research proposal oxford

Guidelines to Writing a Research Proposal

All Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) students must write an acceptable research proposal.

This has a clear and explicit purpose:

• it makes certain that you have a worthwhile research project - you have a good grasp of the relevant literature and the major issues, and that your methodology is sound;
• it will show that you have the competence and work-plan to complete the research;
• it includes sufficient information for us to evaluate the proposed study; and
• we can be certain we have the right staff expertise to supervise you.

All research proposals must address the question of what you plan to accomplish and why you want to and how you are going to do it.

A research proposal is usually around 2,500 words long although there is no upper or lower limit to this.

In preparing a research proposal, the first thing that you have to do is to decide what it really is that you want to know more about. The questions that you want to research have to viable as a research project and lead to the creation of new knowledge and understanding.

Your research proposal should include a section on each of the following areas:

Ethical considerations

You will need to give consideration to issues of power and confidentiality. You should read any appropriate ethical guidelines and ask yourself how/whether you project follows these. [All research students at Oxford University are required (before they commence fieldwork) to complete the Central University Research Ethics Committee (CUREC) checklist and obtain permission to undertake any fieldwork].

Time scales

It is important that you map out a reasonable schedule of your work so that you can monitor your own progress and manage your project effectively. Start with your intended finishing date and do not underestimate the amount of time that it takes to finalise your drafts into a finished product.

Dissemination

A key indicator of the work of much research is whether it is of publishable quality. You might like to give some consideration at this stage as to what sorts of things might be publishable and where you would like them to appear. This is especially important if you wish to pursue a career as an academic in a UK university.

When you have completed all of this then get other people, your peers as well as those more experienced than you, to read it and comment. This will help you to revise the proposal before you submit it. You can also make contact with departmental staff whose research interests are in a similar area to those you intend to undertake. They would be happy to give you advice and to discuss possible supervision.

Course details

Preparing your doctoral research proposal.

This is session is only open to postgraduates who are not currently studying at Oxford University. If you are a current Oxford University student please register for this event instead, taking place in November 2024.

Postgraduate students come from a diverse range of backgrounds and many have doctoral aspirations. However, to be successfully admitted onto a doctoral research degree all students, irrespective of their academic discipline, will be required to produce a detailed, compelling and robust research proposal. This is a fundamental pre-requisite before any piece of PhD/DPhil research can proceed and it forms the core action plan for carrying out any empirical or desk-based research.

The Graduate School here at the Department for Continuing Education is offering practical support and experiential advice, free of charge, to postgraduates who are seeking to develop their own doctoral research proposal prior to formally applying to any academic institution.

You don't need to be considering applying to the University to join.

The session will be hosted by the Co-Directors of the Graduate School, Department for Continuing Education.

Programme details

The session will be three hours in duration, plus some preparatory work.

The format will be hybrid, with participation either in-person in Oxford or online through Microsoft Teams.

Content discussed during the session will include:

• systematic/literature reviews
• due diligence on potential primary sources and data sets
• proposed methodologies
• designing research questions
• projects plans
• possible structure
• provisional title
• proposal length and style
• ethical considerations

Whilst focusing on the actual research proposal, reference will also be made to other important aspects of the doctoral application eg potential supervisors, choice of referees, personal motivation, time and financial commitment, self-assessment of skills etc.

Recommended reading

Punch, K. (2016). Developing Effective Research Proposals (3rd Ed.) London:Sage.

Learning outcomes

You will leave this session with the knowledge and understanding of the following:

• what a research proposal is
• why a research proposal is important
• how to go about developing a good research proposal.

Application

This is session is only open to postgraduates who are not currently studying at Oxford University.

If you would like to express interest in attending please email [email protected]  with proof of your highest qualification and attach a current CV.

Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you are a current Oxford University student please register for this event instead, taking place in November 2024.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support

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Applying for a DPhil? How to Craft a Great Research Proposal

I’ve just come to the end of my DPhil at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), so it seems fitting to now offer some advice on applying for one. I am not going to explain how to write or structure a proposal as these vary hugely from person to person and field to field. Instead, I’m going to talk about the three things your proposal must do, irrespective of your field: identify a topic, outline the contribution and discuss the implementation.

To apply for a PhD at the OII, see information about the DPhil in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences and about the DPhil in Social Data Science .

Identify a Topic

First, you need to identify an interesting topic. This might sound easy – surely, we all have an incredibly fascinating and terribly important topic in mind, or else we wouldn’t even consider doing a PhD – but it is actually pretty difficult. Here are three things to bear in mind.

