what is set up in research

How to Set Up a Research Project (in 6 Steps)

Written by Casey Scott-Songin

Research projects, 0 comment(s).

It can be really exciting to embark on a research project, but knowing where to start can feel overwhelming! Setting up a research project properly means that you will save yourself a lot of stress, worrying about whether you’ll collect useful information, and will save you time analysing results!

Before you even begin to think about what research method you should use or where to recruit participants , you need to think about the purpose, objectives, and key research questions for your project. Below are the six steps to starting a research project that you can be confident in!

1. Define your purpose

The first thing you need to do is have a clear understanding of the purpose of your project. If you had to summarise why you wanted to do this project in two to three sentences, what would they be?

These should include:

• what problem you are trying to solve
• the context for that problem
• the purpose of the project

The problem you are trying to solve

Think about how to summarise your main problem in one sentence.  Is it that your product is not selling? Are you not sure why some ads are more successful than others? Is it that you are struggling to grow you client list? Or maybe There is a high bounce rate on a particular page on your website. Whatever it is, clearly identify it in one sentence (okay, two sentences maximum). 

The context for that problem

This is the opportunity to think about what you already know. This should be a summary of what data or research you already have access to. This could include analytics from your website or social media pages, previous qualitative research you may have done, or sector or industry research you have access to. Basically, this is the data that has helped you realise you had a problem to begin with. Knowing where you are starting from will help you significantly when you finish your research because you’ll have a clear understanding of where you are coming from in order to define where you want to be in the future.

The purpose of the project

This should be a sentence about why you decided to do this research project in the first place. If you are working with stakeholders and will be using this to get research approved, this sentence should be your commitment that research can help solve the problem you have identified.

2. Clarify your Objectives

This section should focus on what the research will add to the overall project. It should clearly identify the goals you want to achieve by the end of the research project. Try to focus on one or two goals maximum. You will know you have succeeded at the end of the project if you have achieved these goals. 

For example, if the problem you have identified is that you have a high bounce rate on the main sales page on your website, your objectives of the research may be:

• To identify the key problems on the sales page that is resulting in a high number of users leaving without buying anything
• To understand which audiences are most likely to leave without purchasing anything

Finally, you should identify (if you can) what type of outcomes you want to have from this research project. Will you be writing a report? Will it result in a list of recommended changes to your website? Being very clear about what to expect at the end of the project helps stakeholders get on board and support research projects like these.

3. Define your Key Research Questions

A very important step in any research plan is to identify your key research questions. These are very useful and help you narrow the focus of your research project. They are also really useful when you are analysing your data! When you go to write your report, if you use the data to answer the questions you’ve asked for this project, you’ll know you will have done what you set out to do. 

These questions should be the key questions you are hoping to get an answer to. Try to keep to around five to ten questions. Being as specific as possible to help you focus your research project and get the answers you need to solve your problem. 

Key research questions should be as specific as possible to help you focus your research project and get the answers you need to solve your problem. 

These questions could fall into some of the below categories:

• Why is something happening? 
• Why are your customers behaving a certain way? 
• Why is something not being used?
• What are your audiences’ needs?
• What is motivating your users to do something?
• What specific questions do you have about the product or service?
• What questions do you have after looking into the data that is already available?

The questions you write should not be the questions you ask your audiences. These are often complex and overarching questions, and will most likely need to be broken down when asking your audiences in order to collect useful data. 

4. Write out your Hypotheses and Challenge your Assumptions

An often skipped step, but an important one nonetheless, is to think about any hypotheses you have. Do you expect to have any particular outcomes to the research? Go back to your research questions and write down what you think the answers might be. What do you expect your audiences to do, think or feel? These will entirely be your thoughts and don’t necessarily have to be based in data. To make sure it is clear, you should write these starting each sentence with  “I think….”. 

Now take a look at your research questions again. Have you made any assumptions when crafting your research questions? Did you leave anything out because you assumed you knew the answers? Did you assume something would be more important that something else?

In order to make sure your research is as objective as possible, you need to be aware of what biases you are bringing to the research.

Understanding your hypotheses and assumptions is a crucial step to making your research objective. In order to make sure your research is as objective as possible, you need to be aware of what biases you are bringing to the research. These biases will mean you will be more likely to hear some things over other things. This is called confirmation bias, and it can lead to you making some results more or less important than they actually are. 

It’s useful to document these so you can refer back to them throughout the research process. If you lay out all the things you think might inadvertently impact your interpretation of the results, it will help you from letting confirmation bias influence your research. 

5. Choose your Methodology 

Now that you have a good understanding of what your research project is trying to accomplish, it’s time to choose the right research method to get the information you are looking for!

There are two main types of research methods to choose from: quantitative research and qualitative research. 

Quantitative research identifies what your users are doing while qualitative research helps to understand why users do what they do.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research helps to answer the question: What are your consumers/audiences/users doing? These methods can capture large data sets relatively quickly and give a basic understanding of audience behaviours. Having a large data set allows you to provide a strong confidence in findings relatively quickly. You’ll be able to quickly and easily see if any patterns are emerging. 

While quantitative research is very good at capturing what users are doing, it cannot easily capture what users’ underlying decision making processes are. Further, it does not allow you to follow up on unexpected findings, or have the flexibility to investigate different areas on inquiry. 

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research helps to answer the question: Why are users doing what they’re doing? These research methods can provide an in-depth understanding of user behaviours, attitudes and decision making processes. These methods also allow you to have the flexibility to explore unexpected results, which is often where important or insightful data lies. It usually results in much smaller data sets, but the data is often very rich and cn provide a deep dive into the research questions you are hoping to answer.

Qualitative research does not provide a large data set, and analysis can be time consuming. Further, it is often important to make sure you’re project setup is as objective as possible, as it is possible to accidentally skew your data with your own biases. 

Choosing your Research Method

When deciding on a research method, it can be useful to evaluate whether your key research questions fall into one of the following three categories:

If you are looking to collect breadth in data, you are most likely looking to answer questions around what a large group of people think. Some examples of research methods that can provide breadth in data are surveys, task analysis, or card sorting. These are research methods that work best when a wide range or a large quantity of people need to be reached in order to answer your question. They are useful because the methods themselves allow for data to be categorised relatively easily, which helps analyse quickly. These methods are most useful when testing a hypothesis rather than defining a problem. 

If you are looking to understand the context of something, you are most likely trying to get a better understanding of what problems might exist. Research methods that look for context are most useful when there isn’t much knowledge about the subject. They can often help define the questions as well. Context can be captured with qualitative or quantitative methods. Web or social analytics is a good example of understanding context using a quantitative research method.  Qualitative research methods that capture context include participant observations in natural or group settings. Overall, these methods are good at finding out people’s natural behaviours with little intervention – what they do vs. what they say they do. 

Looking for depth in your key research questions most likely means you’ll be using a qualitative research method, such as interviews or focus groups, to answer your questions. These types of research methods allow you to use open questions to dig deeper into answers and explore topics in greater depth. Depth methods allow you to most accurately define a problem you are hoping to solve with your service or product. Methods such as co-creation or participatory design allow for you to work closely with your audiences to design solutions you know they will like. 

If you’d like to learn more about choosing the right research methods, check out my post: How to Choose the Right Research Method for your Project

6. Recruit your Participants

Once you have chosen the research method that would be best for your project, it’s time to think about who you want to speak to, and how you are going to recruit their help to your project. This is often the most difficult task, but it is one of the most critical things to get correct.

How do you recruit participants for your research project?

The first thing you need to do is identify who you would like to speak to. It could be your entire audience, it could be a subset of people, or it could be people who currently don’t engage with you! 

Finding people from your audience

Once you have an idea of who you want to speak to, think about where you might find them. Maybe you have an email list so it’s as simple as reaching out to your current subscribers! If you don’t currently have anyone on your email list, think about where your audience might be. Would they be in a particular facebook group? Maybe they follow you on social media? Reaching out to your audiences on owned channels such as your social media accounts, via email, or even as a pop up on your website can be a really cheap and easy way to speak to your audiences. 

Finding people who don’t know who you are

And if you’re just starting out, or you want to speak to people who don’t currently follow you, you can always recruit through panels. Depending on how many people you’d like to speak to, you can recruit via panels for relatively low costs, and ensure you’ll get participants that will be relevant to your key research questions. Some survey tools (such as Survey Monkey) have panels you can use built right into their software, or you can search for panels in your country (or the country you’re interested in speaking to participants to) to find a company that would be a good partner for your project. 

How many participants is enough?

How many people is enough for your research project will depend entirely on the research method you choose and the complexity of the questions you are trying to answer. For me, I generally try to get at least 100 survey responses if I’m sending out a survey, and anywhere from six to twenty participants for qualitative research methods such as interviews, focus groups, or co-creation. 

Taking slightly more time to set up a research project has huge benefits and means that your results will be as useful as possible and findings and recommendations will come together much easier and quicker than they would otherwise. 

To find out more about a variety of elements that go into research projects in more detail, check out the other posts on my blog !

What steps do you take when starting research?

Let me know in the comments below if you have tried any of the above methods!

And don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to recieve more on what research methods to choose, research best practice, and a variety of other relevant and informative content!

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Setting up and running research studies

This page covers the main areas to think about when you are setting up a research study .

Seek advice on how to run your study

The NIHR Study Support Service can help you plan, set up and deliver your research to time and target in the NHS, public health and social care settings.

Contact the study support service around the time your study has been shortlisted by a funder. This will ensure you get the full range of relevant support for you and your study.

They can advise on:

• whether you can get delivery support from the NIHR Clinical Research Network
• other aspects of delivering your study, like attributing costs or recruiting participants

Additionally, the UKCRC Registered Clinical Trials Unit Network offers a  one-day workshop designed for current and aspiring Chief Investigators, to empower you to excel in the conduct of clinical trials through effective collaboration with a clinical trials unit.

Develop your research team

Make sure your research team has the appropriate expertise. It needs to include:

• project management
• patient and public involvement
• statistics, academics
• health economics
• clinical or subject (where applicable)

Be Part of Research  is an online service that helps members of the public understand what research is, what taking part might involve, as well as helping people find research studies and volunteer to take part.

Please make sure you read the  guidance on roles and responsibilities  before involving members of the public.  

Collaborate

You may want to partner or collaborate with the   life sciences industry or charities .

You can also engage and collaborate with experts in our research infrastructure, to develop and create opportunities for your own research. Our researchers have expertise in:

• experimental medicine
• early-phase translational research
• in vitro diagnostics
• patient safety
• implementation research

Find out about collaboration opportunities .

Identify sites for your study

Our Study Support Service can help you to quickly and efficiently identify suitable research sites across the United Kingdom.

Contact your Local Clinical Research Network (LCRN) to get started. We will use our national network, alongside colleagues in devolved administrations,  to gather expressions of interest from investigators at sites throughout the NHS, including primary, social and community care settings.

You can review the responses and engage directly with sites for more in-depth site selection discussions.

To access this support, please   contact your Local Clinical Research Network directly . If you are a life sciences organisation, please   get in touch with our Industry Support Team . 

Queries regarding access to research infrastructure support outside of England, should be directed to the relevant national coordinating functions:

• Scotland:  NHS Research Scotland (NRS)

Email:  [email protected]

• Wales:  Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW )

Email:  [email protected]

• Northern Ireland:  Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network (NICRN)

Email:  [email protected]

Study delivery review

For all new studies, we undertake a study wide assessment to identify and highlight any challenges to study delivery before they occur.

For example, we may identify staff training or specialist equipment that should be made available to support your study.

We then share this information with all your sites to enable a proactive approach to study set-up. We will discuss and agree measures required to address any challenges.

Streamline your study set-up

Our Study Support Service will create and implement a study-wide action plan containing recommendations and key information to help sites open as quickly and efficiently as possible. We use our national network to share the action plan with all your sites.

The study-wide action plan serves as a central resource - enabling a ‘do once and share’ approach. It facilitates development of proactive solutions, encourages collaborative working, and ultimately helps to maximise successful delivery of your research.

As part of the Health Research Authority (HRA) approval process, all NHS sites are required to confirm that they have   capacity and capability to deliver your research . For studies taking place within the NHS, the study-wide action plan also contributes towards the assessment process and helps to provide consistency in set-up across all sites.

Performance monitoring: Keep your research on track

Our Study Support Service will work with you to monitor the progress of your research against its recruitment target and timelines.

Our data systems collate site level information to provide study-wide oversight. This enables a proactive approach for identifying studies that require additional support to stay on track.

As part of this service, your study will be allocated a performance review lead. They will be responsible for monitoring the progress of your study through its life cycle. Your performance review lead will schedule regular review meetings, and they will be your main contact point while your study is open to recruitment.

Access data, patient cohorts or samples support

We fund a number of initiatives to help researchers access health data, identify participants for research, and access, store and analyse research samples.

Access to data

Clinical practice research datalink (cprd).

