Your confirmation of candidature review is an opportunity to explain your research project to your peers. At the end of the confirmation process, you should be comfortable with the robustness and viability of your research project. Your academic colleagues will provide you with valuable feedback on how to improve your research questions and proposed methodology.
The review will include the submission of your candidature and project documents, an open 40 minute oral presentation and 20 minutes of question time, followed by a 60 minute meeting with the review panel. Where presenting to an open audience is not possible because of confidentiality or intellectual property restrictions, the candidate should still present to as broad an audience as possible. If there are significant IP issues, then the use of Confidentiality Agreements for the participants may be appropriate.
The project document should demonstrate to the committee that you are clear about the objective of the project, and have read, understood and critically reviewed previous work on this topic. The intention is that the work prepared will form part of the final thesis and is not regarded as an additional task, but rather an opportunity to bring thoughts together. In addition, this submission should demonstrate your ability to write in academic English at a level appropriate to this stage of HDR research in this discipline. This may include a formal and comprehensive consideration of the resources, skills, equipment and facilities required to complete the project within the funded period, and an assessment of how and where they might be accessed.
As a rough guide, the written component should be approximately 45 pages in length for a PhD or 30 pages for an MPhil, with the literature review comprising approximately 30 pages for PhD (15-20 pages for MPhil), and a research proposal (including references) consuming the remainder. The document should provide enough detail on your research proposal to demonstrate an adequate conceptualisation of the research problem and adequate consideration given to how the research will be undertaken to resolve the problem.
The following headings should be used to structure the written component of the milestone review:
Introduction
Literature Review
- Has previous work been critically reviewed?
- Has the current problem been put in context?
- Have you identified a ‘gap’ in the literature?
Research Proposal
Introduction and Research Problem
- Provide an introductory briefing on relevant themes, debates, challenges, trends or findings relevant to your research project.
- Provide a clear statement of an overarching research problem. The statement should identify a critical issue or gap in the candidate’s discipline or field and explain why research is required.
Aims and Objectives
- Describe the objectives of the research, relative to the research problem.
- Explain the relevance of the objectives to the research field or discipline.
- Briefly explain how the proposed research is significant and innovative.
Research Question
- Provide a brief high-level research question that describes what you aim to investigate.
- The question should articulate what the research expects to investigate, confirm, examine or observe in the form of either a single question statement or a single primary question with a series of sub or secondary questions.
- The research question should respond to the research problem.
Research Design
- Outline the literature, conceptual framework, ethics approval requirements, methodological design/approach and methods of the proposed research.
- Demonstrate that these components are adequately developed and properly integrated into a viable research plan.
Resources and Skills
- Identify any resources required such as equipment, fieldwork, access to specialised datasets or individuals. Demonstrate that resources are available or plans are in place to acquire them.
- Identify any new skills that you will need to develop to complete your research, and any formal training required. Explain what action has been taken to obtain the necessary skills or training.
- Include a research plan and a timeline for completion showing the duration and order of tasks. This can be done in the form of a Gantt chart.
Barriers to Success
- Identify any critical issues that may negatively impact your project.
- Assess the risks these issues pose and explain how they will be managed.
Contributions to Knowledge
- List 2-7 novel contributions that thesis is expected to make to the state of knowledge in your research field. The list should be ambitious and positive, and will evolve as the research progresses.
- Make clear how each contribution advances the state of knowledge. When examined the thesis will be judged on its contribution to knowledge (among other things).
Draft Thesis Outline
Please provide a draft thesis table of contents.
References
Include a list of the references referred to in the document.
Written feedback will be provided by your reviewer(s) after the review meeting. Your chair will also prepare a written report detailing the recommendations of the Progress Review Panel to the Dean, UQ Graduate School.