders including U.S. agencies. NIST and others agencies will report on priority actions in 180 days. 
• Developed guidance for managing risks to human rights posed by AI. The Department of State’s “Risk Management Profile for AI and Human Rights”—developed in close coordination with NIST and the U.S. Agency for International Development—recommends actions based on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to governments, the private sector, and civil society worldwide, to identify and manage risks to human rights arising from the design, development, deployment, and use of AI. 
• Launched a global network of AI Safety Institutes and other government-backed scientific offices to advance AI safety at a technical level. This network will accelerate critical information exchange and drive toward common or compatible safety evaluations and policies.
• Launched a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution . The unanimously adopted resolution, with more than 100 co-sponsors, lays out a common vision for countries around the world to promote the safe and secure use of AI to address global challenges.
• Expanded global support for the U.S.-led Political Declaration on the Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy.   Fifty-five nations now endorse the political declaration, which outlines a set of norms for the responsible development, deployment, and use of military AI capabilities.

The Table below summarizes many of the activities that federal agencies have completed in response to the Executive Order:

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University of Utah statement on new BYU Medical School

The University of Utah received news today from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the church will establish a new private, faith-affiliated medical school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, focused on international health issues affecting their members and the faith’s worldwide humanitarian efforts. The U plans to actively pursue collaboration opportunities with the church and BYU in medical education and clinical care.

University leaders affirm that BYU’s internationally-focused health education plans complement University of Utah Health’s state-focused mission and offer new opportunities to serve growing health care needs locally and around the world.

The University of Utah is also expanding its health education resources with its new state-of-the-art home for the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, which will be completed in early 2026. In addition, the U is planning a regional medical campus in St. George, Utah, where students will receive clinical training in partnership with Intermountain Health and Utah Tech University. These southwest Utah plans will be discussed further in the 2025 General Legislative Session.

The combination of the U’s medical school expansion and the church’s announcement today will ensure that in the rapidly growing and changing field of medicine, Utahns continue to benefit from excellent teaching, research and clinical expertise.

Select quotes from University of Utah leaders

President taylor randall.

In conversations with leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’ve expressed the U’s support for this additional investment in medical education and have committed to work together to serve our unique communities , ” said Taylor Randall, president of the University of Utah. “We will work with BYU and church leadership to lay the groundwork for a model collaboration that serves the needs of this state and provides critical health services to countries around the world.” “With a new medical school in the state, the U and BYU can strive to meet existing and future health care professional shortages, provide more opportunities for aspiring medical providers and contribute to the health care needs of patients in our region and around the globe.

Michael Good, senior vice president

For nearly 120 years, the University of Utah has been committed to providing top-tier medical education and research,” said Michael Good, senior vice president for Health Sciences. “The U’s medical training, patient care and research helps Utahns and others in our service area live healthier, longer and better lives. We look forward to working together to accelerate our collective societal impact.

Sam Finlayson, interim dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine

Current enrollment numbers at the U highlight the high demand for medical education in our region,” said Sam Finlayson, interim dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. “The Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine receives well over 2,000 applications for just 125 positions in each medical school class, highlighting the high demand for medical education in our region and the need to expand the state’s educational infrastructure.

About University of Utah Health

Since 1905, the University of Utah has been the Mountain West’s leading academic health sciences center. U of U Health currently serves patients living in over 10% of the geographic United States—including Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, western Colorado and much of Nevada.

U of U Health includes five hospitals, 12 community health centers, a medical group of more than 2,000 members, a $500-million research enterprise, five schools and colleges (including colleges of Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Medicine), a national health sciences library, the nation’s fourth largest reference laboratory (ARUP Laboratories) and numerous institutes and centers focused on cancer, cardiology, diabetes treatment, genetics, ophthalmology, orthopedics, neuroscience, psychiatry, precision medicine, population health, global health and more.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Optimal management plans and initiatives for the valorization and safeguarding of local breeds: a mathematical programming approach.

• 1 Agricultural Economics Research Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization—DIMITRA, Athens, Greece
• 2 Department of Agricultural Economics and Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece

In this study, a parametric programming model was developed in order to deliver optimal management plans for various types of farms rearing endangered Greek sheep breeds under three distinct scenarios. The first scenario investigated the optimal internal organization of farms (i.e., management practices and resource allocation strategies that increase profitability of farms) under current market conditions (e.g., product prices) without, however, considering subsidies and compensations. The second assessed the impact of an agri-environmental support scheme on farm optimal structure and socioeconomic performance. The third investigated the effects of integrating farms into value chains and niche markets where premium prices prevail. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was conducted in the wider region of Epirus and Thessaly, collecting management data from 16 farms rearing (i) Kalaritiko, (ii) Orino Epiru and (iii) Katsika rare sheep breeds. The main finding of this study was that the optimal internal organization of farms is essential for their self-reliance and viability. Therefore, it should be the basis in the designing of any initiative aimed at the preservation and valorization of local breeds. Furthermore, the analysis showed that a niche marketing strategy (i.e., a premium price strategy) can have a broader positive impact on farms structure and socioeconomic performance, particularly those engaged in cheese production, compared to an agri-environmental scheme. However, due to the fact that both initiatives possess limitations that may render them inefficient under specific external conditions, the development of an integrated incentive mechanism, which will combine both policy schemes and market-based initiatives, appeared to be a more effective strategy for the long-term viability of farms.

Introduction

Local breeds (LB) (i.e., breeds found solely in one country ( FAO, 2007a )) are a key component of traditional pasture-based production systems (PPs), which play multiple roles (including socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural) in many regions and settings around the globe ( Teston et al., 2022 ; Ragkos et al., 2019a ; Duclos and Hiemstra, 2010 ). Indeed, LB and PPs constitute the main economic activity in many marginal and remote areas, creating job opportunities and supporting livelihoods ( FAO, 2007a ). Due to their adaptability to local conditions ( Legarra et al., 2007 ), LB can efficiently and sustainably use high-nature value rangelands, delivering a wide range of marketed products (milk, meat, wool, etc.) along with ecosystem services such as soil fertility, conservation of landscapes and biodiversity ( Hoffmann et al., 2014 ; Rodríguez-Ortega et al., 2014 ; Leroy et al., 2018 ). LB and their PPs are also an integral and important part of the identity of local communities. The interaction of people (particularly farmers and their families) with LB and their agroecosystems led to the development of practices, knowledge and beliefs also known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) ( Colino-Rabanal et al., 2018 ).

In terms of production and markets, LB are endowed with several advantages that can lead to higher profitability. These include lower requirements for fixed and variable capital ( Ragkos et al., 2019a ), longevity (i.e., more lactation periods per ewe) ( Papachristoforou et al., 2013 ), higher resistance to diseases ( Piedrafita et al., 2010 ; Papachristoforou et al., 2013 ). And product quality ( Teston et al., 2022 ). However, due to the widespread presence of highly productive breeds, all these benefits are often underestimated or even neglected ( Ligda and Casabianca, 2013 ). This adverse situation is further burdened by the pricing policies of some dairy industries, which are primarily based on the quantity rather than the quality of milk ( Ragkos et al., 2019a ; Perucho et al., 2019 ). Because of these market forces, farmers focus on milk production, replacing or crossbreeding local breeds with highly productive exotic breeds ( Juvančič et al., 2021 ; Perucho et al., 2021 ). As a consequence, sharp decline in their populations is being witnessed and, in some cases, even extinction ( FAO, 2016 ).

In any case, the loss of domestic animal genetic diversity poses a threat to global food security and the livelihoods of rural areas ( FAO, 2007b ). Consequently, this issue has garnered significant attention in both scientific and policy making communities, which have proposed various initiatives and strategies for their preservation and sustainable management. According to Ragkos et al. (2019a) , all these strategies fall into two equally important dimensions. The first dimension involves their short-term rescue and protection, which is primarily achieved through the provision of payments to farmers and their associations (e.g., a long standing, since 1995, agri-environmental scheme compensating farmers for income forgone caused by rearing LB). Nevertheless, there is a gap in the literature regarding the long-term effectiveness and impact of such strategies on conservation of LB ( Gicquel et al., 2020 ).

The second dimension encompasses strategies aimed at the overall sustainability and self-reliance of farms, introducing an alternative pathway for the valorization of LB ( Ragkos et al., 2019a ). This approach refers to - but is not limited to - effective marketing strategies, which facilitate the integration of LB farms into value chains and niche markets, where premium prices prevail. A number of recent studies have suggested the design and development of niche marketing strategies as an integral part of a broader approach for preserving LB, particularly those that are in risk of extinction ( Lambert-Derkimba et al., 2013 ; Zander et al., 2013 ; Martin-Collado et al., 2014 ; Juvančič et al., 2021 ; Varela and Kallas, 2022 ; Skordos et al., 2024 ), highlighting, at the same time, the key features that will render them effective ( Di Trana et al., 2015 ). Apart from niche marketing strategies, optimal management plans for farms rearing LB may also be a strategy to enhance their overall sustainability and self-reliance.