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) provides access to high-quality, anonymised primary care data for past and future public health and clinical studies. These include outcomes research, epidemiology and randomised controlled trials.

The primary care data are linked to a range of other health-related data to provide a longitudinal, representative UK population health dataset.

CPRD data and services can be highly tailored to meet your specific research needs.

Find out more about CPRD

NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative

The NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC) provides access to high-quality, longitudinal secondary care datasets for translational research. Datasets are available in a number of clinical areas:

• cardiovascular medicine 
• cancer: breast, colorectal, lung, ovarian and prostate
• critical care
• hearing loss
• infectious diseases
• musculoskeletal
• renal transplantation
• viral hepatitis

Find out more about HIC .

ScanMedicine

ScanMedicine   is a comprehensive database of clinical trials and medical device information. Researchers can use this database to gain an overview of the research landscape in their area of interest, to support planning research and building collaborations.

You can simultaneously search 11 major health databases across the globe for up-to-date information on what new medicines, devices and diagnostics are on the horizon. It was developed by the  NIHR Innovation Observatory .

Find out more about ScanMedicine

Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) and the Dementia CRIS (D-CRIS)

The Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) and the Dementia CRIS (D-CRIS), based at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, provide rapid access to pseudonymised mental health clinical records held in NHS systems.

This allows researchers to search structured and unstructured free-form clinical data, to swiftly investigate hypotheses and define anonymised patient cohorts.

In addition, some patients have given pre-consent to be contacted about research projects from information in their records, allowing targeted recruitment for trials and observational studies.

Find out more about   CRIS.

Access to patient cohorts

Nihr bioresource.

The NIHR BioResource is a panel of over 200,000 healthy volunteers and patients with common and rare diseases who are willing to be approached to participate in research studies investigating the links between genes, the environment, health and disease.

The NIHR BioResource can help you identify and recruit study participants who have been characterised by genotype and phenotype.

Find out more about the NIHR BioResource .

Access, storage and analysis of research samples

The uk clinical research collaboration (ukcrc) tissue directory.

The UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Tissue Directory is a free online resource that catalogues the different types of human sample resources across the UK. For example, biobank, cohort, biorepository, clinical trial.

Researchers can search the directory by gender, age, and disease, to either find banked samples or resources that can acquire bespoke collections.

Find out more about the UKCRC Tissue Directory .

NIHR National Biosample Centre

The NIHR Biosample Centre provides a high quality, high capacity service for  collection, processing, storage and analysis of biological samples from biomedical research.

Find out more about the NIHR Biosample Centre .

MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre

The MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre has world-class metabolic profiling techniques for advancing academic and clinical research in personalised medicine, diagnostics and nutrition.

The centre offers a wide range of analysis services to researchers, from broad profiling untargeted assays through to targeted assays. These services are offered on a collaborative project basis or as a fee-for-service offering.

Find out more about the MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre .

Access facilities for early stage research

The NIHR funds research infrastructure to support researchers with the delivery of early stage experimental medicine research studies. Our funding goes towards purpose built facilities in the country’s leading NHS hospitals and universities and a skilled workforce of researchers and clinical trial support staff.

Our facilities and expertise in research delivery are available to researchers who want to deliver experimental medicine research.

Access our facilities

NIHR Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs) are dedicated and purpose built facilities in NHS hospitals where researchers can deliver early phase clinical trials. The 22 facilities around England have cutting-edge technologies and access to patients.

Find out more about our facilities .

NIHR CRFs have skilled clinical trial support staff who can support complex or high intensity experimental research. The facilities are supported by the   UK Clinical Research Facility Network , which provides best practice guidance and tools to ensure each CRF delivers clinical trials of the highest standard.

The Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) are a network of world-leading scientists and clinicians who bring together expertise and techniques to support the delivery of early phase cancer trials. The NIHR funds 14 ECMCs across England in close partnership with Cancer Research UK.

Find out more about our experimental cancer research network

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• Knowledge Base
• Methodology

Research Design | Step-by-Step Guide with Examples

Published on 5 May 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 20 March 2023.

A research design is a strategy for answering your research question  using empirical data. Creating a research design means making decisions about:

• Your overall aims and approach
• The type of research design you’ll use
• Your sampling methods or criteria for selecting subjects
• Your data collection methods
• The procedures you’ll follow to collect data
• Your data analysis methods

A well-planned research design helps ensure that your methods match your research aims and that you use the right kind of analysis for your data.

Table of contents

Step 1: consider your aims and approach, step 2: choose a type of research design, step 3: identify your population and sampling method, step 4: choose your data collection methods, step 5: plan your data collection procedures, step 6: decide on your data analysis strategies, frequently asked questions.

• Introduction

Before you can start designing your research, you should already have a clear idea of the research question you want to investigate.

There are many different ways you could go about answering this question. Your research design choices should be driven by your aims and priorities – start by thinking carefully about what you want to achieve.

The first choice you need to make is whether you’ll take a qualitative or quantitative approach.

Qualitative research designs tend to be more flexible and inductive , allowing you to adjust your approach based on what you find throughout the research process.

Quantitative research designs tend to be more fixed and deductive , with variables and hypotheses clearly defined in advance of data collection.

It’s also possible to use a mixed methods design that integrates aspects of both approaches. By combining qualitative and quantitative insights, you can gain a more complete picture of the problem you’re studying and strengthen the credibility of your conclusions.

Practical and ethical considerations when designing research

As well as scientific considerations, you need to think practically when designing your research. If your research involves people or animals, you also need to consider research ethics .

• How much time do you have to collect data and write up the research?
• Will you be able to gain access to the data you need (e.g., by travelling to a specific location or contacting specific people)?
• Do you have the necessary research skills (e.g., statistical analysis or interview techniques)?
• Will you need ethical approval ?

At each stage of the research design process, make sure that your choices are practically feasible.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Within both qualitative and quantitative approaches, there are several types of research design to choose from. Each type provides a framework for the overall shape of your research.

Types of quantitative research designs

Quantitative designs can be split into four main types. Experimental and   quasi-experimental designs allow you to test cause-and-effect relationships, while descriptive and correlational designs allow you to measure variables and describe relationships between them.

With descriptive and correlational designs, you can get a clear picture of characteristics, trends, and relationships as they exist in the real world. However, you can’t draw conclusions about cause and effect (because correlation doesn’t imply causation ).

Experiments are the strongest way to test cause-and-effect relationships without the risk of other variables influencing the results. However, their controlled conditions may not always reflect how things work in the real world. They’re often also more difficult and expensive to implement.

Types of qualitative research designs

Qualitative designs are less strictly defined. This approach is about gaining a rich, detailed understanding of a specific context or phenomenon, and you can often be more creative and flexible in designing your research.

The table below shows some common types of qualitative design. They often have similar approaches in terms of data collection, but focus on different aspects when analysing the data.

Your research design should clearly define who or what your research will focus on, and how you’ll go about choosing your participants or subjects.

In research, a population is the entire group that you want to draw conclusions about, while a sample is the smaller group of individuals you’ll actually collect data from.

Defining the population

A population can be made up of anything you want to study – plants, animals, organisations, texts, countries, etc. In the social sciences, it most often refers to a group of people.

For example, will you focus on people from a specific demographic, region, or background? Are you interested in people with a certain job or medical condition, or users of a particular product?

The more precisely you define your population, the easier it will be to gather a representative sample.

Sampling methods

Even with a narrowly defined population, it’s rarely possible to collect data from every individual. Instead, you’ll collect data from a sample.

To select a sample, there are two main approaches: probability sampling and non-probability sampling . The sampling method you use affects how confidently you can generalise your results to the population as a whole.

Probability sampling is the most statistically valid option, but it’s often difficult to achieve unless you’re dealing with a very small and accessible population.

For practical reasons, many studies use non-probability sampling, but it’s important to be aware of the limitations and carefully consider potential biases. You should always make an effort to gather a sample that’s as representative as possible of the population.

Case selection in qualitative research

In some types of qualitative designs, sampling may not be relevant.

For example, in an ethnography or a case study, your aim is to deeply understand a specific context, not to generalise to a population. Instead of sampling, you may simply aim to collect as much data as possible about the context you are studying.

In these types of design, you still have to carefully consider your choice of case or community. You should have a clear rationale for why this particular case is suitable for answering your research question.

For example, you might choose a case study that reveals an unusual or neglected aspect of your research problem, or you might choose several very similar or very different cases in order to compare them.

Data collection methods are ways of directly measuring variables and gathering information. They allow you to gain first-hand knowledge and original insights into your research problem.

You can choose just one data collection method, or use several methods in the same study.

Survey methods

Surveys allow you to collect data about opinions, behaviours, experiences, and characteristics by asking people directly. There are two main survey methods to choose from: questionnaires and interviews.

Observation methods

Observations allow you to collect data unobtrusively, observing characteristics, behaviours, or social interactions without relying on self-reporting.

Observations may be conducted in real time, taking notes as you observe, or you might make audiovisual recordings for later analysis. They can be qualitative or quantitative.

Other methods of data collection

There are many other ways you might collect data depending on your field and topic.

If you’re not sure which methods will work best for your research design, try reading some papers in your field to see what data collection methods they used.

Secondary data

If you don’t have the time or resources to collect data from the population you’re interested in, you can also choose to use secondary data that other researchers already collected – for example, datasets from government surveys or previous studies on your topic.

With this raw data, you can do your own analysis to answer new research questions that weren’t addressed by the original study.

Using secondary data can expand the scope of your research, as you may be able to access much larger and more varied samples than you could collect yourself.

However, it also means you don’t have any control over which variables to measure or how to measure them, so the conclusions you can draw may be limited.

As well as deciding on your methods, you need to plan exactly how you’ll use these methods to collect data that’s consistent, accurate, and unbiased.

Planning systematic procedures is especially important in quantitative research, where you need to precisely define your variables and ensure your measurements are reliable and valid.

Operationalisation

Some variables, like height or age, are easily measured. But often you’ll be dealing with more abstract concepts, like satisfaction, anxiety, or competence. Operationalisation means turning these fuzzy ideas into measurable indicators.

If you’re using observations , which events or actions will you count?

If you’re using surveys , which questions will you ask and what range of responses will be offered?

You may also choose to use or adapt existing materials designed to measure the concept you’re interested in – for example, questionnaires or inventories whose reliability and validity has already been established.

Reliability and validity

Reliability means your results can be consistently reproduced , while validity means that you’re actually measuring the concept you’re interested in.

For valid and reliable results, your measurement materials should be thoroughly researched and carefully designed. Plan your procedures to make sure you carry out the same steps in the same way for each participant.

If you’re developing a new questionnaire or other instrument to measure a specific concept, running a pilot study allows you to check its validity and reliability in advance.

Sampling procedures

As well as choosing an appropriate sampling method, you need a concrete plan for how you’ll actually contact and recruit your selected sample.

That means making decisions about things like:

• How many participants do you need for an adequate sample size?
• What inclusion and exclusion criteria will you use to identify eligible participants?
• How will you contact your sample – by mail, online, by phone, or in person?

If you’re using a probability sampling method, it’s important that everyone who is randomly selected actually participates in the study. How will you ensure a high response rate?

If you’re using a non-probability method, how will you avoid bias and ensure a representative sample?

Data management

It’s also important to create a data management plan for organising and storing your data.

Will you need to transcribe interviews or perform data entry for observations? You should anonymise and safeguard any sensitive data, and make sure it’s backed up regularly.

Keeping your data well organised will save time when it comes to analysing them. It can also help other researchers validate and add to your findings.

On their own, raw data can’t answer your research question. The last step of designing your research is planning how you’ll analyse the data.

Quantitative data analysis

In quantitative research, you’ll most likely use some form of statistical analysis . With statistics, you can summarise your sample data, make estimates, and test hypotheses.

Using descriptive statistics , you can summarise your sample data in terms of:

• The distribution of the data (e.g., the frequency of each score on a test)
• The central tendency of the data (e.g., the mean to describe the average score)
• The variability of the data (e.g., the standard deviation to describe how spread out the scores are)

The specific calculations you can do depend on the level of measurement of your variables.

Using inferential statistics , you can:

• Make estimates about the population based on your sample data.
• Test hypotheses about a relationship between variables.

Regression and correlation tests look for associations between two or more variables, while comparison tests (such as t tests and ANOVAs ) look for differences in the outcomes of different groups.

Your choice of statistical test depends on various aspects of your research design, including the types of variables you’re dealing with and the distribution of your data.

Qualitative data analysis

In qualitative research, your data will usually be very dense with information and ideas. Instead of summing it up in numbers, you’ll need to comb through the data in detail, interpret its meanings, identify patterns, and extract the parts that are most relevant to your research question.

Two of the most common approaches to doing this are thematic analysis and discourse analysis .

There are many other ways of analysing qualitative data depending on the aims of your research. To get a sense of potential approaches, try reading some qualitative research papers in your field.

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population. Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research.

For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

Statistical sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population. There are various sampling methods you can use to ensure that your sample is representative of the population as a whole.