First, is that a good topic should grab the reader’s attention, and seem impactful or interesting almost immediately. This doesn’t mean just latching onto the latest buzzword (big data, the Internet of Things …). It means showing your PhD responds to what other researchers are interested in or a pressing social problem. This often involves showing the timeliness of your work.

Second, is that every PhD has a constant tension between its specificity (i.e. the actual empirical thing you research) and generality (i.e. the wider theories and debates you contribute to). In the proposal, you need to decide how general/specific you want to pitch your work.

Third, how you frame the topic will situate it within a particular discipline or set of academic conversations. The OII is a very interdisciplinary department, but you always need to know which academic audience you are speaking to, even if it is a bit fuzzy or changes over the course of your research.

Outline the Contribution

The second thing you must do is outline the contribution you’ll make. This can be a bit tricky to write as most PhDs (and proposals) have several overlapping ‘contribution-like’ bits. This includes the research questions (RQ), the research aim (RA), the research design (RD) and the research contributions (RC). In my mind, these can be hierarchically organised:

• Your RA outlines what you are trying to do. This should be the most general point and should relate directly to your topic.
• Answering your RQs is how you will achieve the RA. As such, they should be derived from a discussion of the RA in the context of the relevant academic literature. They should be specific, interesting, achievable and (as far as possible) separable. I would have maximum three RQs in your proposal.
• The RD is how you will implement the RQs (more on this below). This is actually a very different part of your proposal – don’t confuse how you will do your research with what you want to do!
• The RCs sit in between the RA and the RQs. Depending upon how you frame your research, you might not need to outline any RCs – but I think they are a useful way of bridging the generality of the RA and the specificity of the RQs.

Let me give an example from my PhD. The RA was ‘to understand the nature and dynamics of Islamophobic hate speech amongst followers of UK political parties on Twitter’. One of the RQs was: ‘what is the conceptual basis of Islamophobia?’. Answering this RQ enabled me to make a conceptual contribution. I also had an RQ which related to creating a supervised machine learning classifier for Islamophobic hate speech. This constituted a methodological contribution. But I then had three RQs which linked to theory (including, ‘To what extent do Islamist terrorist attacks drive Islamophobic hate speech amongst followers of UK political parties on Twitter?’). I aggregated the work for the three theory-driven RQs into a single theoretical contribution. This meant that in my work I had:

• 1 RA, which was addressed by:
• 5 RQs, which lead to :
• 3 RCs to the topic

This structure is not right for everyone, and I certainly didn’t have it worked out when I wrote my proposal. But, however you phrase it, you need to articulate your PhD’s contribution to academic research.

Many types of contributions can be made – so far, I’ve talked about theory, concepts and methods. You can also make data contributions (for instance, sharing a newly created dataset open source), practitioner contributions (for instance, developing a new software tool), policy contributions (engaging directly with thinktanks, NGOs and governments to produce reports and host workshops), and many others. However – and this is something I learnt the hard way – not all contributions are equal , and the main contribution of most PhDs is theoretical . Now, from anthropology to socio-physics what constitutes a ‘theory’ is open to huge debate, so theoretical contributions vary a lot, even within just one department. But whatever theory, or theoretical framework, you are contributing towards, you need to make sure it is justified.

The Implementation

The final thing to work out is how you will implement your research. The biggest problem that I’ve encountered when advising people on PhD proposals is that they do not start from the Research Aim but from a particular method or dataset. This might reflect how they actually came up with their PhD idea but it is topsy-turvy: your research design (comprising the method, dataset and epistemology) should be informed by what you are trying to achieve – by the research aim – and not the other way around.

You need to show three things here. First, that the research is feasible within the amount of time you have. Usually, less is more! Academia is about making small incremental steps, so even a modest project might be enough. Second, that you can do the research. Your proposal will be seriously undermined if it seems unrealistic – for instance, if you want to get a data sharing agreement from a website you have never contacted, or to conduct elite interviews with senior government figures you have never met. Third, that you are aware of the limitations of your preferred method and have (even if only very briefly) considered other options.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to have every detail worked out – indeed, you are best off showing some flexibility in your design. It also doesn’t mean that you can’t explore new methods (in fact, during my PhD, I transitioned from qualitative to quantitative research). It just means that you have to demonstrate that you are capable, intellectually and practically, of doing the work. View the research design as an opportunity to say: “Look, you know this interesting topic I want to study, and the awfully important contribution(s) I want to make? Well, I can actually do it “.