The purpose of this study is to deliver optimal management plans for different farm types rearing three endangered local sheep breeds (LSB) in Greece, maximizing their economic performance and identifying potential organizational bottlenecks. In addition, the impact of two distinct incentives on farm optimal structure (particularly in their flock size) and internal organization is investigated. These incentives include the agri-environmental scheme for the preservation of endangered local breeds (particularly the sub-measure 10.1.9 of Rural Development Program [RDP] 2014–2020, which in the Greek Strategic Plan of the new Common Agricultural Policy [CAP 2023–2027] corresponds to the intervention I3-70-1.5) and a niche-premium pricing marketing strategy. For this purpose, a mathematical programming model is developed, using data from a farm management survey. Although mathematical programming models have been widely employed to derive optimal management plans for livestock farms ( Sintori et al., 2013 ; Ragkos et al., 2020 ; Cecchini et al., 2022 ; Hlavatý et al., 2023 ; Theodoridis et al., 2023 ), it is the first time that this methodology is applied for farms rearing exclusively endangered LSB. To our knowledge, this is also the first attempt in Greece to investigate the impact of such strategies on the population of endangered breeds.

Materials and methods

Survey profile and data collection.

This study uses data from a farm management survey of farms rearing (i) Kalaritiko, (ii) Orino Epiru and (iii) Katsika sheep breeds, which are mainly located in the wider region of Epirus and Thessaly (study area) in North-Western and Central Greece, respectively. The selection of these breeds was based on three main criteria. The first criterion is related to the fact that these LSB are a key element of PPs, which play a multifunctional role in many regions around the globe ( Ragkos et al., 2020 ). Indeed, all these three breeds share important characteristics that render them ideal for transhumant and/or pastoral systems in harsh environments of Greece in general. In particular, they demonstrate high adaptability to local conditions (including grazing) and increased longevity. However, significant differences were observed in the implemented grazing practices among the surveyed farms. For instance, some of the farms graze their sheep throughout the year in natural rangelands near the facilities, while others are transhumant and move flocks from the lowlands to mountain pastures in the summer (mainly in Tzoumerka mountain range, from May to October) in order to take advantage spontaneous vegetation. However, for both systems, the provision of additional feedstuffs (forage and concentrates) is necessary during winter mainly due to the low availability and productivity of lowland rangelands and the high nutritional requirements linked with the lambing and milking periods. The second criterion is that all these breeds are endangered and therefore supported through the CAP (sub-measure 10.1.9 of the RDP). In 2021, according to FAO (2024) , the combined population of these three LSB consisted of 701 males and 10,970 females. The third criterion refers to their similar production traits. Indeed, these breeds are of small sized animals (rams weigh approximately 64 kg and ewes 45 kg), with low milk yields (average 110 kg/ewe) and prolificacy indexes (1.15 lambs per ewe) ( MINAGRIC: Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food, 2015 ). Therefore, any differences in the economic performance of the surveyed farms cannot be attributed to the production traits of the breeds but rather to the management practices of the farmers.

In total, 16 farmers were interviewed, whose livestock represented 70% of the total population of the three breeds. Collected data involved description of the flocks (number of ewes, rams, replacement lambs, etc.); outputs (e.g., milk, meat and cheese yields and prices); subsidies - compensations (basic payment scheme, coupled payments, agri-environmental support, support for areas with natural constraints, etc.); annual labor requirements (e.g., hours of family and hired labor per task and wages paid to hired workers); rent and area (ha) of pastures and/or other irrigated and non-irrigated lands used for crop production (which in the case of transhumance farms were further distinguished to lowlands and highlands); description of grazing practices (period, hours of grazing per period, place etc.); variable capital (prices and quantity of feedstuff, veterinary costs, crop production costs, etc.) as well as fixed capital endowments (value of equipment, infrastructure, etc.).

Technical and economic analysis

After the collection of the data, basic technical and economic indicators along with the gross margin were calculated for the sampled farms. These indicators were not only essential for the implementation of the mathematical programming model ( Parametric programming model specifications ), but also depicted the overall performance of the farms in the existing situation.

Moreover, to highlight potential differences due to the farming system, farms were initially classified into two categories i) transhumant and ii) non-transhumant (sedentary) farms. However, the categorization based on transhumance did not reveal the heterogeneity of farms in terms of production orientation. Previous work with transhumance ( Ragkos et al., 2019b ) showed that the economic performance of farms producing cheese differs from dairy or dual-purpose farms. To accommodate this diversity, the typology of Theodoridis et al. (2017) was adapted to this study and five types of farms (ToF) were finally considered: i) dairy transhumant (DT) and ii) dairy non-transhumant farms (DNT); i.e., in these types of farms the income from milk exceeds 65% of total gross revenues and the only difference lies on the grazing practices [seasonal movement or not of the flocks]; iii) “dual purpose” farms (DU) (i.e., transhumant farms where the income from milk and meat are almost equal); iv) “meat” oriented (MO) farms (i.e., transhumant farms that produce only meat and the milk is used only for lamb rearing); and v) “cheese” oriented (CO) farms (i.e., non-transhumant farms that engage in cheese production for commercial purposes and where cheese sales represent more than 50% of their total gross revenues). Thus, the analysis indicated the potential of farms based on their farming system and production orientation.

Parametric programming model specifications

Parametric programming (PP) is an extension of Linear programming (LP), which is a non-parametric mathematical programming method ( Rardin, 1998 ) that has been widely used in the field of agricultural economics ( Alsheikh et al., 2011 ; Sintori et al., 2013 ; Baciu et al., 2023 ; Theodoridis et al., 2023 ). Both LP and PP models aim to deliver an optimal allocation of farm resources (i.e., to maximize or minimize (depending on the purposes of the research) an objective function (i.e., linear function of variables) that is subject to constraints (i.e., linear inequalities). Whether it is for cost minimization or output maximization, these models deliver an optimal combination of activities and therefore are considered an appropriate tool for policymakers and other stakeholders ( Sintori et al., 2013 ).

The mathematical expression of a PP model is as follows (Eqs 1 – 3 ):

Z = objective function (in this study, refers to the maximization of the gross margin (GM) of the ToF).

x j = farm activities (in our case, corresponds to the number of ewes. Therefore, the model has the flexibility to maximize the GM as a function of the number of ewes reared).

c j = the contribution of each activity to the objective function

a i j = the requirements per unit of the activity x j , where its available resource is A j

Coefficients of some variables in the objective function (Price Parametric Programming) or the availability of a resource in constraints (Aij) (Right-hand Side Parametric Programming) are allowed to vary, fact that leads to a set of alternative optimal solutions for different parameter values. This capability of the model enables policymakers and other stakeholders to analyze the sensitivity and robustness of the optimal solution to changes in the external and/or internal environment.

In this study, a PP model was developed for each ToF, which simulates the optimal management plans (e.g., number of ewes reared, hours of hired labor required, quantity purchased feedstuff, etc.) that maximize their economic performance in the objective function (Eq. 4 ) under a set of physical and economic constraints. As it is depicted in Eq. 4 , the economic performance of ToF was defined by their total GM (gross revenues minus variable expenses and the cost of hired labor). Due to its simplicity, GM has been extensively used in relevant optimization models ( Alsheikh et al., 2011 ; Ragkos et al., 2020 ; Baciu et al., 2023 ; Theodoridis et al., 2023 ) to define the optimal economic performance of farms.

Where E is the number of ewes, q 1 , q 2 , and q x are the total quantity of the products per ewe, P 1, P 2 , and P x correspond to the product prices, VE account for variable expenses and HLAB stands for the cost of hired labor. In addition, in order to provide more flexibility to the models, variables with zero coefficients (transfer activities [VC]) were also included in the objective function.

Constraints in the models, which ensure that the results are realistic and feasible e.g., the workload of farms does not exceed the available hours of labor (both family and hired), were adjusted to the peculiarities of each ToF and referred to:

• Land constraints, which expressed the available area (ha) of arable land, non-irrigated (for wheat and barley) and irrigated (for alfalfa and maize), as well as pastures. In the case of transhumant farms, pastures were modeled separately between lowlands and highlands, as both their availability and productivity varied between regions and types of farms. Since there were no data available for pastures in the study area, such data on their average productivity and stocking rates were based on the specifications provided for the Rangeland Management Plans ( Common Ministerial Decision, 2014 ).

• Labor constraints, which refer to actual and required family and hired labor. The actually employed family labor is determined by considering the hours that family members of each ToF currently dedicate to farm tasks. For the estimation of the average hired labor, an assumption was made that each ToF has the capability, if needed, to increase its current hired labor hours twofold. Τhe actual family and hired labor are expressed in h/year. Moreover, labor requirements cover all farm activities, including those related to cheese and crop production, where applicable, and are expressed in h/ewe/year.