Operationalisation means turning abstract conceptual ideas into measurable observations.

For example, the concept of social anxiety isn’t directly observable, but it can be operationally defined in terms of self-rating scores, behavioural avoidance of crowded places, or physical anxiety symptoms in social situations.

Before collecting data , it’s important to consider how you will operationalise the variables that you want to measure.

The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .

• If you want to measure something or test a hypothesis , use quantitative methods . If you want to explore ideas, thoughts, and meanings, use qualitative methods .
• If you want to analyse a large amount of readily available data, use secondary data. If you want data specific to your purposes with control over how they are generated, collect primary data.
• If you want to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables , use experimental methods. If you want to understand the characteristics of a research subject, use descriptive methods.

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McCombes, S. (2023, March 20). Research Design | Step-by-Step Guide with Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/research-methods/research-design/

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How to Get Started With a Research Project

Last Updated: October 3, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Chris Hadley, PhD . Chris Hadley, PhD is part of the wikiHow team and works on content strategy and data and analytics. Chris Hadley earned his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UCLA in 2006. Chris' academic research has been published in numerous scientific journals. 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 311,570 times.

You'll be required to undertake and complete research projects throughout your academic career and even, in many cases, as a member of the workforce. Don't worry if you feel stuck or intimidated by the idea of a research project, with care and dedication, you can get the project done well before the deadline!

Development and Foundation

• Don't hesitate while writing down ideas. You'll end up with some mental noise on the paper – silly or nonsensical phrases that your brain just pushes out. That's fine. Think of it as sweeping the cobwebs out of your attic. After a minute or two, better ideas will begin to form (and you might have a nice little laugh at your own expense in the meantime).

• Some instructors will even provide samples of previously successful topics if you ask for them. Just be careful that you don't end up stuck with an idea you want to do, but are afraid to do because you know someone else did it before.

• For example, if your research topic is “urban poverty,” you could look at that topic across ethnic or sexual lines, but you could also look into corporate wages, minimum wage laws, the cost of medical benefits, the loss of unskilled jobs in the urban core, and on and on. You could also try comparing and contrasting urban poverty with suburban or rural poverty, and examine things that might be different about both areas, such as diet and exercise levels, or air pollution.

• Think in terms of questions you want answered. A good research project should collect information for the purpose of answering (or at least attempting to answer) a question. As you review and interconnect topics, you'll think of questions that don't seem to have clear answers yet. These questions are your research topics.

• Don't limit yourself to libraries and online databases. Think in terms of outside resources as well: primary sources, government agencies, even educational TV programs. If you want to know about differences in animal population between public land and an Indian reservation, call the reservation and see if you can speak to their department of fish and wildlife.
• If you're planning to go ahead with original research, that's great – but those techniques aren't covered in this article. Instead, speak with qualified advisors and work with them to set up a thorough, controlled, repeatable process for gathering information.

• If your plan comes down to “researching the topic,” and there aren't any more specific things you can say about it, write down the types of sources you plan to use instead: books (library or private?), magazines (which ones?), interviews, and so on. Your preliminary research should have given you a solid idea of where to begin.

Expanding Your Idea with Research

• It's generally considered more convincing to source one item from three different authors who all agree on it than it is to rely too heavily on one book. Go for quantity at least as much as quality. Be sure to check citations, endnotes, and bibliographies to get more potential sources (and see whether or not all your authors are just quoting the same, older author).
• Writing down your sources and any other relevant details (such as context) around your pieces of information right now will save you lots of trouble in the future.

• Use many different queries to get the database results you want. If one phrasing or a particular set of words doesn't yield useful results, try rephrasing it or using synonymous terms. Online academic databases tend to be dumber than the sum of their parts, so you'll have to use tangentially related terms and inventive language to get all the results you want.

• If it's sensible, consider heading out into the field and speaking to ordinary people for their opinions. This isn't always appropriate (or welcomed) in a research project, but in some cases, it can provide you with some excellent perspective for your research.
• Review cultural artifacts as well. In many areas of study, there's useful information on attitudes, hopes, and/or concerns of people in a particular time and place contained within the art, music, and writing they produced. One has only to look at the woodblock prints of the later German Expressionists, for example, to understand that they lived in a world they felt was often dark, grotesque, and hopeless. Song lyrics and poetry can likewise express strong popular attitudes.

Expert Q&A

• Start early. The foundation of a great research project is the research, which takes time and patience to gather even if you aren't performing any original research of your own. Set aside time for it whenever you can, at least until your initial gathering phase is complete. Past that point, the project should practically come together on its own. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• When in doubt, write more, rather than less. It's easier to pare down and reorganize an overabundance of information than it is to puff up a flimsy core of facts and anecdotes. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

• Respect the wishes of others. Unless you're a research journalist, it's vital that you yield to the wishes and requests of others before engaging in original research, even if it's technically ethical. Many older American Indians, for instance, harbor a great deal of cultural resentment towards social scientists who visit reservations for research, even those invited by tribal governments for important reasons such as language revitalization. Always tread softly whenever you're out of your element, and only work with those who want to work with you. Thanks Helpful 8 Not Helpful 2
• Be mindful of ethical concerns. Especially if you plan to use original research, there are very stringent ethical guidelines that must be followed for any credible academic body to accept it. Speak to an advisor (such as a professor) about what you plan to do and what steps you should take to verify that it will be ethical. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 2

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/research/research_paper.html
• ↑ https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process
• ↑ https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185905
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/research_papers/choosing_a_topic.html
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/using-an-interview-in-a-research-paper
• ↑ https://www.science.org/content/article/how-review-paper

About This Article

The easiest way to get started with a research project is to use your notes and other materials to come up with topics that interest you. Research your favorite topic to see if it can be developed, and then refine it into a research question. Begin thoroughly researching, and collect notes and sources. To learn more about finding reliable and helpful sources while you're researching, continue reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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A guide to setting up and managing a lab at a research-intensive institution

Bob goldstein.

1 Biology Department and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 USA

Prachee Avasthi

2 Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66103 USA

3 Department of Ophthalmology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66103 USA

4 Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH 03755 USA

Associated Data

Not applicable.

Postdocs who land faculty jobs at research-intensive institutions need to juggle several new large-scale tasks: identifying space and equipment needs for their lab, negotiating the hiring package, outfitting the lab with supplies, building a team, and learning to manage time in ways that can promote productivity and happiness. Here we share tips to help new hires think clearly about each of these tasks.

Introduction

You’re on the job market, and you’ve just been offered a job. Congratulations! Now brace yourself, because the next steps will involve some quick decision making. You’ll be asked for a start-up list detailing the costs of equipment and supplies that you’ll need to set up your lab, and you’ll be negotiating important job details — all while thinking about how you’ll build a team, a career, and a life as an independent scientist.

This short guide covers some advice that we’ve shared with postdocs who had just been offered faculty positions at research-intensive institutions, or to postdocs who were thinking ahead to a time when this may happen. Here, we cover how to set up and manage a lab. (A separate article in this series covers steps that follow toward tenure [ 1 ]). We have prepared this written guide to contribute to leveling the playing field for newly hired faculty, by demystifying some key steps to success that we learned little-by-little from various sources.

This guide is not exhaustive. Rather, it seeks to raise some points that can be useful to consider at this stage. We recommend using this guide, together with other sources [ 2 – 18 ] and those referenced throughout this guide, as starting places for discussions with peers to brainstorm ideas for setting up your own lab. Discussions with peers facing similar challenges can be invaluable for your own success and to help you face the challenges with some optimism that you can succeed. For this reason, we recommend forming networks of peers who face similar issues. The possible avenues for forming such networks may come naturally to some. You may want to ask peers locally to gather on occasion for informal meetings; use conferences in your field to get together with groups of people who are not well represented at your own institution; and use communities like Future PI Slack [ 19 ] and New PI Slack [ 20 ] to communicate about problems you’re facing, to seek solutions, and to create new channels within those platforms for building needed spaces. However, it is not unusual for many new PIs to feel like outsiders because of issues they face that some of their peers do not. Videoconferencing tools and messaging platforms like Slack make it easier than before to initiate groups who share related challenges. A little work on cultivating the community you need if it doesn’t already exist can go a long way, and if a gap exists in the support landscape for you, it likely does for others as well. This shared need is what binds a nascent group together. People are in general happy to meet informally to learn from each other.

An important point to keep in mind: As a newly hired PI, you can make mistakes, and you can be sure that you will. We all do. It is common for early-stage principal investigators (PIs) to regret some of the decisions they make regarding hires or equipment purchases. Many early-stage PIs repeatedly and subtly change their approaches on exactly how to interact productively with their lab members. There are many paths to success. Some trial and error to finding your own path is inevitable. Rather than expecting perfection, it can be healthy to view some trial and error as valuable in your learning process.

Identifying space and equipment needs

One note before we get to space and equipment needs: Back when you were initially interviewing for jobs, each interview was really a two-way interview – they were considering you for the job, and you were considering them as colleagues and their institution as a place to settle into. But in general, initial interviews are biased heavily in one of those directions: in most searches, they are generally interviewing their top five or so candidates from hundreds of applicants for just one job. As a result, it’s generally wise to try to enjoy the interviews by focusing on your shared interests in science, not money, and to avoid saying anything that could be perceived as a demand at this stage. It’s a good idea to ask relevant questions, for example about availability of graduate students and support for graduate students during rotations, but it’s generally not a good time for expressing expectations about start-up or salary totals (which we discuss more below). If your needs are typical, then saying so is a useful answer to any questions you’re asked at this stage about your start-up needs – to settle a chair’s worry that you’ll have atypical needs that can’t possibly be met, for example. Then pivot right back to your shared scientific interests.

Once you have a verbal job offer in hand, things change. You’ll plan a second visit to see the lab space and to think concretely about your equipment needs. You’ll build your start-up list, which will commonly be the basis for negotiations with a department chair (or sometimes a dean) before you accept the job offer. If you and your partner are both seeking jobs, this is when you’ll raise that. Remember that you are negotiating with a future colleague, so always negotiate in good faith. With any communication about your start-up needs, you might like to also re-express enthusiasm about the job and gratitude to the chair for helping to work out the details. It’s important to find a good balance where you are clear about any needs to accomplish what they’re hiring you for, while also starting off on friendly and professional terms with your future colleague. In general, the department chair is on your team: the chair will want new hires to be set up well to succeed. Be clear that you’re enthusiastic and that you just want to make sure you will be set up for a strong start there. Work to arm the chair with relevant information, including any other offers you have, to help them justify start-up costs to a dean, provost, or other institution sources.

You can envision your space needs as one bench and one desk per person, plus common space for equipment, shared resources, and other needs, and some room for growth including temporary summer students and rotation students. Looking at the benches and common spaces in your postdoctoral lab will be a useful guide, but be sure to consider all of the spaces, for example the spaces used for incubators, freezers, microscopes, tissue culture, and any equipment that’s outside of the lab in shared equipment rooms. If you want to really make sure the space will be adequate, consider the footprints of any atypical equipment or setup you’ll use. For example, this could include space for maintenance of your research organisms, microscopes, or custom-built rigs for specialty applications. Space discussions after accepting the job can be contentious, so this is a good time to ensure that you’ll be comfortable with your lab’s space.

Interviews can be an opportunity to ask to see the space, if a specific space is designated. Just as with meeting potential future colleagues, seeing a space can give you a gut feeling about a place that can contribute to your decision about whether to accept an offer. Some PIs like their office connected to the lab, where they can interact with lab members and catch any misconceptions in conversations. Others prefer a space that is separated from the lab for quiet writing and thinking or for more frequent interactions with other PIs. Nearby labs can affect a lab’s atmosphere significantly too. Consider the value of having colleagues nearby with whom you anticipate camaraderie, as well as potential collaborators and PIs who might serve as natural mentors to you. Physical proximity can contribute to productive collaboration [ 21 ]. Even a reasonably short distance can be the difference between interacting with colleagues and not. Note that in some institutions, and particularly in some medical schools, space is linked to funding using a specific space formula in which square feet of lab space is determined for each lab by how much grant funding they are bringing in. After you have a job offer, it is a good idea to ask the chair if a space formula is used, and how frequently it is calculated (i.e., will you lose lab space if you have a brief gap in funding, and conversely how quickly can your space grow if your grant funding grows).

Building and negotiating the start-up package

Once you’ve landed a job offer and you’ve replied that you’re interested in the offer, you’ll likely be asked for your start-up list. It’s a good idea to at least get a start on putting one together in advance. The start-up list is where you will be clear about your itemized needs to set up your lab. If you are being recruited in part for a specific skill, and they don’t have the infrastructure you need, it is important to say so. You should be clear about things that are absolutely required to bring the strengths they want. You sold them on your strengths in your job talk(s), so your start-up needs should not be a surprise to anyone. Indeed, sometimes recruitment is the department’s chance to justify investing in expensive equipment that they’ve been wanting.

