Aim

Whether you decide to pursue research in academia, work for a private company or decide for a career in a governmental organisation, a key to your success will be you ability to argue and share your ideas, opinions or results. Some of you will be involved in teaching, or might present results at conferences, write research articles, or apply for grants to fund your research group. Others might have to inform political deciders about a specific situation, and will have to convince or enlighten a public that is not familiar with the subject. Some of you might also opt for careers as editors or journalists, which will heavily rely on your ability to clearly convey an idea, sometimes by being able to simplify it enough to be understandable by the public aimed at. In all cases, oral and written communication of ideas, concepts or results will play an important role in your future scientific careers.

In this exercise, you will be writing and presenting a research project idea (think grant application). The exercise will consist of:

Writing a research plan
Presenting your research plan (two oral presentations: one scientific presentation using slides for support, and one short "elevator pitch" without any visual support)
Reviewing other students research plans

You will work in teams of 2, and you can choose your partner.

The written part of the exercise

The research proposal should be written on A4 sized pages, using Times New Roman font size 12, normal spacing between lines, normal sized margins. The research proposal should follow the below structure:

Title of the proposal (maximum 75 characters, including spaces) and name of students
Abstract of maximum 250 words
Aims (2-3 bullet points),
Background/Introduction (maximum half a page)
Methods/Approach (maximum 1.5 pages)
Expected outcome (maximum half a page)
Significance (maximum half a page)
References

Include at least 1 figure of your own to illustrate idea(s), and remember to refer to that figure in your text. The whole proposal excluding title, abstract and figure should be maximum 4 pages.

Remember that clarity and clean presentation convey a positive message for the reader by easing his/her understanding of your research plan and giving him/her the impression that your plans are clear for you and that your proposed research is well thought through. The abstract is especially important as it should give the reader a strong desire to read more about the proposed project. Finally, the proposal should be specific and achievable within a 3 to 5 year grant period.

After you have received the written feedback from your peers about your written proposal, you will be expected to modify/improve your proposal according to the feedback received and upload an updated version of the proposal.

You can find an example of a research proposal by students from previous years here.

The oral presentations

You will perform two oral presentations related to your written research proposal during the mini-symposium days.

An elevator pitch without slides (3 to 5 minutes maximum). You can chose to aim this elevator pitch to either:
- a scientist in the same field of research that you just met at a conference, or
- your uncle Sam that asks you about what you are working on and seems genuinely interested, even though his knowledge of biology is limited.
A presentation at Masters science level, with slides (10 to 12 mins)

You can decide on how you will do the presentations but both students have to participate actively. Often, most groups end up deciding to have each of the two talks given by a different student. Preparing for the two talks should be a group work involving the two students of the group.

Feedback from peers and teachers

Each team of two students will be paired to another team for feedback. The paired teams of students will provide feedback to each-other. Each two teams paired together will share a discussion page on Studium where each team can upload the research proposal and the feedback about the other team's research proposal.

Members of each team should provide written feedback on their paired teams' uploaded proposal. This feedback can be written either as a group work, or independently by each student of the group providing the feedback. The main feedback to the proposal should come from peers, but teachers might also provide some feedback directly on Studium. You should provide two separate feedbacks on your peer's proposal: one feedback on the abstract of the proposal, and another feedback on the proposal itself.

The written feedback (both positive and negative!) should consider:

The clarity of the overall proposal?
The appropriate use of techniques/methods?
The interest of the question?
Are there clear hypothesis?
Are the outcomes realistic?
Is there a correlation of the significance with the proposed experiments and expected outcomes?
Are the size limits of the different parts of the proposal been respected?
Other aspects

You can find an example of a written feedback on a research proposal here.

The same two students will also guide the discussion and ask questions after the oral presentations of the project that they have reviewed.

Submitting research proposals and feedbacks

Discussion pages will be created on Studium, one for each two groups of paired students. All the discussion pages will remain accessible to all students so that all can read other students research proposals of feedback if they wish to do so. Discussions pages are used to upload the research proposals and feedback comments.

Each group will upload their research proposal in their specific discussion page latest at the deadline set in the course schedule (see dates below). Research proposals should preferentially be uploaded as pdf or word documents.
The feedback from the students from the other group will have to be uploaded latest at the deadline set in the course schedule. The feedback can either be written directly in the discussion or uploaded as an external word or pdf document.
New research proposals updated / modified according to the feedback from peers will have to be uploaded in the discussion pages latest at the deadline set in the course schedule.

The course teachers will check that the different documents and feedbacks are uploaded latest at the specified deadlines and that the instructions for the different assignments have been followed.

Important dates

Deadlines correspond to times in Sweden.

2024/04/26 - 10.15-12.00: Introduction to the exercise during the introduction to the module.
2024/05/03 - 20.00: Students should post in the online discussion related to the mini symposium
- the composition of their groups.
- the research proposal idea for their group (descriptive proposal title).
2024/05/06 - 08.15-12.00: The different groups will meet with the teachers to discuss the exercise and review the proposed projects. To see exactly what time slot you will be meeting with the teachers, click here. Please be on time as schedule will be tight!
2024/05/17 - 20.00: Deadline to submit written research plan (to be posted on Studium in the discussion page of your group)
2024/05/21 - 20.00: Deadline to submit written comments on research plan (to be posted on Studium in the discussion page of your group)
2024/05/23 - 20.00: Deadline to submit updated written research plan (to be posted on Studium in the discussion page of your group)
2024/05/30 and 2024/05/31: Symposium days 1 and 2 (oral presentations). The schedule for the symposium presentations will be posted here.