• Variable capital constrains include the cost of purchased feedstuff, the cost of crop production, veterinarian expenses, cheese production expenses (in the case of CO) and other variable expenses. All these expenses were introduced in the models as separate constraints.

• Feeding requirements, which ensure that all sheep (ewes, replacement lambs and rams) cover their dietary needs in dry matter, energy and protein throughout their production cycle (milking period, mating period, weaned lambs etc.) However, due to the fact that intakes from natural pastures are difficult to estimate, and based on the results of the study of Zervas et al. (1996) we assumed that sheep can cover at most 15% of their annual energy requirements from natural pasture. Although the LB examined in this study are well-adapted to local conditions and particularly grazing, we preferred to use this minimum constraint. The nutritional values of natural pastures as well as purchased and home-grown feedstuff (such as alfalfa, corn and barley) were also included in the model and were derived from Zervas et al. (2004) .

In order to examine the economic performance of these diverse ToF, under different situations and challenges, three different scenarios were elaborated. The first Scenario (S1) investigated the optimal management of ToF under the current market conditions, without however taking into account CAP income support, highlighting the necessary adjustments (e.g., in the number of the reared ewes, hours of hired labor, the quantity of purchased feedstuff, etc.) for each ToF to maximize their GM. This way, an initial solution was yielded which “isolated” the effects of CAP income support and revealed the “true” potential of farms from the optimal use of resources and market sales. This solution provided a baseline to examine two additional Scenarios of future trajectories of LSB farms.

Scenario 2 (S2) examined the impact of the agri-environmental support scheme (sub-measure 10.1.9 of RDP 2014–2020) which compensates farmers for economic losses incurred from rearing endangered LSB. This payment was isolated from other CAP payments and was included in the objective function of the model (Eq. 4 ). This amount corresponded to €34.8 per ewe when the ratio of males to females is 1:15 or less, and €31.35 per ewe when the ratio exceeded 1:15 ( MINAGRIC: Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food, 2024 ). Scenario 3 (S3), on the other hand, investigated the effectiveness of a premium pricing strategy (i.e., a market-based strategy) towards the valorization of LB. In this scenario, although the objective functions and constraints were the same as those in the first scenario, the price of the primary product of each ToF (i.e., the product with the highest contribution to the gross revenues) was allowed to increase (Price Parametric Programming) investigating the effectiveness of a premium pricing strategy to the valorization of LB. In DT, DNT, and DU, the primary product was milk, in MO it was lamb meat and in CO it was cheese. However, in the case of CO, beyond the cheese price, the milk price was also allowed to increase, examining the consequences of this change on its production orientation and business model (Scenario 3b).

Overview of the existing situation–results of the technical and economic analysis

Basic technical and economic indicators.

Table 1 depicts the basic technical and economic indicators for each ToF. Milk price was approximately €0.96 per liter across all ToF. In contrast to milk prices, there were significant differences in the total quantity of milk (i.e., the total milk produced without considering the amount consumed by lambs). Dairy farms, both DT and DNT milked the highest quantity of milk (115.3 kg/ewe and 97.2 kg/ewe, respectively), while, leaving out the MO, where milk was solely used for lamb feeding, CO was the one that had the lowest one (49.5 kg/ewe). The total milked quantity in CO corresponded to 17666, 7lt per year, from which only 21.7% was sold to industries. When it comes to meat prices and yields, there was also a significant variation across all groups. MO achieved the highest meat prices for both lamb and ewe meat (€10.00 and 7.50 €/kg, respectively). As for lamb meat, DU was the one that achieved the highest yields per ewe (8.4 kg/ewe), followed by MO (8.0 kg/ewe).

Table 1 . Basic techno-economic indicators and financial result that reflect the existing situation.

Basic economic results

Indicators of economic performance for the various ToF were initially calculated without taking into consideration the various types of income support payments from CAP measures. In this case, revenues from markets and the value of self-consumption were considered, MO and DU had the lowest gross revenues (104.27 €/ewe and 123.53 €/ewe, respectively), nevertheless they were the only ToF with positive GM (42.01 €/ewe and 27.83 €/ewe) due to significant cost savings in purchased feedstuff and hired labor expenses. In contrast, CO operated with the highest losses (−45.93 €/ewe), followed by DT and DNT (−14.60 €/ewe and −2.21 €/ewe, respectively). These calculations of GM were used for the analysis of S1 with the mathematical programming model. However, the total sums of CAP income support - which stand for a very important part of the income of extensive pastoral farms in Greece ( Ragkos et al., 2020 ) and also in various European regions ( Arsenos et al., 2021 ) - are also reported in Table 1 . When they were taken into consideration, GM was positive for all ToF which illustrates the vital importance of policy support for the viability of most LSB farms even in the short run.

Mathematical programming solutions

Table 2 presents the results of the S1. In this scenario there were small or no changes in flock sizes, in contrast with the GM/ewe which was increased in the majority of ToF, except for MO, mainly due to the reduced expenses for purchased feedstuff and the efficient use of available family labor. As regard MO, a small increase in purchased feedstuff resulted in slightly decrease in its GM/ewe. Nevertheless, this increase was minor and hence didn't have a critical economic impact. The highest GM per ewe was achieved by DT (50.75 €/ewe), demonstrating also the highest increase (a remarkable 320%), followed by DU (41.61 €/ewe). As in the existing situation ( Table 1 ), CO was the ToF with lowest GM per ewe (15.67 €/ewe). However, in contrast with the existing situation, in S1 all the milk quantity was used for cheese production. In addition, across all ToF, the shadow price of labor [i.e., the additional gross margin that would result if one additional unit of labour (1 h) was used ( Ragkos et al., 2020 )] was lower than its cost (3.5 €/h), a fact that explains the non-use of hired workers.

Table 2 . Optimal management plans (Results of the Scenario 1).

When agri-environmental support was included in the model (S2) ( Table 3 ), structural changes were observed primarily for DU and DT (the two largest ToF in the existing situation), through an increase in flock sizes by 39% and 9% respectively, which was accommodated by the use of additional hired labor. Hired labor was adequately valorized in the case of DU (2952 h), while in DT corresponded to 697 h (13% of the available hired labor). The remaining three types show only marginal or no changes in flock sizes, which can largely be attributed to the low productivity of labor. Indeed, even in this scenario, the shadow price of hired labor in these ToF was still much lower compared to its cost (3.5 €/h).

Table 3 . The impact of agri-environmental support and premium pricing strategy (Scenario 2 and 3) on the optimal structure of farms (Scenario 1).

In contrast with S2, significant structural changes were observed in all ToF in S3 (premium pricing strategy). Particularly, due the increase in the price of the primary products ( Table 3 ), all farms increased their flock size, valorizing hired labor. CO achieved the most substantial increase both in flock size (128%) and in hired labor (9,686 h), highlighting the benefits and prospects of a marketing strategy for high-added value products. As in S1, CO transformed the entire quantity of milk into cheese. Actually, the S3b indicates that only under “extreme” market conditions, where milk price increased by 168% (from 0.95 €/lt to 2.55 €/lt) compared to the existing situation, the sale of milk in dairy industries was the most viable option.

The analysis revealed significant differences in the quantity of milk (i.e., milked quantity), fact that justifies the typology outlined in this study. As expected, the total milked quantity was higher in dairy farms (DT and DNT) and lower in CO. CO farmers’ decisions to wean their lambs at an older age (73 days compared to the average weaning age of 57 days) constitute the main reason for the lower amount of milk. In contrast to total milked quantity, the analysis indicated that the extended weaning age positively influences lamb meat yields. Indeed, the increased lamb meat yields in MO (8.0 kg/ewe) can be largely attributed to the extended weaning period of lambs (90 days). Apart from product yields, a significant difference was also observed in the price of lamb meat. In particular, while lamb meat price, across all ToF, was around 6 €/kg, in MO it accounted for 10 €/kg. This variation can largely be attributed to the fact that MO was integrated into short supply chains, selling its products directly to consumers or high-end restaurants at a retail price, while the other ToF used to sell their meat to wholesalers ( Skordos et al., 2024 ).

Among the key findings of this study is that the production orientation, along with implemented farming system (i.e., transhumance or non-transhumance), can significantly impact the potential of farms. For example, CO was the ToF with the lowest economic performance and potential in both S1 and S2. This suggests that the engagement of LSB farms in cheese production (i.e., forward vertical integration) is not an efficient strategy under current market conditions. This observation aligns with Ragkos et al. (2019b) , who also noted that CO farms were less competitive and viable compared to farms with different production orientations and business models that examined in their study. In fact, in the Ragkos et al. (2019b) study this was due to the higher organizational levels required to undertake this activity, which could disrupt the operation of farms, and economic performance was largely due to the efficient use of inputs and labor. In this study, and particularly in S1, the results of the PP model led to a similar finding reflected in lower GM/ewe for CO farms compared to the rest ToF. In addition, S3a proved that the CO was under-valorized in S1, as premium pricing led to a notable increase in both the number of ewes and the GM/ewe ( Table 3 ). However, ToF with higher potential do not always achieve better economic results. For example, although the S1 indicated that DT along with DU were the two ToF with the highest potential and those who achieved the highest improvement, the existing situation ( Table 1 ) depicted a different picture for DT, as it witnessed significant economic losses.