Your start-up list is often the best opportunity you will have to secure equipment that is necessary for your research but that is too expensive to be paid for from most grants. In rare cases of an especially expensive piece of equipment, you might propose that it be shared to help make the case for utility to the department, but in general you will want full access to your own lab’s equipment instead. For such large pieces of equipment, consider whether your usage will be enough to justify covering maintenance costs from your grants and/or efforts by you and your lab for maintenance, or whether some equipment might be better to propose as a shared departmental resource in an existing core facility. These different models each come with their own strengths and drawbacks. For instance, in core facilities, usually you will need to pay by the hour for use of equipment, and your lab’s access may be limited, but the equipment will be maintained by someone else in a core space.

Rather than reinventing the wheel by building a start-up list from scratch, most people collect multiple start-up lists from peers and/or communities like Future PI Slack [ 19 ] and use those as examples as they build their own list. Just as with envisioning your space needs, it can be useful to take stock of what you’re using in your postdoc that you’ll need in your own lab, along with things you’d like to upgrade, as technology advances quickly. If you ask, companies will bring expensive equipment like microscopes to you to try out (such a demonstration of equipment is referred to as a “demo”), which can allow you to compare equipment and support from different companies. As you build your start-up list, look back at your application materials. What did you say your research goals would be? Are you requesting what you’ll need to pursue those goals?

The amount of money that is reasonable to expect for start-up varies tremendously by type of job and institution. It can be helpful to talk to colleagues at peer institutions or to use communities like Future PI Slack [ 19 ] to get an idea for what the market is offering. After initial startup costs, personnel are often the biggest cost. Most people will request 1–3 years of personnel costs to cover the cost of initial personnel until the first grant is awarded, for example for a technician and your first 1–2 graduate students. At some institutions, you will also be covering part of your own salary from start-up (and later from grants). For all personnel, remember to include fringe benefit costs as well as salary, or tuition for students if you are expected to cover this. You can contact your future department’s accountants to ask for useful information on the standard fringe costs for grad students, postdocs, and technicians. Certain potential costs in your lab may be covered by other sources in the long term, for example when graduate students land 1–2 year spots on training grants, but be sure to gauge the likelihood that this will happen on average, for example by asking for the success rates of graduate students applying for training grant spots. If you are choosing between multiple verbal offers, be wary of comparing start-up totals when deciding which offer to accept. What is included in start-up totals can vary between institutions, and being somewhere you can succeed in your goals and enjoy your colleagues will be far more important in the long run.

Once you and the chair iron out details, you should receive an official offer letter. At this stage, it is wise to find some new and experienced PIs whom you trust (for example, PIs at your postdoc institution) to check over your offer letter. They can help spot important gaps, and they can help build your comfort with negotiating as needed. Getting such input at this stage can be invaluable, because the offer letter is generally treated like a contract by institutions, and yet initial offer letters are often missing some critical details. As a result, it is not unusual to tactfully ask the chair for a revised offer letter that details all important points and expectations, including the precise teaching load, any restrictions on when and how your start-up total is spent, what space the lab will occupy and well-defined arrangements for any shared space, and specific plans laid out in case the space is not fully ready when you start, with everything (including gas lines and air lines) working. Spaces that require significant renovations come with a potential drawback: it is not unusual for schedules to stretch out for longer than planned because of unforeseen issues either with the space or with other jobs affecting engineering and facilities’ workers schedules. It is helpful to also have a specific statement that any needed infrastructure repairs or renovations will be completed before the lab opens, with contingency plans if that cannot happen, and that lab furniture (lab benches and chairs) will not be charged to your start-up allocation. Most institutions will give faculty two pre-tenure semesters of relief from teaching, to help with getting a research program off the ground. You will want to be strategic about when you use these (it can be helpful for starting the lab to have one semester away from teaching as you begin, and you might delay the other semester if possible until closer to tenure, although different PIs have different preferences). You also might consider in your teaching assignment whether you can teach courses that first year graduate students take, to give you exposure to potential rotation students. Be sure that your start date is specified and understand what the process would be if there were a need to adjust it, and by how much. Be sure that your chair has explained to you how your start date will play into your promotions and tenure timeline, your teaching roles, and your recruitment of graduate students.

If you are enthusiastic about the written job offer but you have any remaining major unmet needs that seem reasonable, then consider picking one major need and requesting that. For example, if more than one lab space is available, and one option is near colleagues that you dream of being near, it would be fine to tell the chair this. If some important details are still omitted from an initial or revised offer letter and yet you’re keen to accept the offer, it can help to email a conditional acceptance stating your own understanding of some specific unwritten details, so that a chair can correct any misconceptions at this stage, and so that you will have some record of verbal understandings to refer to in case the department chair changes.

With all of your negotiations, remember again that your chair will want you to succeed; they’re expending significant effort and significant resources for your benefit; and you’re beginning a long-term professional relationship. With these things in mind, while you need to be clear during any needed negotiations, you’ll also want to be tactful, and maintain a friendly, professional tone.

Once you’ve formally accepted the job, celebrate!

Opening the lab, onboarding new lab members, and building a team

After celebrating, you’ll have a chance to get wheels in motion for selected things that will benefit from some early action. Two things are useful to consider tackling first: (1) So that incoming graduate students and undergraduate students will see your new lab as a possibility, get yourself added to your new department’s and/or graduate program’s website; build your own lab’s website; and use social media to announce your lab. (2) Request demos of large pieces of equipment, like microscopes, from companies. Companies can generally offer to demo equipment on site at your postdoc lab. If you make decisions on big pieces of equipment early, this accommodates lead time often necessary to get the equipment delivered to your new lab so that your first rotation students can start in the lab without too much delay. Large pieces of equipment can sometimes have specific parts on backorder, and any resulting delays can create problems. For example, the microscope you need will feel like a useless doorstop until the most critical lens arrives. Some institutions will allow you to spend some start-up funds before you arrive, so that you can begin to place orders early. If support from equipment company representatives is important after purchase, as it can be for microscopes (a rep that can loan parts that need repair can save a lot of headaches), then be sure to ask your future colleagues about the effectiveness of reps for different companies before making major purchasing decisions.

Sometimes another lab is closing down or moving and leaving glassware, pipettors, and equipment behind. Once you’ve accepted a job offer, it’s a good idea to ask the chair if this is anticipated, and plan to scavenge useful items with permission when they become available.

Before you arrive in your new position, you might consider hiring a short-term personnel to start when you do, or even earlier, to help with purchasing and unpacking. In general, hiring people is governed by more defined rules than is buying materials, because hiring is regulated by employment laws. These laws can require openly posting positions, which can help you get a larger and more diverse set of applicants than you might otherwise. You can further grow and diversify the applicant pool by encouraging people to apply, soliciting recommendations for such people from other new PIs through New PI Slack [ 20 ], Twitter, and from colleagues, especially junior faculty at your new institution. You may also consider recent graduates or gap year students. You can also hire work-study students at your new institution to help with setting up the lab. Your new department’s human resources specialists can advise you on navigating hiring requirements.

Equipment and supply purchases are sometimes governed by contracts negotiated between vendors and the university. Your department’s accountants can explain any equipment and supply purchase rules and whether you are required to complete any training to make purchases. Product representatives from multiple suppliers may reach out to you as new PIs often make many purchases at once. New investigators can sometimes negotiate discounts. While not all of the lab startup deals from suppliers are in fact a deal, some significant discounts are possible when buying in bulk. Ask other labs what they pay for frequently-used services like DNA sequencing and for ordering primers so that you can be aware of discounts to request from your sales reps. Some institutions allow purchases from Amazon, or eBay for used equipment. As you begin purchasing equipment and supplies for the lab, you will spend some time trying to cut costs on big purchases and frequent purchases. It will take some practice to minimize the time you spend researching economical purchases. At some point, you may delegate the supplies purchasing role to a technician or assistant that you hire, or have each person in the lab make their own supplies purchases as needed, but it will be useful for you to learn the ropes at first so that you can be aware of any unanticipated issues.

Some newly hired PIs will get a start on writing their first grant proposal, or even submit one, before arriving. Grant writing strategies are covered in a separate article [ 1 ]; here, we review just selected matters that may help with envisioning the process in advance. Once you have a suitable funding source (like NIH) identified, it can be helpful to email a program officer there that handles grants in your subfield to ask for a short phone or video meeting. Program officers can evaluate whether the aims you plan to propose are suitable for a specific funding mechanism or review panel, and sometimes they will share other advice. You can also start to collect a list of awards specific to junior faculty such as Pew and Searle Scholars programs and ask your new chair about being nominated for ones that only accept limited numbers of proposals from each institution; some applicants will ask about being nominated for these before accepting a job offer. Some institutions keep especially useful resources of funding opportunities that anyone can access online, including funding opportunities reserved for early-career faculty and underrepresented minority researchers [ 22 , 23 ]. Other junior faculty may share lists of grants they have applied for, and they may share successful proposals to use as models as you prepare your own. For all grant proposals that you plan to write, be sure to contact your new institution’s office that handles grant submission (commonly called a Sponsored Projects office or a Sponsored Research office) as well as the administrative people handling grant proposals in your department to find out what they will need. Within-institution deadlines are commonly a few days to a week before a funding agency’s deadline, because they will need to check proposal paperwork for problems and sign off on proposals. Administrative people within your own department can sometimes help with preparing budgets and other paperwork parts of proposals; it’s a good idea to ask faculty in your new department about the help that department administrators can typically provide.

Upon arriving in your new position, you’ll start to build a team. For many new PIs, building a strong team can become one of their most satisfying new roles in science. Building a strong team can also be challenging, and it can be critical to your success as a PI. You will want to consider the extent to which you will micromanage lab members’ work and/or encourage and support independence, and for people to work independently vs. in teams, to promote both your scientific goals and your lab members’ career development. Even in labs where each lab member has a completely independent project, the group of people has the potential to interact in healthy ways that can help everyone. People may have skills and interests that complement each other (like the old Super Friends cartoons — Wonder Woman stops the bullets, the Wonder Twins transform into useful forms, and Aquaman takes care of underwater tasks, or teaches others how to do so). It can be helpful to seek lab members with these criteria in mind. Diversity in multiple senses can help contribute to a strong team [ 24 , 25 ]. For this reason, it is important to fight the urge to look for clones of yourself in prospective hires. And it can be helpful to consider your own goals, as you framed them in your job talk(s) or in grant proposals that you are envisioning. Sometimes lab members with specific interests can help relieve demands on your time; for example, a lab member interested in microscopy might be happy to serve as a second point person for interacting with microscope companies.

As you’re considering taking on new lab members, keep in mind whether potential lab members have emotional maturity too. A strong experimentalist who cannot interact well with a diverse team and respect others (often described as a “dominant negative” lab member) can harm team dynamics and/or slow other people’s research progress. Interviews and rotations can be an opportunity to look for healthy interactions between people. There may be a temptation to avoid conflict or hang on too long to a poor fit, but all lab members contribute to the collective environment, and a PI’s inaction often can be damaging. And a group with healthy interactions will contribute strongly to their own team building atmosphere. It can be helpful to watch for natural team-building initiative among lab members and to encourage it.

You’ll want to make your lab a welcoming place for potential lab members both in terms of the atmosphere among lab members and in terms of how the lab space is organized. As your salary will generally jump up in the transition from postdoc to PI, it may be helpful to consider the last $1000 or so of your annual PI salary as for the lab — for a lab coffee machine, bluetooth speakers, a food fridge, and in the longer term, for lab dinners and other social events. You’ll thank yourself later! Also remember that such perks are not a substitute for the culture you’ll seek to build: it’s even more important for lab members to feel nurtured and supported. If you’re naturally shy, develop regular habits to be in the lab interacting with people. In general, people in the lab will appreciate when their opinions are solicited and considered, for example when you are considering adding new lab members or making major purchases. You may not always agree with the feedback you get. You may even overrule the feedback for important reasons, but listening and understanding the perspectives of those who will be interacting most frequently with new people and equipment is invaluable [ 26 , 27 ].

It’s wise to give yourself plenty of chances to interact with potential rotation students: interview as many prospective grad students visiting your department or graduate program each spring as possible, seek opportunities to meet the new grad students who arrive each fall. In your first couple of years, consider volunteering for the admissions committee that reviews graduate school applications for your program. Become aware, though, of the time you would be committing first. It’s a good idea to try to limit your committee work before you have your first grant supporting the lab’s research (and chairs and colleagues will generally respect this need, assigning you to a light load of select committees at first), but the admissions committee can be a valuable one to join when you’re seeking graduate students if the time required is not too burdensome at your institution. For campuses with large numbers of partially overlapping departments and programs, you might also explore whether you can be affiliated with multiple graduate programs on your campus, to recruit from multiple pools of incoming graduate students each year. Having access to multiple pools of graduate students may aid in your goal to find graduate students who are good fits for your lab.