If you can explain this then you’re in a good place:

• How your research design enables you to realise the research aim
• How you are capable of implementing it (or at least of learning to implement it), and
• What the benefits and limitations are.

Final remarks

The three things I have discussed here – topic, contribution and implementation – should be in your mind every time you write a proposal. If you can concisely, precisely, compellingly and fully explain all three, then you have set yourself up for a successful application. The only other advice I have is be honest! The people who read your proposal will be able to sense confusion, blagging, and falsehoods. Good proposals don’t try to hide all of their limitations and problems, but address them directly.

Best of luck!

Bertram Vidgen

Former Research Associate

Bertram Vidgen's research focuses on far-right extremism in online contexts. An alumnus of the OII DPhil programme, he is engaged in ongoing collaborative research as a member of the Public Policy Programme at the Turing Institute.

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Writing a Research Proposal (Webinar)

Are you thinking about applying to Oxford for graduate study and would like to know more about transforming your initial research ideas into a rigorous and compelling research proposal? Join us for this webinar to hear an expert panel discuss, compare and contrast doctoral proposals from three disciplinary perspectives and offer their advice on how to write a successful research proposal.

This webinar is aimed at people from groups currently under-represented at Oxford, and/or who have been disadvantaged during their education. For example, you may:

• be in the first generation of your family to go to university;
• have been in care as a child, or have been a ‘young carer’ with significant caring responsibilities for others;
• be from a low-income background; or
• experienced other circumstances that have substantially affected your education.

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Oxford University Research Proposal

28/02/2023 (updated 13/09/2023) Emily Watson

If you’re applying for a DPhil or Master’s level research programme at Oxford, you will usually be required to submit a research proposal. Crafting an excellent research proposal is more than simply choosing a compelling topic – it involves careful planning and putting thought into your research aims, research methods, references, and more.

Whether you’ve never written a research proposal before or are looking for a few tips to improve your proposal writing and tailor your proposal to Oxford specifically, this guide contains everything you need. You’ll also find top tips from The Profs co-founder and ex-lecturer Dr Leo Evans , who has personally helped students develop successful research proposals for the UK’s top universities.

What is a research proposal?

A research proposal is a document that presents your topic or question for a research project. It should outline what you are planning to research and what your expected outcomes are, why your topic/question is significant, and what value your research will bring to the wider discipline.

You can complete a DPhil in almost any discipline, including Biology, Computer Science, Economics, History, Law, and many more. Bear in mind that research proposals can look different depending on the field you are in and the type of research you plan on undertaking.

How long should an Oxford University research proposal be?

Oxford research proposals should be between 1,000 and 3,000 words depending on the programme (excluding the reference list/bibliography). Make sure to check directly on your chosen course page or contact the relevant department for more information on the word count and what to include in your proposal.

What to include in an Oxford research proposal

The purpose of your Oxford research proposal is to explain what you intend to research, why you intend to research it, and persuade potential universities, supervisors, and funders that your project is worthy of their support.

What exactly you should include in your research proposal will depend on what type of research you are undertaking and which university you are applying to. Oxford University publishes a list of the sections you should include in your research proposal which you can find below.

Title sheet

Your Oxford research proposal should begin with completing the title sheet. This should include your name, the degree programme to which you are applying and your thesis proposal title. Keep the title of your proposal simple and descriptive, as you want the person reading to know exactly what your research is about and whether it is realistic.

If you don’t yet have a final title, you can include an initial idea or ‘working title’. Your research title is likely to be revised as your research progresses and can therefore be a suggestion at the proposal stage.

Dr Leo’s tip: Ideally, your research proposal should be focussed on an active or currently ‘hot’ area of research (for example, the impacts of COVID or some other significant event in your field). That is, something that is meaningful and interesting for both understanding current problems but also identifying future solutions. You should also check what research is already being undertaken at the university by its faculty. The more tailored your proposal is to active areas of research at a faculty, the better. After all, every school/department has different focusses and you want to align your research with their interests and objectives.

Topic statement

The topic statement section should come next and establish the general subject area you will be working in and how your topic relates to it. Explain briefly why your topic is significant (e.g. the context and background of the research topic and the rationale for undertaking the research) and what contribution your research will make to the field.