Therefore, it can be argued that the optimal management of farms is a critical factor towards the fulfilment of their true potential and consequently the maintenance of LB. Indeed, in S1, all ToF achieved a positive GM, which indicates that they are viable and able to face their variable costs in the short run ( Ragkos et al., 2015 ). However, even under optimal management, the shadow price of labor ( Table 2 ) remained lower than the costs of hired labor (€3.50/h). This indicates the vital importance of EU income support for these farms, as not only does it stand for a significant part of their economic performance but rather guarantees their viability. In the other two Scenarios examined in this study, it seems that S3 provides a much more viable prospect for all ToF, as the use of hired labor indicates that the shadow price is higher than the 3,5 €/h threshold. The same is witnessed for only two ToF in S2. Therefore, in the long term, even a support-oriented strategy cannot guarantee the livelihoods of LSB farmers, especially for DNT, CO and MO.

In S1, apart from MO, all types of farms, and particularly DT and DU, enhanced their economic performance, through the implementation of rational feeding patterns (i.e., feeding patterns that cover the nutritional needs of animals at the lowest possible cost) and efficient use of labor. The inefficient use of those two equally important factors constitutes the main reason behind their reduced socioeconomic performance in the existing situation. However, the impact of these changes differs from type to type. Excessive feeding costs seem to occur in DT (accounting for 63% of the total expenses) while the inefficient use of labor seems to be aggravated in CO farms. The higher feeding cost of DT can be largely attributed to the fact that sheep graze fewer hours during winter compared to other ToF. As regards MO, it was the only ToF that, in the existing situation, was based solely on family members as well as the only one for which a small increase in purchased feedstuffs was necessary to cover the dietary needs of sheep, which led to a decrease in its GM. Recently, an eco-scheme was introduced remunerating farmers who develop balanced rations for their flocks also valorizing grazing, thus demonstrating that there is ample room for more efficient use of natural vegetation to increase economic performance.

The above highlight the need for advisory and technical support tailored for the specific characteristics of pastoral production in general but also for each type and system in particular. Within the Strategic Plan of CAP 2023–2027 ( MINAGRIC: Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food, 2023 ), the system for Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation (AKIS) is planned to be reconfigured in Greece, providing substantial roles to agricultural advisors towards the achievement of social, economic and environmental objectives of CAP. As CAP becomes more and more complex, farmers seem not to be able to take advantage of all the financial tools and support provided to them. Therefore, advisory service in the new period has an additional role—to help farmers access financial tools that can support their livelihoods in the short or mid-term. Apart from advisory, training initiatives (formal and informal such as seminars, workshops, etc.) should also be considered to ensure the optimal management of LB farms and the transition to more sustainable and resilient production systems. Today in Greece, there are no formal education curricula related to pastoralism. Hence the establishment and operation of pastoral schools, like the examples of other Mediterranean countries (e.g., the Catalan Shepherd School and the National School of Pastoralism in Italy), is also of high importance. Pastoral schools are expected not only to enhance the competitiveness of such farms, but also to secure the systematic transmission of TEK, which constitutes an integral part of the operation of systems based on LB and of their cultural heritage, to the young generation of farmers.

Another important finding of this study is that agri-environmental support schemes “artificially” led to an increase in farm size. This observation is consistent with previous studies ( Gicquel et al., 2020 ), and with the experience of previous CAP periods. However, in contrast with Galanopoulos et al. (2011) , who argued that subsidies primarily favor small, inefficient farms, this study indicates that support schemes related to the conservation of LB seem to favor the larger ones. Indeed, the two largest ToF in the sample, DT and DU, with flock sizes exceeding 400 ewes in the existing situation, were the only ToF that increased their flock size in S2. This structural change was accommodated by recruiting hired workers, underscoring the socioeconomic impact of such schemes. Despite the increase in hired labor, the fact that both ToF increased their gross margin per ewe indicates that both are currently underdeveloped and, so, have significant potential for improvement. Nevertheless, these agri-environmental schemes have faced considerable criticism ( Martin-Collado et al., 2014 ; Varela and Kallas, 2022 ), as, in many cases they resulted in the isolation of LB farms from markets ( Ragkos et al., 2019a ), rendering them less resilient and more vulnerable to policy changes.

Furthermore, this study revealed that a strategy facilitating the integration of LB farms into niche markets (S3), where premium prices prevail, also fostered the valorization of LB. This Scenario had a broader impact in terms of structural changes and labor valorization, as all ToF, and not only the larger ones, increased their flock sizes and recruited hired workers. Hence, due to their higher socioeconomic impact, strategies oriented towards markets appear to be more relevant for rural development than income support payments. This finding aligns with Varela and Kallas (2022) , who also emphasized that premium niche markets can positively impact the viability of farms and, consequently, the valorization of LB. Additionally, the fact that farms engaged in the production of high-value-added products (CO) benefited more from market-oriented strategies highlights the prospects of products under the approach “one place – one product – one breed.” Nevertheless, Narloch et al. (2011) have pointed out that these strategies may be fragile because they heavily depend on market conditions and forces and thus introduce pastoral systems in the conditions of national (or even globalized) markets and expose small farmers to a highly competitive environment. Particularly, volatile economic conditions and other external factors, such as cultural barriers ( Verrier et al., 2005 ), can affect adversely the consumption of niche products and, consequently, their effectiveness ( Narloch et al., 2011 ). Additionally, there may be cases where premium prices cannot fully offset the abolishment of agri-environmental support, potentially leading to a decrease in the LB population.

Given the above considerations, an important question arises regarding the choice of the best strategy (or mix of strategies) for the preservation and/or valorization of LB. The answer to this question is quite complex as both incentive payments and market-based strategies have their own advantages and disadvantages. Indeed, although support payments appear to be primarily associated with the conservation of the most vulnerable LB that are at high risk of extinction, ensuring a minimum population ( Narloch et al., 2011 ), they seem to isolate farms from markets. On the other hand, premium pricing strategies, even though they proved to be more efficient, are highly vulnerable to volatile market conditions ( Narloch et al., 2011 ). Hence, an increasing number of studies ( Narloch et al., 2011 ; Hoffmann et al., 2014 ; Varela and Kallas, 2022 ; Skordos et al., 2024 ) have proposed the development of an incentive mechanism, where support schemes can be combined with niche premium pricing strategies. This incentive mechanism will remunerate farmers for maintaining LB, and so for the public goods they provide, as well as will enhance farm competitiveness through the integration into value chains and markets. Nevertheless, the results of this study indicate that to realize benefits from this incentive, the optimal management of farms should be ensured.

Another fundamental question is related to the expectations of society towards the role of LB farmers. In particular, If LB farmers are mostly viewed as the ones responsible for the conservation of these breeds ( ERFP, 2021 ) and as long as society values this role, policy measures, which should reflect this societal recognition and appreciation, seem to be more tailored for them. On the other hand, market solutions could be proven more permanent from a valorization point of view assisting farmers to provide society with high quality products and also public goods as a result of their operation ( Hoffmann et al., 2014 ). This option, however, could expose farmers to market competition and threaten their existence in volatile conditions.

The aim of this study was to develop optimal management plans for different types of farms rearing LSB, assessing their true potential and identifying challenges in the short and mid-term. Additionally, the effectiveness of strategies for the preservation and valorization of LB was examined through scenarios focusing on policy measures and market-based initiatives. The main finding of this study is that inefficient use of labor and excessive feeding costs are the two main bottlenecks that reduce the socioeconomic performance of the majority of ToF examined. The implementation of optimal management plans can address both issues, allowing ToF to reach their full potential and maintain local breeds. This finding highlights the lack of actually well-organized and defined advisory support for farmers rearing local breeds, which should meet each farm and system’s specific needs and characteristics.

Moreover, while strategies and initiatives from both dimensions (agri-environmental support and a niche marketing strategy) positively impacted the population of LSB, each has some limitations that can render them inefficient under certain external conditions. Indeed, agri-environmental support schemes appears to isolate LB farms from markets ( Ragkos et al., 2019a ), while the effectiveness of a premium pricing strategy is highly depended on the prevailing market conditions ( Narloch et al., 2011 ). Therefore, the development of an incentive mechanism, where conservation policies can work synergistically with market-based initiatives, appears to be more suitable for the safeguarding of LB in the long term. Nevertheless, the optimal management of farms should be a prerequisite for the design and implementation of any scheme and policy, including the valorization of TEK.