The graduate students who start in your first year or two will have incentives well aligned with your own goals toward tenure: making discoveries and reporting them in publications in your pre-tenure years (hence the advice above about setting yourself up to take rotation students into a fully functioning lab as early as possible). In general, when your own incentives and the incentives of the people in your lab are well aligned, this can help many things in your lab go smoothly. For this reason, and because you’ll be working toward healthy relationships with the people in your new lab, it’s a good idea to get to know what motivates the people in your lab both as you’re considering taking people on and as their goals evolve over time [ 28 ]. Do they have enough freedom to encourage their own creative thinking and for them to grow as independent scientists? Having an atmosphere where people feel comfortable taking some risks and also talking about their motivations can help. It is especially important to consider the challenges and circumstances of those who may come from a different background than you. You can encourage lab members to complete any of several types of individual developmental plans, for example MyIDP [ 29 ], at least annually, as an opportunity to review their long-term career goals and to review whether they’re working toward those goals. Graduate students and postdocs have diverse career interests and skills they’re seeking to develop [ 30 – 33 ]. They will need to spend some of their time exploring options for their continued careers, for example by attending workshops, gaining teaching experience and experience in scientific outreach. Your support toward their own goals will be appreciated. Often, time spent cultivating one’s soft skills, career path, and network will energize, refocus, and motivate their science as well [ 34 ].

Recruiting postdocs when you’re a junior faculty member can be difficult because you will be less well known than many of your senior colleagues. Some new PIs work on developing an online presence, for example on Twitter, to help students and colleagues become aware of their work. Twitter can be a great place to share what you do, solicit feedback, and work on community building. Opportunities to interact with graduate students at other institutions — for example giving invited seminars, contributing a little to courses that students travel to, or meeting graduate students at conferences — can also contribute to recruitment of postdocs to your lab. These opportunities also serve the reason that most of us do science in the first place, i.e. to make discoveries and to share the discoveries with each other. Sometimes these opportunities can seem hard to come by as a new faculty member, but consider adding your name to lists of seminar speakers at New PI Slack or other initiatives that serve to increase speaking opportunities for early career or underrepresented groups. Once you have postdoc applicants, it’s a good idea to talk to their PhD advisor directly, because conversations often produce more candid evaluations of strengths and weaknesses than a letter will.

Undergraduate students can also contribute to a lab environment. Training undergraduates has the potential to contribute to both your graduate students’ and postdocs’ career development. From large undergraduate student populations, there is a great potential to recruit ethnically and racially diverse undergraduates, who can contribute to strengthening your lab and the scientific field more generally by bringing diverse perspectives. Use your colleagues’ input on how to recruit undergraduate researchers at your institution and how to structure the undergraduate research experience to support benefits to both the student and the lab’s research goals.

These days, PIs often generate an onboarding document that outlines lab policies and expectations — what you expect from lab members, and what they can expect from you [ 35 , 36 ]. These documents can save time and reduce miscommunication. It is helpful to spend considerable reflective time envisioning the type of lab dynamics and culture that you want to build. Create a prioritized list of the character traits, work ethics, diversity, and professional behaviors that you envision in your group, considering expert advice [ 9 , 24 , 25 ], and use these to build a mission statement for the document. Once you have members in the lab, it can be useful to rebuild this document on occasion with everyone’s input, to help make the document more useful and to increase everyone’s genuine support for a useful set of expectations. As you gain lab members, you will likely want to improve your ability as a mentor; online resources can help [ 37 – 39 ], and some institutions offer local training workshops.

Maintain a professional relationship with your lab members. Being a new PI can be lonely at times, and it can be tempting to put yourself on equal footing as one of the group. But keep in mind that there is an inevitable power dynamic: they will generally be aware that you have a great deal of control over their ability to succeed [ 40 , 41 ]. Ignoring the existing power dynamics can lead to issues down the road. To promote a healthy environment, it can be useful to encourage lab members to cultivate broad networks of peers and additional PIs to give them input, to acknowledge that you and members of the lab may have interpersonal conflicts at times, and to start off relationships stating that you are committed to working through any conflicts that do arise.

In a position now where you have some responsibility for others (mentoring, teaching, serving on admissions committees, etc.), you should consider with some care not just what you’re doing but also what you’re not doing. In positions of responsibility, people are reasonably held responsible for both, which can be an equally daunting and exciting challenge to aim to meet. Take some time to read and/or discuss with colleagues issues that are important to the practice of science — for example, diversity issues and inclusive environments, unconscious bias, mental health issues, and ethical conduct.

There are many ways to be a successful independent scientist. For example, some PIs choose to work at the bench their entire career with a small number of PhD students. Some prefer challenging themselves to run effectively as big a lab as possible. Some prefer a lab of mostly postdocs, or mostly PhD students, or undergraduate students. Some choose to focus on developing new techniques for a field. Some keep research topics continuous from each lab member to the next, and others prefer to try new lines of research frequently. Keep in mind that you don’t need to be all of these things. Your colleagues in your institution and your field provide you a variety of useful models to consider as you shape your own ideas of the kind of scientist you’d like to be.

Managing your time for productivity and happiness

You’ve made it to a highly sought-after position, so you’ll thank yourself later for some thinking at this stage about how you’ll develop your career in a form that will contribute to your long-term well being.

Every new PI establishes relationships with many people beyond their own lab members. Among these people, other junior faculty can serve as an important peer support group, because you’ll be going through some experiences in common. It can be helpful to schedule informal gatherings with this group, as well as gatherings focusing on topics like teaching or specific scientific topics. Many new PIs are surprised to learn that some thorny issues they face have already been faced by other new PIs. The solutions that your peers have found for their own productivity and happiness can be useful to consider. It can also be valuable to cultivate relationships with people who can serve as informal mentors, i.e. more senior faculty who share your vision for how to run a lab, and who can provide input on your grants and manuscripts (and when you do share grants and manuscripts, it’s courteous to let people know a few weeks in advance the specific date when you’ll share something, and to ask if they can return comments within a week, so that they can schedule in advance some time for reading and commenting). If your department does not have a formal process for existing PIs to mentor new PIs, you can ask your chair to recommend some informal mentors. Also consider mentors from outside of your own institution who might agree to an occasional meeting by video or at conferences. As you collect wisdom from peers and mentors, consider practices they use in common as well as input from the outliers whom you admire. Remember that there are many paths to success and almost as many ways to do the job as there are people doing it [ 42 ]. For this reason, it’s important to decide what you value, and keep an eye toward liking the person you’ll become to get tenure and the job that you’ll have at that stage. It is important to stay true to your values rather than solely ensuring that you meet expectations required to keep and advance your career.

You will also establish new relationships with administrative staff members of your department — accountants, human resources specialists, facilities maintenance people, and others. Be sure to treat administrative staff members respectfully, and be friendly. Some PIs make the mistake of finding themselves in a position of some authority for the first time and, in the interest of time efficiency, losing a little of their naturally friendly and human demeanor when interacting with staff members. You will likely know these people for a long time. Administrative staff can be tremendously effective at navigating quirks of institutional rules, so remember that you stand to learn a lot from them.

Your own time management is important. Your research effort and time allocation will be completely unlike what it was as a postdoc. At first, you are, in a sense, your own best postdoc, so it can be wise to continue bench work yourself at least until lab members are well trained. In the long run, your time management will likely involve some trial and error in figuring out what works best for you, as well as trying out new habits now and then throughout your career. The pace of work may feel ramped up at first, given your role in multiple projects in the lab at the same time. This change typically involves an attitude and skills adjustment to manage more projects. You’ll need to be strategic about your research goals, not spreading yourself too thin across too many distantly related projects, and you’ll need to find your own best balance for effort toward research, teaching, and other roles. Teaching a course for the first time generally involves a bigger time commitment than new faculty anticipate, both for preparing the material to be taught and for learning how to manage a course effectively and efficiently. You’ll want to do a job you’re proud of in research, teaching, and your other roles, but remember that in the end you will need to find a balance that you can be comfortable with. If it takes you longer than you expect for setting up your lab and beginning to teach, give yourself a break by reminding yourself that this is a common experience for new PIs. You’ll likely improve at juggling multiple roles over time. Help is available for faculty looking to improve their abilities to do so [ 14 ].

One key issue of time management is how to respond to others’ expectations of your contributions in your department or in the field. It will be important to be a good citizen by doing your share of work in your department and in your field of science, but you’ll also need to learn to say “no” in order to avoid overextending yourself. For example, for reviewing papers and grants, a good rule of thumb for being a good citizen is to only review those that are within your own field and to review roughly as many grants and manuscripts as one’s own lab’s work incurs (for example, plan to review roughly 2–3 manuscripts per manuscript that you submit for peer review). It’s always okay to respond to requests with a polite, “I’m overbooked with other commitments and wouldn’t be able to take this on” whenever this is the case. A good option when turning down a request is to recommend a colleague or trainee that could use the opportunity. This makes it easier to say no, solves a problem for the requester, and helps others.

When deciding if you are indeed overbooked with other commitments, be sure to reserve time both for things that are urgent and things that are important but not urgent. Important but not urgent tasks are often key to long-term success, but are also the easiest to postpone. These tasks will be challenging to complete unless you specifically set aside time in your schedule. For example, grant proposals become increasingly urgent as a deadline approaches, and beginning early to set out a plan and stick with it may require you to mark out planned milestones month-to-month on your calendar. Commonly used grant application guides can help with planning out a useful schedule for yourself [ 43 ] . For important tasks, it is also common to fill up all available time with a specific task. This may result in spending a week to prepare a lecture or complete a first draft of a piece of writing that could have been done in a focused day. A useful method of dealing with this phenomenon is to allocate dedicated time, and no more, in one’s schedule for a specific activity (sometimes called “timeboxing”). The increased focus can reduce anxiety when sufficient time is protected for an activity. This practice can also reduce the amount of overall time spent, thereby increasing productivity. There is no shortage of management hacks taken from the business world that can benefit a new PI balancing many productivity, hiring, leadership, and organizational challenges for the first time. We are often not trained for many of the new roles that a PI takes on, but existing resources can help [ 6 , 8 , 9 , 44 , 45 ].

Another trick for making good use of your time is to double up on use of commitments when possible. Consider whether certain of your commitments can double as useful topics for lab meetings, or training opportunities for grad students and postdocs. For example, some journals will permit reviewing a manuscript together with a member of your lab. Doing so can satisfy multiple of your goals — contributing to your good citizenship in the field, keeping you and a lab member discussing ongoing research in your field, and serving as a valuable training experience for the lab member.

Keep in mind that some opportunities may not have a clear proximal benefit but may increase your exposure in the community and with your colleagues, and/or allow you to get to know colleagues you admire. Your reputation as a scientist is one criterion for tenure, as reflected by letters that your tenure committee will solicit from colleagues of your choosing and of their choosing. This reputation will be based in large part on what you discover and publish. For this reason, it can feel especially satisfying to say yes to opportunities that increase your exposure in the field specifically when you have discoveries that you’re especially proud to share; in this way, you can bring something of value to others, for example in invited talks you give, and you can gain input on your work in the process. There is a firehose of research out there, and it is not necessarily anyone’s job to pay particular attention to your or your lab members’ discoveries. It is important to appropriately credit your lab members for their discoveries in talks and on social media, and colleagues in your field will appreciate learning about these discoveries.

Lastly, don’t forget to do what you need beyond your job – time with family and friends, and doing other things you enjoy! You can expect to experience some failure and resulting stress at work, along with some successes, and overworking can be emotionally draining. If you’re the kind of person who feels guilty taking time away from work, you can comfort yourself by remembering that you’ll likely be a more creative scientist and a better mentor if you are taking time to do what you enjoy and what’s important to you outside of work.

Acknowledgments

The contents of this article grew out of panels in ASCB’s Accomplishing Career Transitions program, a program for underrepresented minority postdocs and new faculty or postdocs and new faculty at primarily minority-serving institutions. We are grateful to Veronica Segarra, Ashanti Edwards, Jim Vigoreaux, Maria Elena Zavala, and Erika Shugart for developing this program, to the National Institutes of Health IPERT for support of the ACT program, to program fellows at the panels and to panel members for highlighting some key issues facing new hires, and to Veronica Segarra for guidance on writing the article. For helpful input on the manuscript we thank Katherine Aird, Amanda Amodeo, Kerry Bloom, Emily Bowie, Kathleen Caron, Courtney Clark-Hachtel, Brad Dickerson, Daniel Dickinson, Rob Dowen, David Drubin, Kacy Gordon, Jonathan Hibshman, Toshi Hige, Dan Kiehart, George Langford, Zack Nimchuk, Ariel Pani, Olivia Rissland, Pam Rosato, Celia Shiau, and two anonymous reviewers.

About this supplement

This article has been published as part of BMC Proceedings, Volume 15, Supplement 2, 2021: Accomplishing Career Transitions 2019: Professional Development for Postdocs and Tenure-track Junior Faculty in the Biomedical Sciences. The full contents of the supplement are available at https://bmcproceedings.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-15-supplement-2 .