Dr Leo’s tip: A good place to start when developing your research proposal is doing research on the specific active areas of research and the researchers involved in your relevant Oxford department. Work out who in that faculty you might like your supervisor to be, and read and cite their top papers extensively in your proposal (starting with including it in the key literature in your introduction). This will capture their attention early, scoring big points with them and showing them that you mean business.

Research aims and questions

The next section of your research proposal should set out to define your research aims. The aims of your research relate to the purpose of conducting the research and what you specifically want to achieve. If relevant to your topic, you should also include some research questions that will help you to achieve your research aims and what you want to find out through your research.

Both your aims and questions should be used to guide your research, so they are an important stage of your proposal. Make sure you think carefully about the specifics here – if you make your questions too broad, you will have too much information to explore and will find that you won’t be able to answer the exact question sufficiently. However, if your questions are too narrow, they may not be suitable to base an entire research on.

Dr Leo’s tip: When looking for gaps in the research that you are aiming to fill, look for questions that have been posed and not investigated in existing papers, ideally from the top journals in your fields. For example, they may say something like, “This finding would suggest X is true, or that X is related to Y, but this is beyond the scope of this paper.” This type of reasoning represents a gap in the literature and suggests that it might be a fruitful avenue for further research or a necessary extension to current areas of research that you could pursue.

Literature review

Next, you should provide a brief review of the significant literature and current research in your field in a literature review. You will need to not only provide individual studies and theories, but also critically analyse and evaluate this literature. You should also demonstrate an awareness of the current state of knowledge more generally and an understanding of any key arguments and debates on the topic you plan to research.

It is important to not just regurgitate long lists of papers and findings, but show that you can link together different papers and ideas, critically analyse them, and expand on how the literature shapes or frames your research question. You should also outline the theoretical approaches taken in your topic, indicate which approach(es) you propose to use in your research, and why you plan to do so. This section will help to place your own research in context and establish its potential contribution to the field.

Dr Leo’s tip: Some people choose to do a DPhil in their Master’s area and so have a good idea of topics already, but many people come from other disciplines and so they have a lot more to do to show an understanding of the literature. A good starting point is to find out what the top journals in your intended field are, read all of the papers in the most recent editions, and start going down the rabbit hole of what you find interesting (and what is relevant) from there. One caveat is that getting papers and/or top journals can be tricky and expensive as an independent researcher, and so if you are at a university already and have access to their library, take advantage of this to get into recent journals and gain access to the references within on campus. If not, you might want to find a library that has scientific journal subscriptions and go from there.

Research methods

Here, you should briefly describe your proposed research methods, including:

• The type of information and sources you will use
• The main research methods you will employ
• Any resources needed
• Any ethical or safety issues identified.

The purpose of the research methods section is to explain how you plan to conduct your research and the practical and/or theoretical approaches you will take. Again, use existing research and papers to guide your methodologies, and don’t worry if you do not fully understand them scientifically yet; that is par for the course of doing a PhD. Just make sure you at least demonstrate you have considered viable approaches that do not sound out of place in your field.

Chapter outline

Based on the research methods outlined above, you may wish to propose a tentative chapter outline. This may not always be possible and is often developed and changed when working with your dissertation supervisor anyway, but it can help to show that you are committed to the research and have really thought it through.

You can also use these chapters to outline the following 3 years and include achievable ‘deadlines’ throughout that period. You won’t necessarily have to stick to this plan throughout your PhD/DPhil, but it’s important to show assessors that you have a plan and that you are committed to completing the research you set out to do.

Dr Leo explains that, “in reality, pretty much as soon as you start on a DPhil/PhD, your chosen area could change or your interests or findings evolve – but this isn’t a problem. Universities won’t hold you to the proposal or timelines you set out. You are showing you can think and are capable of independent study and ideas, not that you can predict the future of your workload.”

Bibliography/reference list

Finally, you should list all publications cited in your proposal. You should write this bibliography/reference list in line with the specific departmental referencing guidelines for your relevant Oxford department. This section of your proposal is not included in your total word count allowance so you should not hesitate to include every reference you’ve used.

Dr Leo’s tip: Ideally, the reference list should be from top journals in the fields as a primary resource (not just unpublished research or white papers you find with a Google search). Candidates should find a broad area of interest and then explore topics in deeper detail by reading papers in top journals and the references within to get a good grasp of new or important questions for the focus of your DPhil. Also, the more you can reference a potential supervisor’s work from the department you are applying to, the better.

How is a research proposal assessed?