The mathematical programming model in this study could provide even more precise results regarding the optimal organization of the farms rearing LSB depending on the availability of data. Particularly, data on the quality and quantity of the natural vegetation of pastures in Greece are not available and estimates are used in this study based on existing legislation ( Common Ministerial Decision, 2014 ). Integrated Rangeland Management Plans, which are expected to be delivered in Greece in the following period, could provide more accurate and site-specific data ( Ragkos and Koutsou, 2021 ). Additionally, the assumption regarding the ability of farms to double the hours of hired labor in some cases and settings may be optimistic. According to Ragkos et al. (2019b) the livestock sector in Greece faces a shortage of trustworthy and skilled workers, posing significant obstacles to its structural development. This issue is further aggravated by the lack of farm succession ( Nori, 2017 ). Due to a shortage of labor, farmers are compelled to adopt production practices that are less labor-intensive, which, however in many cases, may not be favorable from an agroecological point of view ( Aubron et al., 2016 ).

Hence, future research on incentives and strategies that will contribute to attracting and retaining family and hired labor in the sector may be necessary. Apart from that, investigating the impact of farm size and/or other determinants (such as fixed capital), on the efficiency of farms - using for example, a Data Envelopment Analysis - is also an interesting topic to explore. It would be also useful to examine how various levels of pasture intake can impact the viability of farms, since LSB are well adapted to local conditions and could valorize even more natural vegetation. In future research, it would also be interesting to examine the effects of changes in total sums of CAP income support on LSB farms compared to the effects of the same changes on various other sheep farming systems in Greece. Indeed, given that CAP income payments are paid to all sheep farmers in the country, a change in them would not only affect LSB farms but the sheep sector in general.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors upon request and after the completion of an embargo period (two years from the publication date).

Author contributions

DS and AR contributed to the conception and design of the study. DS organized the database, collected and analyzed the data, as well as wrote the first draft of the manuscript. AR, PK, and GV revised and edited the manuscript. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The research work was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the 4th Call for HFRI PhD Fellowships (Fellowship Number: 11325).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: mathematical programming, local sheep breeds, agri-environmental scheme, niche marketing strategy, optimal management plans

Citation: Skordos D, Ragkos A, Karanikolas P and Vlahos G (2024) Optimal management plans and initiatives for the valorization and safeguarding of local breeds: a mathematical programming approach. Pastor. Res. Policy Pract. 14:13008. doi: 10.3389/past.2024.13008

Received: 19 March 2024; Accepted: 02 July 2024; Published: 23 July 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Skordos, Ragkos, Karanikolas and Vlahos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Dimitrios Skordos, [email protected]

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• Published: 30 July 2024

Use of an electronic wellness instrument in the integrated health and social care of older adults: a group concept mapping study

• Melissa Northwood 1 ,
• Margaret Saari 2 ,
• George Heckman 3 ,
• Ted Alexander 4 ,
• Bill Eastway 5 ,
• Patricia Gerantonis 1 ,
• Deanne Gillies 6 ,
• Susie Gregg 7 ,
• Jane McKinnon Wilson 7 ,
• Adam Morrison 8 ,
• Heebah Sultan 9 &
• Luke Turcotte 10  

BMC Health Services Research volume  24 , Article number:  864 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Health system fragmentation directly contributes to poor health and social outcomes for older adults with multiple chronic conditions and their care partners. Older adults often require support from primary care, multiple specialists, home care, community support services, and other health-care sectors and communication between these providers is unstructured and not standardized. Integrated and interprofessional team-based models of care are a recommended strategy to improve health service delivery to older adults with complex needs. Standardized assessment instruments deployed on digital platforms are considered a necessary component of integrated care. The aim of this study was to develop strategies to leverage an electronic wellness instrument, interRAI Check Up Self Report, to support integrated health and social care for older adults and their care partners in a community in Southern Ontario, Canada.

Group concept mapping, a participatory mixed-methods approach, was conducted. Participants included older adults, care partners, and representatives from: home care, community support services, specialized geriatric services, primary care, and health informatics. In a series of virtual meetings, participants generated ideas to implement the interRAI Check Up and rated the relative importance of these ideas. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to map the ideas into clusters of similar statements. Participants reviewed the map to co-create an action plan.

Forty-one participants contributed to a cluster map of ten action areas (e.g., engagement of older adults and care partners, instrument’s ease of use, accessibility of the assessment process, person-centred process, training and education for providers, provider coordination, health information integration, health system decision support and quality improvement, and privacy and confidentiality). The health system decision support cluster was rated as the lowest relative importance and the health information integration was cluster rated as the highest relative importance.

Conclusions

Many person-, provider-, and system-level factors need to be considered when implementing and using an electronic wellness instrument across health- and social-care providers. These factors are highly relevant to the integration of other standardized instruments into interprofessional team care to ensure a compassionate care approach as technology is introduced.

Peer Review reports

Integrated and interprofessional team-based care is recommended internationally as a strategy to strengthen health-care systems [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Implementing team-based models of care has received renewed attention after long-standing health system issues and health inequities were intensified and emphasized because of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 1 , 4 , 7 ]. Integrated care with a community-oriented focus, where older adults and health- and social-care providers partner to shape health-care delivery, can facilitate comprehensive and holistic care [ 4 , 8 ]. Calls for a system re-design where care is delivered in a more compassionate way are born out of the experiences of many older adults (≥ 65 years) and their care partners, particularly those living with multiple chronic conditions. These individuals, who often require supports spanning multiple providers and health and social care sectors, often have their needs unmet because providers work in fragmented and uncoordinated silos [ 9 , 10 ]. Communication between these providers is unstructured and unstandardized, and thus sub-optimal [ 5 , 11 ]. Poor information sharing is further complicated by time-consuming over-assessment of some issues, and incomplete assessment of others, leaving less time available to understand the person behind the chronic conditions [ 12 ]. As a result, older adults continue to be exposed to preventable health crises, worsening quality of life, loss of independence, and care partner distress [ 9 , 11 ].

An essential feature of integrated care includes the effective use of standardized assessment instruments [ 8 , 11 , 13 , 14 ]. Standardized assessment instruments provide a common clinical language interpretable by all health- and social-care providers. When supported by interoperable digital tools and shared electronic health records, standardized assessments allow older adults, care partners, and providers to exchange information and create and share a common care plan [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. As integrated technologies are employed across health care systems, compassionate care—care that raises awareness of and responds to suffering—should be enhanced rather than impeded [ 18 ]. A standardized assessment, combined with an in-depth exploration of an individual’s narrative, are both essential for compassionate care [ 19 ]. Self-report tools provide an opportunity for an older person to describe functional needs, and their impact, and express concerns often ignored in health-care interactions, including mood, loneliness, financial hardship, food insecurity, and stressful life circumstances [ 5 , 20 , 21 ]. Efficiencies gained by using self-report tools to identify client concerns prior to health care interactions can be leveraged by the care team to better focus on the individual’s personal needs and goals, and thus develop a care plan most likely to alleviate suffering and support the older person and care partners throughout their health journey [ 5 , 10 , 19 , 20 ].

The interRAI Check Up (hereafter referred to as the “Check Up”) is a 90-item instrument that supports assessment of a broader range of health and social care needs. interRAI is a not-for-profit international network of clinicians and researchers which develops and maintains an integrated family of instruments to assess vulnerable persons across settings, such as home care and long-term care [ 11 ]. The Check Up is a self-report instrument, deployed on a software platform, targeting community-dwelling older adults, and can be completed by non-clinicians or older adults themselves [ 22 , 23 ]. It supports care planning and identifies areas of need (outputs) related to cognition, mood, loneliness, pain, instrumental and basic activities of daily living, falls, cardiopulmonary risk, care partner stress, financial trade-offs, health stability, and frailty [ 22 ]. The Check Up is based on the interRAI Home Care assessment, a clinician-driven instrument, which has demonstrated reliability, validity, and effectiveness in supporting care planning and fostering collaboration across the health-care system [ 11 , 22 , 24 ].

We have previously shown the feasibility of using a standardized self-report instrument for screening during the pandemic, the interRAI COVID-19 Vulnerability Screener (CVS), in community support services, primary care, and assisted living settings to identify vulnerable persons and refer them to the required social- and health-care services [ 25 , 26 ]. The interRAI CVS was developed early in the COVID-19 pandemic based on items from the Check Up. Additionally, implementation of the Check Up in a geriatrician’s practice showed how the instrument helped flag, track, and prioritize all areas of need (social and medical) for immediate and future care planning [ 27 ].

In both of these studies, using standardized self-report instruments was determined to be feasible and have the potential to support better system integration, but suboptimal collaboration between community support services, specialized geriatric services, and primary-care providers persists, highlighting the need for more intentional planning around the use of these instruments [ 26 , 27 ].