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BG and PA wrote and edited the manuscript. Both authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

The ACT program and the Article Processing Charge (APC) for this article is supported by an Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) awarded to the American Society for Cell Biology (award number 2R25GM116707). BG is supported by NIH R35GM134838 and NSF IOS 2028860. PA is supported by NIH R35GM128702.

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Research: How to Set Up a Research Project

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An academic career in surgery is associated with new discovery, teaching the new generation, and affecting health reform, as well as nurturing personal and professional development. Commencement of an academic career is not clearly defined and can be challenging, thus mentorship is often necessary. This chapter helps to cover the basics of how to start an academic career. It describes how to start a research project and identify topics for new research, including how to develop a protocol and obtain permission to conduct research at the institutional level. In addition, it lists what resources one will need to be successful and how to obtain sources of funding, from governmental grants to private funding. This information is geared toward new faculty in order to help them start an academic career.

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United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health, Office of Extramural Research. Grants and Funding. Accessed November 23, 2015 at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r03.htm .

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Altieri, M.S., Pryor, A.D. (2017). Research: How to Set Up a Research Project. In: Renton, D., Nau, P., Gee, D. (eds) The SAGES Manual Transitioning to Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51397-3_12

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Best Practice September 29, 2020

How to Set Up a Cutting-Edge Research Lab [Steps and Examples]

Bryn Farnsworth

New discoveries and advances in science have always followed on the heels of technological breakthroughs – having the best equipment not only allows new ways of looking at things, but often makes it easier to complete as well.

This is seen today in several fields, and particularly within human behavioral research , where a new multi-sensor approach is providing more data to the understanding of how humans experience and interact with the world.

While the singular hardware devices themselves have been tried-and-tested for decades, the integration of these disparate devices into multi-sensor studies is a new approach that provides a more holistic understanding of how we think, feel, and act.

Table of Contents

The next step for research.

One of the best ways for a university to increase their human behavior research capacities (which could encompass a wide-range of academic disciplines, from psychology or marketing, to design or user experience, and well beyond), is to build a unified platform for research to flourish. Cutting-edge facilities are popping up worldwide, giving researchers the opportunity to quickly understand humans in new and more incisive ways.

How to make it happen

To facilitate the opening of new labs, iMotions has helped several institutions by providing guidance, assistance, and technical know-how every step of the way. Having the exact information and knowledge to guide the setup of these labs has resulted in several universities becoming key players in the human behavior research world, some of which we will discuss more below. Check out Our Expert panel to help you every step of the way!  Of course, it’s always easier said than done to set up a large-scale lab for human behavior testing, and a tremendous amount of work is often required. To make this process that little bit easier, we’ve put together some advice to help you get started.

Step 1. Set your research question

Before you begin, it’s of course crucial to know what you want to test, and how you want to test it. For human behavior research, the flexibility and portability of the tools allows investigations to be centered around a huge amount of subjects – from neuropsychological testing, to market research, group interaction, and beyond.

Often with human behavior research, the only limit is the tools at your disposal – underlining the importance of creating a large experimental space. Once you have your research question, you can begin to design the experiment in proper detail (and of course, we have a guide for that ), and search for the tools you need to answer those questions.

Step 2. Know your equipment

From your research question, you should know what needs to be tested, so defining the equipment from this shouldn’t present too much of a challenge. If you want to test brain activity, then EEG will suit you best , while emotional response is best covered by facial expression analysis. Tests of physiological arousal are closely tracked by GSR, or ECG devices. There are more possibilities than this, and precisely how you measure things will depend on your exact research question. Check out: What Is ECG and How Does It Work?

Step 3. Collaborate!

Strength lies in numbers – by forming connections and collaborations across departments and universities, you will be able to strengthen both the design and execution of your research. Having multiple people contributing ideas, knowledge, and possibly even equipment means that you’re more likely to complete your research goals. This can be achieved in multiple ways – through collaborations and through hiring staff. This latter point is a topic that is worthy of a blog post in and of itself, but get in touch if you would like our guidance and advice on this matter. Having multiple experts in a particular metric (EEG, for example), means that dealing with the details and troubleshooting is more likely to complete successfully. But above all, one thing that strong collaboration helps the most with is the next step.

Step 4. Secure funding

his is perhaps the most important and difficult step of the process, yet one that requires each of the prior actions, at least to some degree. With principal investigators spending 116 hours on average on each proposal, this can take some time. With the number of applications sent in being correlated to the amount of success , it can however just be a matter of perseverance! By applying with collaborators (and giving our guide a good read ), you increase the chances of finding success (and quite likely reduce the workload of the application too). With a clear research question, properly defined equipment needs, a strong collaboration, and a persevering approach to funding, you’re on the right path to setting up your very own large-scale behavioral investigations lab. There are just a few more crucial components needed before you can start carrying out your research.

Step 5. Setting up the lab space

The next step is to set up the actual space where your experiments will be carried out. This is a topic that we have covered in some detail before, but the main points boil down to having a quiet, private space with the biosensor equipment set up well in advance of any experiments. Planning and preparation will be key to establishing the space that is needed for carrying out clean and consistent experiments. You will need to consider the lighting, the location, the electrical components, the sound, and even the furniture to ensure an optimal research environment. All of this is relatively straightforward but does require forethought, time, and budget to get started.

Step 6. Data handling and collection

Before you start collecting data, there is one final thing to consider – how the data will be stored and treated. There are various different rules and regulations regarding data storage depending on which part of the world you are in. This can be particularly sensitive when collecting sensitive data. Facial expression analysis data featuring recordings of people’s faces is something to consider in particular as it features identifiable information – you may be required to only collect the raw data (and not the actual recordings), or provide safeguards for protecting the information. There may further be considerations to make depending on how the data is stored – cloud-based storage offers many advantages, but might not offer sufficient protections. It’s worthwhile looking up the legal aspect of data security and privacy for the country you’ll be carrying out the experiments in before beginning.

Step 7. Begin research

Surely the most enjoyable step. With the funding secured, your collaborators happy, and experiments planned, the only thing left to do is to make the most of it and carry out your ground-breaking research. Publishing and continued collaboration across different departments and universities will empower you to expand evermore. Feeling ready to get going with your research? Read on to find out about two new labs that have cemented their position as research leaders, by developing new facilities for biosensor-based research with the help of iMotions. Read more about: 7 Tips & Tricks For a Smooth Lab Experience

Case Studies of the Best Lab Set up

Luleå university of technology, sweden.

North of the Arctic Circle, Luleå University opened a new chapter of research with their inauguration of the DEPICT lab – a cutting-edge research facility devoted to increasing investigations into human experiences within technology development, health, marketing, and more. Using both the platform and direct help from iMotions, Luleå University places itself as a leader in human behavior research.

Camilla Grane, Bjarne Bergquist, and Peter Törlind have led the new endeavor, setting up the interdisciplinary lab space to not only increase the reach of their own work, but also of others, by encouraging other researchers to take advantage of the equipment and setup.

Within the DEPICT lab, experiments are now possible with biosensors to measure brain activity (with EEG), attention (with eye tracking), emotions (with facial expression analysis), and physiological arousal (with ECG and GSR measurements). Each sensor provides a new and different layer of data for investigation.

With the use of biosensors, Peter Törling is advancing the understanding of group decision-making, brainstorming, and how to encourage effective creativity within such settings. Bjarne Bergquist and Camilla Grane examine the tools we use them in separate and distinct ways, but both seek to ultimately improve them – with railways systems, and driving respectively (among other scenarios).

The lab was inaugurated on the 24th of April, 2017, drawing interest and attention from multiple academic departments that are keen to see how human behavior research can help augment and advance the work within their own fields.

Texas A&M University, USA

At the beginning of March, Texas A&M started its new venture into deeper interrogations of human behavior, with its Human Behavior Lab . By using and combining a range of biosensors, the researchers aim to “catapult Texas A&M social sciences forward.” By using iMotions they are now able to carry out research that wasn’t possible before and to take on new challenges in the field of human behavior research.

As director of the lab, Dr. Marco A. Palma has led the efforts to bring cutting-edge human behavior research to the Lone Star State. Research into decision-making processes is at the heart of the efforts in the understanding of human behavior, with key fields of interest ranging from agricultural economics and marketing to computer science, and political science.

The approach of human behavior research allows insight into many fields, as reflected by the diversity of the associated subjects. By having a central hub to associate with, the research capacities of many departments is quickly and readily amplified.

University of Nebraska, Omaha, USA

At the Jack & Stephanie Koraleski Commerce and Applied Behavioral Laboratory , established in October 2014, researchers have been engaging in multimodal research. With research topics spanning studies of entrepreneurial insight, to complex problem-solving, and investigations of social media for extremist propaganda, the scientists at Omaha have been uncovering complex questions related to human behavior.

With the help of iMotions, the University of Nebraska now carries out research with a range of biosensors, allowing the researchers to peer deeper into the underlying neurophysiological factors that determine thoughts and decisions.

By using a multimodal approach, the researchers have set themselves apart, noting how the “combination of technologies is rare among business schools.” By providing access to academic researchers, commercial business, and the nonprofit community, they have brought together a wide range of partners to collaborate and co-operate with. Watch the video below to see more about the lab opening, and the primary research interests.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how to develop your own research lab, and some examples of this already in action. To get inspired and learn more, download our guide to human behavior research – a free, huge, comprehensive guide available below.

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Home » Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Lindsay Lewis

How to Build a Research Consortium

Most principal investigators spend many hours laboring over proposals to fund their research programs – and for good reason. While competing for funding is the big business for researchers, some have opted to fund their programs in other ways, like building a research consortium.

The word “consortium” means a group of individuals, companies or governments that work together to achieve a specific purpose. Research consortia are generally partnerships between institutions and industry, where several companies in a specific industry sector will pay an annual fee to be a part of the university-led consortium. In return, the university will research solutions to critical problems identified by the company and provide critical research data.

Considering a consortium

Professor Paul Mann , a geologist at the University of Houston, has successfully run a consortium of energy companies since 2005, funding up to 20 graduate and undergraduate research students every year. He routinely brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in funding and has students working on solutions for geologic problems in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the circum-Atlantic margins.

“Academic research consortia are a great way to fund research programs long term,” said Mann. “Each company puts a certain amount of money in to fund a specific project and it creates a smoother cash flow to support students.”

According to Mann, who runs the Conjugate Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons Consortium , building a consortium requires a much different skill set than managing a taxpayer-supported, public grant through federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation. Since consortia are partnerships, in-person visits, relationship-building and trust with the sponsoring companies are key to building a successful one.

And instead of submitting routine technical reports, professors who have consortia visit companies, make presentations and meet one-on-one with their partners. 

“We rely on companies for their continued funding, so we visit them in person as a way of building trust and transferring information. In meetings, we share what we are finding out, they share their knowledge and we both come away at a higher level of understanding,” said Mann. He also transfers information to the company through summer internships or students who become full-time employees following their graduation from UH.

Mann also partners with researchers in the petroleum engineering program at University of Stavanger in Norway that is led by Professor Alejandro Escalona . Escalona completed his Ph.D. and postdoctoral study with the CBTH project at The University of Texas at Austin in 2006 and is now head of the Petroleum Geosciences section at Stavanger.

Find sponsors for your consortium

Building a consortium provides many opportunities for industry partners to get involved. A consortium also provides a flexible, project-based structure and allows partners to come to the table when they have a specific project that needs to be explored.

Other than joining as an official partner to support a project, companies can partner with academia to provide data sets for students to research.

“Data from industry are generally superior to anything that academia can collect because the industry has the resources and infrastructure to develop and support the highest level of subsurface imaging of the deep sedimentary basins that we use for our studies,” said Mann.

“Students can work directly with critical industry data sets to accomplish the goals of the project.  In return, the data provided increases its value through our interpretations and analysis which benefits the company that provided it.”

Get other partners

Another way industry can contribute is through technical support from industry service companies that provide software for the consortium to use in their studies.

“Software helps accomplish complex analyses and provides students a chance to use cutting edge methods in their research projects,” said Mann.

This investment transfers back to industry, he adds. As students graduate, they enter industry with strong experience working with the software. They then can promote the use of the software and train others in the company in its applications. 

“Software evolves at a fast pace so keeping up requires significant effort,” said Mann.

Build credibility with industry

To keep your consortia going, it must bring value to industry. This means providing successful applications to practical problems, such as exploring the subsurface in the search for hydrocarbons, according to Mann.

“We end up on applications – how can we use the science for practical benefits?” said Mann. “The students are exposed to the A-Z science value chain.'”

Performance benchmarked by publications builds credibility with companies, adds Mann, who requires doctoral students to publish three peer-reviewed articles on their dissertation research and master’s students to publish one article on their thesis. He also involves students in site visits or Zoom meetings with companies to present the findings of the project.  This gives students a chance to investigate summer internship and employment opportunities.

