I remember my very first research proposal draft for grad school application. Today, I look at it and laugh real hard and ask myself, “Did you write this?”. The good thing is that we learn every day, and that is why I decided to share some practical ideas on ways to find research topics for grad school application.
For writing your research proposal from scratch.
1. Understand broad research themes in your discipline
The starting point is to understand the broad research themes in your discipline. Saying you want to research Electrical and Electronic Engineering is ridiculous because that is too broad.
Even a specialization of EEE like Telecommunications or Power Systems informs nothing about research interest. You need to narrow it down to the current research themes in that area of inquiry. The next point shows you how you can find this.
2. Search departmental websites for broad research themes
One practical way to find these broad research themes is to search the departmental websites of universities. What better place to find research themes than the place where the research is being conducted!
In many university websites, you will find that the departmental pages contain research themes. Under each research theme, you may find research groups, faculty members, grad students, funding, and projects.
This is a very useful resource to help you learn more about the research theme and see if your interest aligns with it. You could use ranking tables to find university and course lists.
3. Read survey articles on the broad themes of interest
Once you have identified that broad research theme, another good place to learn more about that research theme is survey papers. The good thing about survey papers is that they are not very technical to make you lose interest or feel intimidated by the research.
A survey paper gently introduces you to the key terminologies in a research theme as well as its existing literature curated in a structured and systematic way. Survey papers let you into the discussion on the key research findings and questions in that area.
Some go further to tell you about the future direction and open research questions. That is where you should pay close attention because your potential research topic may lie in these areas that the authors highlight as needing further investigation.
4. Look at university faculty research interests
Another way to streamline your interest is to survey some professors’ research interests. Your focus should be on their more recent interests as many professors move on from research they conducted in past years if that area doesn’t appeal to them anymore or if it becomes too crowded.
Just by going to the university page and searching for faculty, you will find a profile page of faculty members with a description of their interests. Some of them have personal websites that contain more information.
5. Check positions advertised on academic job portals
This is another important one that helped me a lot. Websites like www.findaphd.com and www.jobs.ac.The UK advertises projects from institutions. These projects usually come with a description of the project, and sometimes a bibliography is included.
This is an opportunity to get a background of that research and its existing gaps, with a broad idea of how the researchers want to tackle that problem. I usually call this brief description of the project, a prompt for the research proposal.
6. Check conference call for paper themes
Conferences are a good place for researchers to learn about recent advances in their field. If you have the opportunity, attend some of them before you start your research.
It’s also a good networking ground to water the ground for your grad school pursuit. It helps to remove the ‘cold’ email effect when you reach out to potential supervisors you met at conferences.
Conferences produce a kind of advert called the ‘call for papers’ where they first give a background to the recent developments in that field, followed by a list of paper themes authors should submit for the call. Through this information, you will learn about the recent advances and topics of interest in the community.
7. Check along multidisciplinary lines
Another way to find research topics for graduate school application is to check along multidisciplinary lines. Interdisciplinary research often catches the attention of faculty and industry as it gives them the leeway to break silos and produce novel research work.
You may be from a construction background but come across advertised projects looking to use Artificial Intelligence algorithms to achieve construction safety. They may be looking for a candidate with either a strong AI or Construction background or both.
Many of these multidisciplinary projects, especially those in which the backgrounds are very divergent, recognize that it could be difficult to find a candidate who effectively combines both skills, so they can consider dominant skills. Hence, you shouldn’t rule yourself out but have an open and flexible mind for these sorts of possibilities.
8. Check our faculty and institutions on social media
With social media comes lots of possibilities. Traditional barriers are also softened through this medium. Many faculty members use social media to advertise their research. A platform like Twitter is used to share recent news about research activities like projects, publications, and even positions.
Now that you know practical ways to find research topics for grad school applications about how to write research proposals, which one are you going to try?