The purpose of this study was to develop strategies to leverage an electronic wellness instrument (the Check Up) to support more compassionate and integrated health and social care for older adults and their care partners. This study aimed to: (1) identify needs and factors related to using integrated technologies to share the outputs of an electronic wellness instrument across health- and social-care providers and (2) develop strategies to use this information to provide integrated, person-centred and compassionate health and social care to older adults with multiple chronic conditions and their care partners.

Study design

The study used group concept mapping (GCM), a participatory mixed methods approach, where participants share and organize ideas to identify issues and establish consensus on a framework for action [ 28 , 29 ]. This design has been used extensively to consider the perspectives of community members in health and community-based research [ 20 , 30 , 31 ]. The GCM process involves five steps: (1) preparation, (2) idea generation, (3) sorting and rating, (4) generating maps and (5) interpreting and validating maps [ 28 ]. Groupwisdom™ software was employed to allow synchronous and asynchronous participation options and embedded analysis functions. The process occurred over a series of Zoom meetings (three with participants and four with the steering committee) from March to December 2022.

Setting and participants

This study engaged a community in south-western Ontario, Canada of both urban and rural geography with a population of approximately 700,000 persons, 14.9% being ≥ 65 years [ 32 ]. A steering committee was formed with older adults, co-investigators, and organizational collaborators, such as the Alzheimer’s Society, eHealth Centre for Excellence, and home care, community supports, mental health, and primary care organizations. Steering committee members provided study oversight, participated in data analysis, contributed to generating an action plan, and shared this plan with their organizations. Older adults participated on the steering committee to ensure the relevance and applicability of the study outcomes to older adults.

A purposive sample of research participants were recruited through the professional networks of the steering committee members, using email and phone recruitment scripts. Persons were eligible to participate if they were an older adult (≥ 65 years), a care partner of an older adult, or staff or leader of an organization providing services to older adults, including home care, community support services, specialized geriatric services, primary care, and digital health/health informatics. Members of the steering committee (excluding co-investigators and the research assistant) were also invited to contribute to the group concept mapping activities. We anticipated a sample size of 28 to 34 participants, with a goal to include 10 older adult and/or care partner participants and three to four persons from each of the different sectors.

Data collection and analysis

Step 1: preparation.

A focus prompt was proposed by the research team and refined by the steering committee. In GCM, a focus prompt is used during idea generation to describe participants’ opinions regarding the study topic [ 28 ]. The prompt used during data collection was: “To support the use of the interRAI Check Up, a digital health tool, as part of a compassionate care approach with older adults, we should consider …”.

Step 2: idea generation

During the idea generation step, participants independently created responses to the focus prompt. The goal of this step was to generate diverse ideas, including the voices of all the different participants. Utilizing the software platform, participants entered their ideas and could view the ideas, in real-time, being shared by the other participants. This step was completed during a Zoom session (lasting two hours), facilitated by the research team, but participants could choose to participate independently outside of the meeting time. The idea generation activity was open for three weeks following the Zoom meeting to give participants ample time to contribute. Participants were also asked to complete a short, demographic survey to collect information about their sector or role.

A total of 215 ideas were generated by participants. Members of the research team (MN, MS, PG, SG, HS) conducted an iterative analysis to consolidate the generated ideas into a manageable set of less than 100 ideas, suggested as best practice in GCM [ 28 ]. This process involved editing statements for clarity and splitting statements if they contained more than one idea to ensure only one idea was represented per statement [ 28 ]. To aid in identifying duplicate ideas, a topic area was identified for each statement and statements were grouped by the topics to visualize potentially similar statements. The research team and members of the steering committee reviewed the consolidated statement set to ensure original ideas were captured, statements were clear and understandable, and each statement was unique. Changes to wording to enhance the clarity of some statements were suggested and incorporated. The final statement list contained 98 statements.

Step 3: sorting and rating

At a second data collection meeting over Zoom (lasting two hours), participants contributed to the sorting and rating activities using the online software platform. One participant elected to do this activity with a hardcopy version. During the sorting activity, participants were asked to independently group the statements into categories based on their similarities and label each group with a name that they felt reflected the statements comprising the grouping. Participants were provided with detailed instructions ahead of and during the meeting to sort the ideas into a minimum of five categories, and devise labels for each. Following the sorting activity, participants were asked to independently rate each statement according to its “importance” and their perceived “community capacity” to support use of the Check Up as part of a compassionate approach to care with older adults. Participants were directed to consider their community’s capacity to use the Check Up at any of the following levels: individual (e.g., knowledge, skill, trust), organization (e.g., human resources, leadership, policies), or health system (e.g., resource allocation, policies, collaborations). Each statement was rated by participants on a scale of one (not at all important/no capacity) to four (very important/full capacity). The sorting and rating activities were open for two weeks following the Zoom meeting for participants to complete.

Step 4: generating maps

We used the groupwisdom™ software to perform multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis to depict the results of the sorting activity in map form [ 28 , 33 , 34 ]. First, a similarity matrix was created that reflects the number of participants who sorted each pair of statements together in the sorting activity [ 28 ]. Using multidimensional scaling analysis of the similarity matrix, a point map was created that locates each statement as a separate point on a two-dimensional map [ 28 ]. The quality of this analysis was verified using a stress index, which measures the discrepancy between distances of points on the map and their original value in the similarity matrix [ 28 , 33 ]. A pooled analysis of GCM studies found the average stress value was 0.28 (SD = 0.04, range: 0.17-0.034, 95% CI [0.27, 0.29]) [ 33 ]. Each point represented an individual statement that was sorted by participants, with similar statements located closer to each other on the map and less similar statements located further apart [ 28 ].

Hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted to group individual statements into clusters, using Ward’s algorithm [ 28 ]. Agglomerative methods were used in the analysis, beginning with each statement, and merging them successively until they are in non-overlapping clusters [ 28 ]. This analytical approach produced multiple maps with a varying number of clusters. GCM methodology asserts that there is no definitive or “correct” number of clusters but rather the map is determined by the research team, in consultation with participants, to identify the number of clusters that yield conceptually meaningful and distinct domains [ 28 , 33 , 34 ].

A subgroup of the research team (MN, MS, PG) reviewed the possible cluster solutions, facilitated by the ‘cluster replay’ feature in the software, starting with a small number of clusters (five), and moving up to solutions with more clusters to review changing cluster compositions. Consideration was given to the logic of the clusters as a set and in the context of the other clusters [ 28 ]. Maps with nine, 10 and 11 clusters were shared with the steering committee. The decision to share these cluster solutions was based on discussion of what a reasonable number of cluster solutions to share during the meeting to facilitate consensus-building and most feasible to identify implementation strategies by cluster. By consensus, a 10-cluster solution was determined as the best fit to present to the participants for feedback and validation. The cluster names were reviewed and edited, considering the statements that were part of the cluster.

A go-zone graph was also generated, based on the importance rating data, to illustrate the prioritization of each idea according to importance. The purpose of including a go-zone map for this study was to understand the relative ratings of the statements within the clusters, identify initial priority issues to consider in developing strategies, and emphasize the perspectives of older adults. A go-zone graph is a bivariate plot that places each idea on a point, determined by its average rating of importance [ 28 ]. For this project, we created a go-zone graph that considered the importance as rated by older adults and the other participants. The go-zone graph is divided into four quadrants with the x-axis (older adults) and the y-axis (other participants), with ideas in the upper right quadrant representing the most important considerations for both groups.

Step 5: interpreting maps

At the final data collection meeting, the 10-cluster map was shared with participants. They were asked to provide their input on whether the statements were suitably grouped, if any statements should be sorted elsewhere, and if the cluster titles accurately reflected the statements. Three statements were relocated to adjacent clusters and some changes to cluster titles were suggested before consensus was reached on the map.

Participants also reviewed the go-zone graph and the set of statements that were rated as the highest relative importance. Participants were asked to identify which statements should be prioritized for action planning and those statements that reflected the vision of creating a compassionate community of digital health care. These recommendations were developed into an action plan by members of the research team, which included strategies to consider when sharing and using the outputs of the Check Up across health and social care sectors (MN, MS, PG, SG, AM, GH). The action plan was reviewed and discussed at the final steering committee meeting, and further refinements were made.

A total of 41 participants completed the idea generation step (refer to Table  1 for summary of their role or sector). For the sorting and rating session, 25 participants completed the sorting activity, and 19 participants completed the rating activity for importance and 15 for community capacity (refer to Fig.  1 for a schematic of the flow of participation).