Since the CBTH project moved to UH a decade ago, CBTH-supported students have published 96 peer-reviewed, first-authored articles.  

“Theses and dissertations tend to collect dust on shelves in libraries or languish in obscure digital archives, while published papers that are widely accessible online or at sites like Research Gate are at the forefront of the global dialogue of science,” said Mann. “I tell the students that their published articles will be their legacy to the pool of human knowledge, so make sure you advance your work to as close to perfection as possible”.   

Build credibility for your consortium

According to Mann, students in the CBTH also regularly place in the annual poster competitions. Since 2013, they have won 138 awards .

“By the time our students graduate, they are masters of the ‘graphical arts’ that are based on a variety of software used to maximize the impact of their data and interpretations,” said Mann. He said they also attain a high level of confidence, either presenting oral presentations in front of larger groups or poster presentations to smaller groups. The communication skills and confidence they gain serve them well, he said, throughout their careers.

These competitions also help to elevate the status of the UH Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department, which is currently ranked at number 54 in the U.S.A. by U.S. News and World Report .

Along with winning other competitions, Mann said these top performance activities really help establish credibility within the field and that will draw more interest in the consortium. 

“Everyone in academia and industry values and respects peer-reviewed articles published in the top geoscience journals.  With the electronic age the science dialogue has accelerated, so figuring out where the cutting edge is currently located can be a challenge,” said Mann.

The Big Idea?

Building a consortium is a model that increases productivity both as a way to provide financial support and as a way to have a large group working on a single goal and to build a consistent cash flow to support a graduate research program.

Public grant funding tends to be on shorter time scales and that can make the multi-year funding for student projects more challenging, according to Mann. But once established and producing results, a research consortium is a solid model for supporting your students.

Watch this interview with Paul Mann about creating and running a consortium

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Is CERN activating the world’s most powerful particle accelerator for the April 8 eclipse? No

Cern restarted its large hadron collider after a regular winter stop for maintenance. it is unrelated to the eclipse. .

As people around the country await the April 8 total eclipse, conspiracy theories about a Switzerland-based nuclear research facility have some social media users on edge. In their view is CERN, also known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

“Why is CERN being reactivated on April 8, the same day as the infamous eclipse?” asked a  March 29 Facebook post , referencing what it called the group’s plan to activate “the large hadron collider” on the day of the eclipse. “My gut instinct is that something really big is being planned for that day… perhaps a total takedown of both the grid and society in general worldwide.” In  another post  April 1, a man in a baseball cap speculated that CERN is deliberately starting back up April 8 to “open up a gateway, a portal.”

(Screenshot/Facebook)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our  partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

It is not unusual for scientists to conduct research during an eclipse, when the sun’s corona becomes visible and areas in totality go briefly dark in the moon’s shadow.  Total solar eclipses   allow researchers “to study Earth’s atmosphere under uncommon conditions.” NASA, for example, is launching three sounding rockets on the day of the eclipse to study its effects on the ionosphere (a mission that also became a  subject of   misinformation ).

But CERN’s research is different. The primary research focus of CERN — an acronym derived from the French name “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” — is  particle physics , or “the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them.” The organization seeks to find answers about the  universe’s fundamental structure .

CERN houses the Large Hadron Collider, the  most powerful particle accelerator in the world , which measures around 16.8 miles (27 kilometers) in circumference. The collider’s aim, as  Britannica explains , is to “understand the fundamental structure of matter by re-creating the extreme conditions that occurred in the first few moments of the universe according to the big-bang model.”

CERN spokesperson Sophie Tesauri told PolitiFact in an email that the collider’s activities have nothing to do with the April 8 eclipse.

“What we do at CERN is doing particle physics with accelerators such as the LHC, and this has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way,”  Tesauri said. “So there is no link between the solar eclipse on Monday 8th April, and what we do at CERN.”

CERN has an  accelerator complex  composed of machines with “increasingly higher energies.” A beam of particles is injected by one machine to the next one, bringing the beam to a higher energy — and the Large Hadron Collider is the last element in this complex.

“Hadrons” are a group of particles that include protons and ions. In the Large Hadron Collider,  two beams  travel in opposite directions at nearly light speed and are made to collide. In 2012, Large Hadron Collider experiments led to the discovery of the  Higgs boson particle , a particle named for British physicist Peter Higgs, who in the 1960s postulated about the existence of a particle that interacted with other particles at the beginning of time to provide them with their mass.

Tesauri told PolitiFact that the accelerator complex is restarted every year after a brief winter technical stop, when beam production ceases so that the accelerators can undergo maintenance. Restarting an accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider “requires a full commissioning process in order to check that all equipment works properly.”

“Now that all the checks have been performed, the LHC is ready to provide particle collisions to the LHC experiments, and first collisions for this year should actually happen today 5th April,” Tesauri said in her email. “This will mark the beginning of the physics run for 2024.”

The beams were initially expected to enter collision April 8, according to a  March 14 report . It said, “Depending on how work progresses, this milestone may shift forwards or backwards by a few days.”

On April 5, CERN  announced  that the Large Hadron Collider achieved its first stable beams in 2024, “marking the official start of the 2024 physics data-taking season.” The statement said that from March 8 to April 5, the Large Hadron Collider was set up to handle the beam and tested for any issues.

“Although the solar eclipse on 8 April will not affect the beams in the LHC, the gravitational pull of the moon, like the tides, changes the shape of the LHC because the machine is so big,” CERN’s announcement said. This phenomenon is not unique to an eclipse; a  2012 news release  discussed distortions in the machine brought about by a full moon.

According to CERN’s frequently asked questions page, the Large Hadron Collider is  expected to run over 20 years , “with several stops scheduled for upgrades and maintenance work.”

Conspiracy theories surrounding CERN’s work have been circulating for  years . In a statement to  Verify  fact-checkers, CERN said that its research “captures the imagination of lots of people, which is why CERN has been featured in a lot of science fiction books / even movies, around the world.” CERN said works inspired by its research are fictional and “should not be confused with the actual scientific research.”

False claims about the group’s work are so common that the organization addresses some common theories on its  FAQ page : No, it won’t “open a door to another dimension,” and no, it won’t “generate black holes in the cosmological sense.”

We rate the claim that CERN is activating its Large Hadron Collider in connection with the April 8 solar eclipse False.

More from Poynter:

• MAN ON MOON: Reflections on how mankind and the media came together on the surface of the moon 50 years ago
• Gannett journalists in the solar eclipse’s path go on strike
• What if newsrooms treated every day like eclipse day?

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Opinion | Newsrooms should treat the electorate like the hiring committee it actually is

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Donald Trump is wrong on Democrats’ abortion stance. They don’t support the ‘execution’ of babies

Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is illegal in every state and situations resulting in a fetal death in the third trimester are exceedingly rare

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Dr. Katz Publishes Research on the Role of Nonprofits in Agenda Setting for Climate Policy

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Dr. Juniper Katz, along with co-authors Samantha Zuhlke and Emani Brinkman, explores the impactful role of nonprofits, specifically land trusts, in local climate policy through their recent study published in the Nonprofit Policy Forum. Their research, titled "Strike While the Iron is Hot: Land Trusts, Temperature Anomalies, and Agenda Setting for Local Open Space Referenda," explores how land trusts are pivotal in leveraging perceptions of climate change for local agenda setting for land conservation, a crucial aspect of climate change mitigation strategies. The study analyzes land votes in U.S. counties from 2009 to 2019, revealing that temperature anomalies and the presence of land trusts increase the likelihood of conservation measures reaching the local political agenda. This association highlights land trusts' strategic role in capitalizing on climate-induced opportunities to advocate for conservation policies. 

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Office of the Vice President for Research

Four clas faculty researchers secure prestigious early career awards.

Continuing  an upward trend of University of Iowa faculty securing prestigious early-career grants, four investigators from the Departments of Physics and Astronomy and Computer Science have been awarded notable grant awards to advance their careers.

DeRoo, Hoadley advance space instrumentation with Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellowships in Astrophysics for Early Career Researchers

Casey DeRoo and Keri Hoadley , both assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, each received a Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellowship in Astrophysics for Early Career Researchers. The NASA fellowship provides each researcher with $500,000 over two years to support their research in space-based instrumentation. 

Hoadley’s research is two-pronged. She will design and ultimately prototype a mirror-based vacuum ultraviolet polarizer, which will allow researchers to access polarized light from space below 120-nanometer wavelength. Polarizing light at such a low wavelength is crucial to building optics for NASA’s future Habitable World Observatory (HWO), the agency’s next flagship astrophysics mission after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. 

“Our vacuum ultraviolet polarizer project is meant to help set up our lab to propose to NASA for one or more follow-up technology programs, including adapting this polarizer for use in vacuum systems, duplicating it and measuring its efficiency to measure additional flavors of polarized UV light, quantifying the polarization effects introduced by UV optical components that may be used on HWO, and building an astronomical instrument to measure the polarization of UV from around massive stars and throughout star-forming regions,” said Hoadley.

In addition, Hoadley and her team will build a facility to align, calibrate, and integrate small space telescopes before flight, using a vacuum chamber and wavelengths of light typically only accessible in space, which could help the university win future small satellite and suborbital missions from NASA. 

DeRoo will work to advance diffraction gratings made with electron beams that pattern structures on a nanometer scale.   Like a prism, diffraction gratings spread out and direct light coming from stars and galaxies, allowing researchers to deduce things like the temperature, density, or composition of an astronomical object.

The fellowship will allow DeRoo to upgrade the university’s Raith

 Voyager tool, a specialized fabrication tool hosted by OVPR’s Materials Analysis, Testing and Fabrication (MATFab) facility.

“These upgrades will let us perform algorithmic patterning, which uses computer code to quickly generate the patterns to be manufactured,” DeRoo said. “This is a major innovation that should enable us to make more complex grating shapes as well as make gratings more quickly.” DeRoo added that the enhancements mean his team may be able to make diffraction gratings that allow space instrument designs that are distinctly different from those launched to date.

“For faculty who develop space-based instruments, the Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellowship is on par with the prestige of an NSF CAREER or Department of Energy Early Career award,” said Mary Hall Reno, professor and department chair. “Our track record with the program elevates our status as a destination university for astrophysics and space physics missions.”

Uppu pursues building blocks quantum computing with NSF CAREER Award

Ravitej Uppu, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, received a 5-year NSF CAREER award of $550,000 to conduct research aimed at amplifying the power of quantum computing and making its application more practical. 

Uppu and his team will explore the properties of light-matter interactions at the level of a single photon interacting with a single molecule, enabling them to generate efficient and high-quality multiphoton entangled states of light. Multiphoton entangled states, in which photons become inextricably linked, are necessary for photons to serve as practical quantum interconnects, transmitting information between quantum computing units, akin to classical cluster computers. 

“ In our pursuit of secure communication, exploiting quantum properties of light is the final frontier,” said Uppu. “However, unavoidable losses that occur in optical fiber links between users can easily nullify the secure link. Our research on multiphoton entangled states is a key building block for implementing ‘quantum repeaters’ that can overcome this challenge.”

Jiang tackles real-world data issues with NSF CAREER Award

Peng Jiang, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, received an NSF CAREER Award that will provide $548,944 over five years to develop tools to support the use of sampling-based algorithms. 

Sampling-based algorithms reduce computing costs by processing only a random selection of a dataset, which has made them increasingly popular, but the method still faces limited efficiency. Jiang will develop a suite of tools that simplify the implementation of sampling-based algorithms and improve their efficacy across wide range of computing and big data applications.

“ A simple example of a real-world application is subgraph matching,” Jiang said. “For example, one might be interested in finding a group of people with certain connections in a social network. The use of sampling-based algorithms can significantly accelerate this process.”

In addition to providing undergraduate students the opportunity to engage with this research, Jiang also plans for the project to enhance projects in computer science courses.

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• Knowledge Base
• Starting the research process
• Research Objectives | Definition & Examples

Research Objectives | Definition & Examples

Published on July 12, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on November 20, 2023.

Research objectives describe what your research is trying to achieve and explain why you are pursuing it. They summarize the approach and purpose of your project and help to focus your research.

Your objectives should appear in the introduction of your research paper , at the end of your problem statement . They should:

• Establish the scope and depth of your project
• Contribute to your research design
• Indicate how your project will contribute to existing knowledge

Table of contents

What is a research objective, why are research objectives important, how to write research aims and objectives, smart research objectives, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research objectives.

Research objectives describe what your research project intends to accomplish. They should guide every step of the research process , including how you collect data , build your argument , and develop your conclusions .

Your research objectives may evolve slightly as your research progresses, but they should always line up with the research carried out and the actual content of your paper.

Research aims

A distinction is often made between research objectives and research aims.

A research aim typically refers to a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear at the end of your problem statement, before your research objectives.

Your research objectives are more specific than your research aim and indicate the particular focus and approach of your project. Though you will only have one research aim, you will likely have several research objectives.