Your research proposal will be a key document upon which your application as a whole is assessed. Oxford University will broadly be looking for research proposals that are well-written, clear, concise, and convincing. They will want to see that you have considered every aspect of your research project carefully and that you will be committed to the topic for the 3+ years to come.

Oxford specifies that your research proposal will be assessed based on the following criteria:

• Originality;
• Evidence of motivation for and understanding of the proposed area of study;
• Ability to present a reasoned case in English;
• Feasibility of successfully completing the project in the time available for the course (typically 3-4 years);
• Commitment to the subject;
• Knowledge of research techniques;
• Capacity for sustained and intense work;
• Reasoning ability;
• Ability to absorb new ideas, often presented abstractly, at a rapid pace.

As you can probably infer from the above criteria, Oxford will also be looking for what your research proposal says about you as a person and as an academic. Dr Leo explains: “What the academics are trying to gauge is first whether you are suitable for a PhD/DPhil (i.e. that you are intelligent, qualified, a self-starter, driven and committed).

A big question for them is whether you are going to see it out when the going gets hard, as drop-off rates are high in PhD/DPhils and it is quite expensive for departments to essentially train people who then leave (i.e. they take up departmental resources by having classes and taking up supervisors’ time, etc.). You are also taking a place from another potential candidate, so if you drop out they are really losing two people.

Universities will also use your research proposal to gauge your interest/topic area and might even assign you to a supervisor on the back of it (but you can usually change supervisors later on if you find it isn’t a good fit).

Funding is also a consideration, as ideally PhD/DPhil candidates get research funding and avoid funding it themselves (funding also makes candidates less likely to drop off). This isn’t so much part of the proposal, but does feed into the commitment aspect that departments will be looking for.”

The Profs’ experienced postgraduate admissions consultants have in-depth knowledge of how to write a compelling research proposal that meets the specific requirements of Oxford University. 95% of our students get into their first or second choice university thanks to the thoughtful guidance and ongoing support of our experts. Reach out to our team to find out more about how we can help you with your research proposal today.

How do I create a DPhil timescale/timeline?

There are many ways you can show a timeline of your research, but one of the most popular methods (and one that is often suggested by university experts) is to use a Gantt chart. A Gantt chart is a useful way of showing tasks displayed against time. On the left of the chart is a list of the activities and along the top is a suitable time scale. Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the bar reflect the proposed start date, duration and end date of the task.

How long does it take to write a research proposal?

The amount of time you need to write a research proposal will depend on many factors, including the word count, when your application deadline is, and how developed your research plan is. On average, it takes applicants about 2-3 months to research, write, rewrite, edit, and submit a strong proposal.

How do I find a research proposal topic?

Choosing a research topic is one of the most important stages of submitting a research proposal. Primarily, you should look to choose a topic that you are interested in/that you care about; you will be researching this topic for 3-4 years at least, so it’s important that you are invested in it. Secondly, your research topic needs to be narrow enough that it is manageable. If your topic is too broad, there will be too much information to consider and you will not be able to draw concise conclusions or focus deeply enough.

In order to find a research proposal topic, first look at the areas that you have previously studied. Reviewing past lecture notes and assignments can be a helpful way of finding inspiration. Background reading can also help you to explore topics in more depth and limit the scope of your research question. You can also discuss your ideas/areas of interest with a lecturer or professor, potential dissertation supervisor, or specialist tutor to get an academic perspective.

How do I write ethical considerations in a research proposal?

It is important to include any ethical considerations of your research project in your research proposal. Your ethical considerations should usually be around one paragraph long and should expand on each of the following points:

• Respondents should always participate in research on the basis of informed consent.
• Informed consent involves researchers providing adequate information and assurances about taking part to ensure that respondents understand the implications of participating and are able to reach a fully informed, considered and freely given decision without any pressure or coercion.
• You should avoid the use of offensive, discriminatory, or other unacceptable language in any questionnaires, interviews, focus group questions, or other research methods.
• It is vital that the privacy and anonymity of respondents is maintained.
• You should acknowledge the works of other authors used in any part of the research project and reference in line with the appropriate referencing system.
• You should maintain the highest level of objectivity in discussions and analyses throughout the research.
• You should adhere to the Data Protection Act (1998) if you are studying in the UK.

Oxford University DPhil acceptance rates

Acceptance rates for Oxford DPhil programmes can vary significantly depending on the subject area, but you can expect acceptance rates of less than 30% for many courses. For example, Oxford’s DPhil Economics had a 28% acceptance rate and DPhil Mathematics had a 16% acceptance rate in 2019/2020.

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