A diagram of the activities involved in group concept mapping and the number of participants who participated in each activity

Cluster map

A ten-cluster map, reflecting all 98 statements, provides a framework of considerations for employing the interRAI Check Up as part of a compassionate care approach with older adults (refer to Fig.  2 ). The concept map highlights the concepts and the connections between ideas, represented by the distances between the clusters and statements. The smaller clusters indicate that these statements were most consistently sorted together (e.g., Health Information Integration ). The larger clusters show where participants may have sorted statements together but also with other clusters. For example, statements in Privacy and Confidentiality were often sorted with statements from the adjacent cluster, Training and Education for Providers . Health and Social Care Provider Coordination statements were also sorted with statements in Person-Centred Process as provider fragmentation can contribute to care that is experienced as not person-centred. Similarly for the Instrument’s Ease of Use and Accessibility of Assessment Process clusters statements were sorted together given that for an instrument to be easy to use, it must also be easy to access.

Cluster map represents which statements are contained in each domain. The smaller the cluster, the greater the interrelationship between ideas within the cluster

Refer to Table  2 for the cluster names, their associated importance and capacity ratings, and a sample of statements by cluster.

Engagement of older adults and care partners

The Engagement of Older Adults and Care Partners cluster includes six statements that describe a compassionate care approach to actively involve older adults and their care partners in their health care. The statements focus on the empowerment of older adults in their collaborative relationships with providers by ensuring older adults and their care partners: understand the purpose and results of the Check Up, know how to use the results to support their own wellbeing, and update their own profile and make it accessible to providers.

Instrument’s ease of use

The Ease-of-Use cluster is one of the largest, comprising 13 statements focused on suggestions to ensure the instrument is easy to use and understandable for older adults and their care partners. The statements focus on the user-friendliness of the software (e.g., easy navigation, simple instructions), provisions for translation into languages other than English, and avoidance of jargon or medical terminology. Providing technological support, as needed, for older adults independently completing the Check Up was suggested in the form of video instructions, phone support, or in-person instruction.

Accessibility of assessment process

Closely related to ease-of-use are the 11 statements in this cluster which reflect strategies for enhancing the Accessibility of the Assessment Process when using the interRAI Check Up with older adults. Accessibility refers to both access to technology (e.g., devices) and the internet and to supports to participate in the assessment (e.g., hearing aids, voice-to-text recognition), in any setting that the Check Up may be completed (e.g., home, primary care setting, etc.). Other considerations include checking the older adult’s and/or care partner’s capacity to independently complete the Check Up, as well as offering different options for completing the tool, such as online, in-person, on paper, or over the phone/video, and with and without the support of a provider.

Person-centred process

There are eight interrelated statements in the Person-Centred Process cluster, highlighting the importance of placing older adults’ needs and preferences at the forefront of encounters where the Check-Up would be used. These statements discuss a holistic approach ensuring that the care is tailored to the unique needs of each person. This care approach includes balancing the collection of digital information with face-to-face conversation, maintaining personal interaction as part of the assessment process, ensuring the older adult and their care partner have access to a copy (digital or physical) of the Check Up and its outputs and that they have been provided education on the meaning of those outputs. The focus of this cluster is ensuring that the care-planning process is person- centered and identifies what health means to the individual person even as technology is deployed.

How to use the check up in an assessment process

This cluster resides in the middle area of the map, where the clusters are about health- and social-care providers’ use of the Check Up. This cluster consists of seven ideas focused on How to Use the Check Up in an Assessment Process with older adults. These statements include considerations for providers when using the Check Up such as, effectively communicating the process for completing the Check Up so older adults understand what to expect and why it is being used. Participants also suggested that providers should determine the older adult population that would be best served by a self-report tool as opposed to a clinician-elicited assessment (i.e., interRAI Home Care) and that resources should be developed for both the use of software and the Check Up for providers and ones to share with older adults.

Training and education for providers

Located on the map beside the “how to” cluster is the Training and Education for Providers cluster. These nine statements are about equipping health- and social-care providers with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively integrate the Check Up into their practice. They encompass strategies such as, leveraging existing interRAI provincial resources to develop and provide education on the use of software and the Check Up, providing education on self-management strategies and relevant community support services, and using the outputs of the Check Up in care planning. Establishing a shared understanding of how the Check Up can be used in the care of older adults and their care partners was also suggested as part of the training and education content.

Health and social care provider coordination

The three clusters at the bottom of the map capture statements that relate to the system-level use of the Check Up. The Health and Social Care Provider Coordination cluster contains the most statements (18) with content outlining how the sharing of the outputs of the Check Up would foster collaboration among health- and social-care providers. Statements include suggestions to develop referral pathways based on Check Up outputs and designate most-responsible providers and timelines to follow-up on any high-risk issues (e.g., significant mood issue). Participants noted that access to the Check Up outputs should be shared with all providers to reduce assessment burden on older adults and duplication of assessment.

Health information integration

The five statements in this cluster describe ways to support Health Information Integration from various sources into a comprehensive electronic record, allowing providers to have a more complete understanding of an individual’s health. Identified strategies include syncing digital information between all provider data sources, using automated processes (i.e., ‘bots’) to automatically identify older adults with known health issues to streamline care processes, and leveraging existing integration systems that would allow organizations to seamlessly share the interRAI Check Up results within the circle of care.

Health system decision support and quality improvement

Thirteen statements were sorted into the Health System Decision Support and Quality Improvement cluster and detail strategies to utilize the outputs of the Check Up at a system level to provide decision support as part of continuous quality improvement. Statements with a quality improvement perspective include selecting Check Up outputs for evaluating coordinated approaches to care, considering how this data may support identification of areas where increased service capacity is required, and considering if some of the items in the Check Up could be used as patient-reported outcome measures. Statements also focused on the technological side of quality improvement across the system by considering funding and access to software solutions to deploy and integrate the Check Up to automatically share information across system providers.

Privacy and confidentiality

The eight statements in the Privacy and Confidentiality cluster centred on the use and sharing of older adults’ health information through the Check Up assessment process. These statements include opportunities to maintain and describe privacy and confidentiality at both the older adult and system level. Participants generated ideas to ensure the older adult understands who has access to their data, where it will be stored, and how it will be used and can make an informed decision about sharing their personal data. To facilitate integrated care, participants noted that data-sharing agreements need to be developed between organizations that account for a broader circle of care than solely health-care providers.

Cluster ratings for importance and community capacity

The mean importance score for each cluster ranged from 2.92 to 3.19 out of four (refer to Table  2 ), with the Health System Decision Support and Quality Improvement cluster rated as the lowest relative importance and the Health Information Integration cluster rated as the highest relative importance. Most of the clusters ( n  = 7) were rated as greater than 3, representing the ‘important’ category on the 4-point Likert scale. With regards to community capacity, the mean scores ranged from 2.45 ( Health Information Integration cluster) to 2.82 ( Privacy and Confidentiality cluster). All mean ratings for capacity across clusters were between 2 and 3, reflecting the ‘a little capacity’ and ‘moderate capacity’ ratings. Of note, during and after the rating exercise, a number of participants commented that they found it challenging to rate the community capacity as they felt they did not know enough about the health- and social-care system capacity, for example related to staffing levels or budgetary restrictions.

Go-zone graph

The go-zone graph displays the agreement between older adults and all other participants related to the importance rating of statements (refer to Fig.  3 ). Data on the importance rating of all statements was available for only six older adults and 10 other participants. The statements in the left lower quadrant represent agreement on the statements of the lowest relative importance and the statements in the upper right quadrant reflect agreement on the statements of the highest relative importance. The other quadrants contain statements where there was less agreement on importance ratings between older adults and other participants. A total of 35 statements are in the upper right quadrant with representation from all ten clusters and a sample of these statements is reported in Table  2 . The rankings by older adults and the other participants were moderately correlated ( r  = 0.58).

Go-zone graph of priorities comparing older adults (x-axis) to other participants (y-axis). Ratings range from 1 to 4, with 1 indicating low importance, and 4 indicating high importance. Numbers correspond to statement numbers

Older adult participants rated two statements from the accessibility of the assessment cluster higher compared to all other participants: ensuring that older adults have access to required technology (i.e., devices) and the internet to complete the Check Up. Notably, providers rated items from the decision support cluster regarding shared benchmarking for quality improvement and using the Check Up outputs in care planning, as higher importance than did the older adult participants.

Action planning strategies

A number of strategies to use the outputs of the interRAI Check Up as part of the integrated care of older adults with multiple chronic conditions were generated based on the set of statements from the go-zone graph that were rated as the highest importance by both older adults and other participants. These strategies are organized by cluster in Table  3 . Considerations included strategies for the efficient and integrated administration and use of the Check Up, for example, developing workflow plans for how the Check Up would fit into care processes. Strategies were also developed to foster health- and social-care provider coordination, such as providing education on working as a team based on a shared care plan informed by a standardized self-report instrument.