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Research objectives are important because they:

• Establish the scope and depth of your project: This helps you avoid unnecessary research. It also means that your research methods and conclusions can easily be evaluated .
• Contribute to your research design: When you know what your objectives are, you have a clearer idea of what methods are most appropriate for your research.
• Indicate how your project will contribute to extant research: They allow you to display your knowledge of up-to-date research, employ or build on current research methods, and attempt to contribute to recent debates.

Once you’ve established a research problem you want to address, you need to decide how you will address it. This is where your research aim and objectives come in.

Step 1: Decide on a general aim

Your research aim should reflect your research problem and should be relatively broad.

Step 2: Decide on specific objectives

Break down your aim into a limited number of steps that will help you resolve your research problem. What specific aspects of the problem do you want to examine or understand?

Step 3: Formulate your aims and objectives

Once you’ve established your research aim and objectives, you need to explain them clearly and concisely to the reader.

You’ll lay out your aims and objectives at the end of your problem statement, which appears in your introduction. Frame them as clear declarative statements, and use appropriate verbs to accurately characterize the work that you will carry out.

The acronym “SMART” is commonly used in relation to research objectives. It states that your objectives should be:

• Specific: Make sure your objectives aren’t overly vague. Your research needs to be clearly defined in order to get useful results.
• Measurable: Know how you’ll measure whether your objectives have been achieved.
• Achievable: Your objectives may be challenging, but they should be feasible. Make sure that relevant groundwork has been done on your topic or that relevant primary or secondary sources exist. Also ensure that you have access to relevant research facilities (labs, library resources , research databases , etc.).
• Relevant: Make sure that they directly address the research problem you want to work on and that they contribute to the current state of research in your field.
• Time-based: Set clear deadlines for objectives to ensure that the project stays on track.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

Research objectives describe what you intend your research project to accomplish.

They summarize the approach and purpose of the project and help to focus your research.

Your objectives should appear in the introduction of your research paper , at the end of your problem statement .

Your research objectives indicate how you’ll try to address your research problem and should be specific:

Once you’ve decided on your research objectives , you need to explain them in your paper, at the end of your problem statement .

Keep your research objectives clear and concise, and use appropriate verbs to accurately convey the work that you will carry out for each one.

I will compare …

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

Scope of research is determined at the beginning of your research process , prior to the data collection stage. Sometimes called “scope of study,” your scope delineates what will and will not be covered in your project. It helps you focus your work and your time, ensuring that you’ll be able to achieve your goals and outcomes.

Defining a scope can be very useful in any research project, from a research proposal to a thesis or dissertation . A scope is needed for all types of research: quantitative , qualitative , and mixed methods .

To define your scope of research, consider the following:

• Budget constraints or any specifics of grant funding
• Your proposed timeline and duration
• Specifics about your population of study, your proposed sample size , and the research methodology you’ll pursue
• Any inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Any anticipated control , extraneous , or confounding variables that could bias your research if not accounted for properly.

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The Research-Backed Benefits of Daily Rituals

• Michael I. Norton

A survey of more than 130 HBR readers asked how they use rituals to start their days, psych themselves up for stressful challenges, and transition when the workday is done.

While some may cringe at forced corporate rituals, research shows that personal and team rituals can actually benefit the way we work. The authors’ expertise on the topic over the past decade, plus a survey of nearly 140 HBR readers, explores the ways rituals can set us up for success before work, get us psyched up for important presentations, foster a strong team culture, and help us wind down at the end of the day.

“Give me a W ! Give me an A ! Give me an L ! Give me a squiggly! Give me an M ! Give me an A ! Give me an R ! Give me a T !”

• Michael I. Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is the author of The Ritual Effect and co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending . His research focuses on happiness, well-being, rituals, and inequality. See his faculty page here .

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• News Releases

Space Economy Set to Triple to $1.8 Trillion by 2035, New Research Reveals

• The global space economy will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, up from $630 billion in 2023 – almost twice the rate of global GDP growth, according to World Economic Forum research.
• The rapid growth will be fueled by lower costs and wider access to space-enabled technologies such as communications, positioning, navigation and timing, and Earth observation services.
• More than 60% of demand will be driven by supply chain and transportation, food and beverage, defence, retail, consumer goods and lifestyle, and digital communications.
• Read the report here .

Geneva, Switzerland, 8 April 2024 – A new World Economic Forum report released today shows how the global space economy could tackle many of the world’s most pressing industry and societal challenges. The new research predicts that the sector’s valuation could surge up to $1.8 trillion by 2035 and roughly rival the size and reach of the global semiconductor industry – with space technologies expected to become as ubiquitous to everyday life as semiconductors are today. The growth will largely be due to space-based and -enabled technologies, such as communications positioning, navigation and timing, and Earth observation services.

The report – Space: The $1.8 Trillion Opportunity for Global Economic Growth – developed in partnership with McKinsey & Company, finds that in an increasingly connected and mobile world, the space economy’s impact will expand far beyond space itself, becoming more about connecting people and goods. While space activities, such as space infrastructure and satellites, launch and exploration, are predicted to also increase significantly, relative to their levels today, this will be at a slower pace than space-enabled technologies and business on Earth.

“Space technologies are delivering greater value to a more diverse set of stakeholders than ever before, including in industries as varied as food and beverage, retail, consumer goods and lifestyle, supply chain and transportation, and even climate disaster mitigation,” said Sebastian Buckup, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum. “As costs reduce and accessibility rises, these technologies could reshape whole industries, and have as much impact on business and society as smartphones or cloud computing.”

The report focuses on four main findings:

1. Space will be a key part of the global economy by 2035. The growth of the space industry will largely be built upon the increased reach of space-based and/or -enabled technologies, such as communications, positioning, navigation and timing, and Earth observation.

2. Space’s impact will increasingly go beyond space itself. The share of the total space economy captured by incumbent space hardware and service providers will gradually decrease to the benefit of non-traditional players such as ride-hailing apps, which would never have reached the global scale they have without satellite-based technology connecting drivers and riders and providing navigation services.

3. Space will become more about connecting people and goods. Supply chain and transportation, food and beverage, state-sponsored defence, retail, consumer goods and lifestyle, and digital communications industries will generate more than 60% of the increase in the space economy by 2035. Nine other industries will create opportunities for traditional and non-traditional players alike.

4. Space’s return on investment will be more than financial. Beyond revenue generation, space will play an increasingly crucial role in mitigating world challenges, ranging from disaster warning and climate monitoring to improved humanitarian response and more widespread prosperity.

“Businesses in a growing variety of sectors, such as agriculture, construction, insurance, climate change mitigation, can and will all be drivers of the new and expanding space economy,” said Ryan Brukardt, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company. “By understanding and embracing the full potential of space, public and private industry players can position themselves as leaders in the space economy, unlocking long-term benefits.”

Space technologies will be increasingly present in every aspect of everyday life, from providing weather forecast data to enabling meal deliveries through ride-hailing apps. This trend will be driven by decreasing launch costs, commercial innovation, as well as diversification of investment and applications.

The report finds that all industries can be both drivers and beneficiaries of the growth and diversification of the space industry by contributing to three key goals – harmonization, accessibility and usability, and awareness and education. Intensified collaboration between diverse stakeholders from the public and private sectors will be key to unlocking and maximizing the industry’s exponential potential for years to come.

Notes to editors

Read the Forum Agenda also in Spanish | Mandarin | Japanese Learn about the Forum’s impact Check out the Forum’s Strategic Intelligence Platform and Transformation Maps Follow the Forum on X via @wef @davos | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok | Weibo Become a fan of the Forum on Facebook Watch Forum videos at wef.ch/videos | YouTube Get Forum podcasts at wef.ch/podcasts | YouTube Subscribe to Forum news releases

Delta Posts Record Revenues as Corporate Travel Bounces Back

Meghna Maharishi , Skift

April 10th, 2024 at 12:58 PM EDT

While a myriad of issues are set to constrain growth in the airline industry, Delta seems almost immune to those headwinds.

Meghna Maharishi

As the airline industry grapples with delayed aircraft orders and rising operating costs, Delta Air Lines has stayed above the fray. 

The carrier not only posted a narrow profit during what’s typically a sluggish quarter for airlines, but travel demand across the board remains strong. 

Travel Demand Is Still Robust, but Don’t Expect an Olympics Boost

Delta president Glen Hauenstein said in a call with analysts Wednesday revenues for premium seating were up 10% compared to the same time last year, and corporate travel, which has struggled to bounce back post-pandemic, is now making a comeback.

Hauenstein said based on a survey the carrier conducted, 90% of companies that responded intend to increase travel in the second-quarter, setting Delta up to deliver record corporate revenues in the latter half of the year. 

The Delta president added that corporate travel sales were up 14% in the first-quarter, with the technology, customer service and financial services industries leading the increase. 

Delta also saw record revenues for domestic travel, which was up 5%, during the first three months of 2024. International travel revenues were up 12% in the first-quarter, showing the consumer appetite for international travel hasn’t waned . However, Hauenstein said transatlantic growth was “muted” due to the carrier’s investments in rebuilding its presence in Latin America and the Pacific.  

And while Delta expects to see strong transatlantic demand in the summer, it isn’t betting on a boost from the Paris Olympics. Hauenstein said the carrier anticipates business travel in the Paris region will decrease closer to the Olympics. 

“Well, generally, the Olympics are not good for airline revenues,” Hauenstein said on the call. “And this year, I think, is no exception to that.”

Delta-American Express Credit Card Sign-Ups Spike

Delta’s co-branded credit card with American Express has been a major source of revenue for the airline. The credit card is so important to Delta’s operation that CEO Ed Bastian has previously told investors that around 1% of the U.S. economy is spent on Delta’s credit card . 

AmEx recently rolled out new benefits to the co-branded card, but is also charging a higher annual fee. Some of these benefits include more credits for flights, restaurants and rideshare apps after spending a certain amount. Users of higher-end credit cards also receive $2,500 in “medallion qualifying dollars” to get them closer to reaching elite status with Delta SkyMiles. 

Those higher annual fees haven’t deterred any new sign-ups. Hauenstein said Delta saw a record number of applications for the credit card and is “seeing the highest premium acquisition mix in our program’s history.”

Hauenstein added that loyalty revenue for Delta grew by 12% on the strength of the AmEx partnership. Delta also received $1.7 billion in remuneration during the first quarter for the credit card. 

The Return of Regional Flying

Regional flying has struggled since the pandemic due to a pilot shortage in the industry. Airlines have also been phasing out smaller aircraft in favor of larger ones.

But a goal for Delta is to fully restore its regional flying, Hauenstein said, as pilot hiring for the carrier has stabilized. Delta is also slowing down pilot hiring in 2024 for much of the same reasons. 

Delta also has a total of 100 regional jets that are either underutilized or not in service, Hauenstein said. 

The effort to restore some of Delta’s regional network is part of a larger initiative to also strengthen some of its hubs. Since the pandemic, Delta saw record growth in coastal areas like Boston, Los Angeles and New York. 

Hauenstein said Delta wants to add more seats in core hubs like Atlanta, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul , where their cost structures are “most advantaged.”

“Coming out of COVID, we had to allocate the resources we had available,” Hauenstein said. “And those resources went to our once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to take leading positions in places like Boston and Los Angeles at the expense of rebuilding our core hubs, and we’re still not done building our core hubs.”

Delta-Aeromexico vs. DOT

Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Transportation has taken a more hawkish stance on competition in the airline industry. In January, the DOT ordered Delta to end its joint venture with Aeromexico on the grounds that the partnership is anti-competitive. Delta has since appealed the decision. 

Delta executive vice president of external affairs Peter Carter said the airline expected the DOT to come to a compromise on the decision, calling it a “regulatory overreach.”

“Our strong view is the DOT really struck out on that one,” Carter said. “This was an example of regulatory overreach, which is why we’ve challenged it. It’s bad for consumers, it’s bad for competition. It’s bad for the local economies that those flights have served.”

Carter said Delta was in discussions with the DOT about less drastic measures than the one announced in January. 

A Healthy First-Quarter Profit

Delta made $37 million during the first quarter, recouping from a $363 million loss from the same time last year. The carrier also reported earnings per share of 45 cents, or $288 million in adjusted earnings during the first three months of 2024. Operating revenues were at $12.6 billion, a 6% increase from the same period last year. 

Airlines Sector Stock Index Performance Year-to-Date

What am I looking at?  The performance of airline sector stocks within the  ST200 . The index includes companies publicly traded across global markets including network carriers, low-cost carriers, and other related companies.

The Skift Travel 200 (ST200)  combines the financial performance of nearly 200 travel companies worth more than a trillion dollars into a single number.  See more airlines sector financial performance . 

Read the full methodology behind the Skift Travel 200.

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Tags: aeromexico , corporate travel , delta air lines , domestic travel , dot , international travel , Paris Olympics , premium travel

Photo credit: The upcoming Delta Airbus A350 Airbus / Airbus