This mixed methods study identified a number of practical strategies related to using the outputs of the interRAI Check Up as part of integrated health and social care for older adults with multiple chronic conditions and their care partners, considering: older adult engagement, instrument’s ease of use and accessibility, assessment process, training and education for providers, care provider coordination, health information integration, health system decision support and quality improvement, and privacy and confidentiality. Participants generated ideas to ensure the maintenance of a compassionate, person-centred approach when leveraging a digital health tool in the care of older adults. Strategies generated from these factors highlight the importance of preparing, intervening, and evaluating at older adult and provider, organizational, and system levels when introducing a new digital health tool. While participants were reflecting on the use of the interRAI Check Up Self Report instrument, the findings have relevance for the use and implementation of other electronic wellness instruments and digital tools.

The group concept mapping activities generated only two clusters about the digital health tool itself (instrument’s ease of use and how to use the Check Up in an assessment process), demonstrating that the instrument’s selection and thoughtful use are important but additional factors beyond the implementation of the instrument need to be considered. This finding is supported by previous research explaining the factors that influence the adoption of technology in health-care settings [ 35 , 36 ]. To support the integration of new digital tools, Shaw and colleagues [ 36 ] suggest that care delivery must be “re-invented”, and they propose a [Tool + Team + Routine] heuristic to guide implementation and sustainment of new digital tools. The team must see value in the tool ’s ability to enhance their care of older adults and to make that care more efficient [ 36 ]. The team must also agree that there is an issue in the current care delivery (i.e., fragmented health and social care) and plan for new ways of working together that will incorporate the digital health tool into routine practice [ 36 ]. The Health- and Social-Care Provider Coordination cluster, the largest cluster, contained strategies to ensure there is ‘buy-in’ for the use of the Check Up but also intentional planning for coordination amongst providers that may not have historically worked closely together. Careful planning of new practice routines is also important to ensure that introduction of the Check Up into interprofessional team practice does not further fragment care by creating “data silos” [ 37 ]. Participants also noted that that it takes time and effort to learn to work as a coordinated, interprofessional team and this finding has been noted in other evaluations of interprofessional teams caring for persons with complex chronic conditions [ 2 , 38 ]. Strong and trusting relationships in the interprofessional team is regarded as a critical component of workforce capacity in implementing integrated care programs and in the context of these findings, these relationships must extend beyond providers in the health-care sector and with social-care team members [ 7 , 39 ].

Health information integration is considered a facilitating factor for integrated care and was supported by this study’s findings [ 7 , 13 , 14 , 17 , 40 ]. The Health Information Integration cluster was rated as highly important but with the lowest community capacity rating across the clusters. This cluster also was the smallest (i.e., the fewest number of statements). The lower community capacity and smaller number of statements generated for this cluster may indicate that participants are unsure of how the integration of personal health information could occur across the health- and social-care sectors or reflect the reality that sophisticated data-sharing infrastructures are not in place in their community. Given that rating capacity was noted as challenging for participants, this may be another sign of system fragmentation. Local and other jurisdictions have felt tensions balancing privacy requirements with the benefits of more integrated information-sharing arrangements [ 41 ]. In an international survey of integrated care programs, only one-third of programs had secure data infrastructure platforms that supported patient information sharing among providers and many programs relied on team meetings or one-on-one communication to share information [ 13 ]. However, this study highlighted that both older adults and care providers rated the cluster of privacy and confidentiality as very important and high community capacity, indicating a community willingness and perceived ability to share information in a secure manner. A recent literature review of patient perspectives on consent related to sharing personal health information digitally noted that patients are willing to share their information to inform their care if it is done carefully, maintaining the privacy and security of their data [ 37 ]. Additionally, participants in the included studies wanted clear information on why their personal health information was being collected and shared, with whom it would be shared, and for what purpose [ 37 ]. Information technology expertise and support will be critical in moving from traditional forms of data sharing (e.g., team meetings) to more seamless, data infrastructure platforms informed by harmonized information management plans [ 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 ].

Health information integration is a prerequisite for continuous quality improvement, for example, aggregating information to understand population health needs and health system impact [ 7 , 43 ]. The Health System Decision Support and Quality Improvement cluster was a large cluster in this study, but participants rated the cluster as the relative lowest importance and of low capacity, with older adults rating some of the ideas in this cluster lower than other participants. This may represent another area where providers and older adults are uncertain of the importance of continuous quality improvement to foster a responsive learning health system for the developing needs of the community [ 11 ]. In reality, there are relatively few examples in the intersectoral care of older adults with multiple chronic conditions of continuous quality improvement efforts that engage both providers and older adults [ 16 , 45 ]. The suite of standardized interRAI instruments were designed with this purpose in mind: to not only inform care planning at the person-level but also program planning and cross-sectoral comparisons through embedded aggregate reporting features and quality indicators [ 46 , 47 ]. The Check Up also has interoperability and shared language with other interRAI instruments, such as those used in home care, given the shared items and outputs, which also facilitates on-going assessments over time and across settings [ 22 ]. Implementation planning for the use of the Check Up across health- and social-care sectors will need to include strategies to enact continuous quality improvement at both individual program and system levels.

Participants were able to generate many ideas around using a digital health tool in the care of older adults and their care partners, in contrast to the notion that older adults do not want to use technology in care interactions or that technology interferes with compassionate care [ 18 , 48 ]. Instead, they proposed ideas to engage older adults in using the Check Up and ensuring an accessible and easy-to-use process, including the provision of the Check Up in an older adult’s preferred language. Older adult participants highlighted the importance of providing access to devices and the internet when using a digital health tool in practice, which is a very relevant consideration given the cost implications for older adults [ 49 ]. Recommendations in the Accessibility and Ease-of-Use clusters are critical to ensuring that use of digital health tools does not create health inequities for older adults, in particular those experiencing socioeconomic disadvantages [ 49 ].

Strengths and limitations

A main strength of this study is its adherence to the group concept mapping methodology, which allows input from persons with diverse perspectives and roles in a local community and the subsequent co-creation of a concept map and action-planning strategies. Group concept mapping has advantages over traditional data collection methods, such as interviews or focus groups, due to its participatory nature and the creation of community-authored visual representations of ideas that guide planning [ 50 ]. The study employed a patient-oriented approach with active participation of older adults on the steering committee, increasing the relevance and applicability of the findings. Several limitations should be considered. One of the limitations was the potential for bias in the selection of older adult participants. The researchers recruited these individuals through existing networks (e.g., patient partners on organizational boards), which may not have been representative of the broader population of older adults. The number of older adults ( n  = 6) represented in the go-zone is very small for this type of analysis [ 28 ]. Further, some participants struggled with rating the statements on community capacity, which limited the number of responses in this data set. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, future research will be required to validate, refine, and test these strategies in this community and tailor for consideration in other communities. As well, work should be directed to considering how these strategies could be used to inform implementation of electronic wellness instruments and digital tools.

Older adult and provider, organizational, and system level factors need to be considered when implementing and using the outputs of an electronic wellness instrument across health- and social-care providers. This study extends and supports the existing evidence base on digital health tool adoption by providing a co-created, community action plan from the perspectives of older adults, care partners, health and social care providers and administrators, digital health experts, and researchers. Older adults, care partners, and the care team favourably regarded the use of the Check Up from both self-report and digital perspectives. The breadth of considerations in implementing and sustaining the use of the Check Up, from ensuring a person-centred assessment process to using the outputs as part of continuous quality improvement, would be relevant in the implementation of other electronic wellness instruments and digital tools or the re-implementation of an existing instrument to optimize its potential to support integrated care. This study also showcased a helpful research methodology (GCM) to gain important perspectives in a manner where all voices are heard and valued.

Data availability

Data requests should be submitted to the first author.

Abbreviations

Group concept mapping

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants in this study and the steering committee members for giving of their time and valued expertise. We also thank Ms. Nayab Gohar for her support in data analysis during her research practicum with Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington in the summer of 2022. We would like to dedicate this paper in the memory of Mr. Len Carter, a patient partner on the steering committee, whom we lost in March of 2023. His advocacy for persons with dementia remains a source of inspiration to us and his community.

Funding for this project was provided by AMS Healthcare. The funding body did not have any role in the design of the study, data collection, analysis and interpretation, or manuscript development.

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Contributions

MN, MS and GH were responsible for the conception and design of the study. MN, MS, PG were responsible for the data collection. All authors contributed to the analysis and interpretation of study data during steering committee meetings (MN, MS, GH, TA, BE, PG, DG, SG, JMW, AM, HS, LT). MN and PG were responsible for the first drafts of this paper, which was critically revised by GH, MS, TA, SG, AM, HS, and LT. All authors read and approved the final manuscript (MN, MS, GH, TA, BE, PG, DG, SG, JMW, AM, HS, LT).

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Correspondence to Melissa Northwood .

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This study was reviewed by the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board (Project Number 14464). Informed, verbal consent was obtained from steering committee members and participants by the research assistant.

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Northwood, M., Saari, M., Heckman, G. et al. Use of an electronic wellness instrument in the integrated health and social care of older adults: a group concept mapping study. BMC Health Serv Res 24 , 864 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11320-5

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Received : 20 November 2023

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Published : 30 July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11320-5

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