The document outlines a research plan by Prof. Lili Saghafi on selecting a dissertation topic and applying for funding. It emphasizes the importance of reflecting on previous ideas, maintaining an 'ideas folder', narrowing down topics through specific questions, and ensuring relevance and passion in one's chosen subject. Additionally, it provides guidance on funding applications and the significance of timing in selecting a research project.

1. Research Plan
HOW TO CHOOSE A TOPIC for
Research Plan and Write
Dissertation Project and Thesis
AND APPLY FOR FOUNDING
By: Prof. Lili Saghafi

2. AGENDA
HOW TO CHOOSE A TOPIC and Apply for FOUNDING
• Choosing a topic
• How to write
• Developing Your Ideas
• Applying for Funding

3. Choosing a topic
• Research / Dissertation projects
are really tough to start from a
cold stop. Try to find something
you’ve already been thinking
about, an idea that’s been
developing in the back of your
mind for a while, something that
may have arisen in a seminar
, in your studying for front
matter, or in something else
you’ve been reading or working
on.
The word seminar is derived from the Latin word seminarium, meaning "seed plot".

4. Choosing a topic
• You can always go back to old
reaction papers you’ve written,
articles you’ve liked, or notes
you’ve taken ( specially In my
Course) to mine them for ideas.

5. Choosing a topic
• One thing a lot of people do is keep an “ideas folder”
of interesting ideas, topics, notes, etc.—just write
down anything that strikes you as having some
potential for development, whenever you see it or
think of it, and stick it in the folder.
• Whenever you’re stuck, go back to the ideas folder
and see if anything pops out at you.
• Try to tease out an idea and see where it goes.
• While you are studying for your dissertation is a great
time to start filling up your ideas folder.

6. Your Topic should pass 3 tests

7. Example of TODAY’s
Conversation
• the importance of a currently debated public
issue.
• Centre wants stronger censor board
regulatory framework The central
government will form a committee for a "re-
look" into the Cinematographic Act to make
the censor board's regulatory framework
more robust.
• Will act upon Verma panel's proposals: PM
In the aftermath of the brutal rape and
murder of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi, the
panel was set up to recommend proposals
on how to tackle atrocities against women.

8. • Sniffing Out Lung Cancer We’re combing the country
to find examples of intelligent, scalable innovation –
and we’re going to pick 20 of the best to be featured
Example of TODAY’s Conversation

9. Choosing your topic

10. Filter
After Choosing A Topic
You have to consider 3 filters on it so that you
can be more focused and deeply investigate
• Theme
• Place
• Time

11. Choosing a theme
Blackwater USA / XE is a International private Security Company.

12. Choosing a place and time

13. Your Research Question

14. Your Question has to pass 3
tests

15. Research Topic

16. Examples in different functions
of business
• Marketing: CONSUMER BUYING
BEHAVIOUR IN RETAIL CHAINS: BIG
BAZAAR
• Finance- Impact of Mergers and
Acquisitions on Acquiring Firms’
Performance
• HR- CRITICAL EVALUATION OF
LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT IN FIVE
STAR HOTELS

17. Examples in different functions
of business
• HR- ONLINE RECRUITING AND ITS IMPACT ON
CORPORATIONS
• IT- ZERO TRUST ACCESS CONTROL AND ITS
EFFECT ON NETWORK SECURITY
• IT-ENRON FIASCO AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
• SCM-RFID AND SCM
• CRM-CULTURAL EFFECT ON PROJECT
MANAGEMENT IN SCHNEIDER ELECTRONIC
India
• CRM-LOCATION SPECIFIC PROJECTS IN
ERICSON INTERNATIONAL

18. Example of BROAD TOPIC
• nuclear waste
• violence in schools

19. 5 Ws
• 5 Ws (a concept used by many
journalists) to help narrow the broad
topics you have listed.
• The 5 Ws are essentially “Who, What,
When, Where, Why,” but it is also
useful to include the question
• of “How” in your discussion.

20. Narrowing the topics
• In addition to narrowing the topics, avoid
creating questions that can be answered
with a simple “yes” or “no.”
• So, for example, you could create questions
such as “What is the best way to transport
nuclear waste?” or “Who is responsible for
reducing school violence?”
• Other questions might include “How should
nuclear waste be regulated?” or “How
should parents deal with school violence?”

21. Narrowing the topics
• By creating a series of questions
like these, you can see how a
broad, overly general topic can
be narrowed to something more
specific, debatable, and
accessible for research.

22. Narrowing the topics
• Additionally, these questions can
lead you to the strategies for
developing research questions

23. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
1) Think about your topic as a
conversation, and ask yourself
two kinds of questions.
– First, how does the current
conversation lead us to miss
something important?
– Second, how can your project
move this conversation in a
more fruitful direction?

24. A couple good ways to think about
developing a topic:
2- This could be in one of many
ways—
– measuring something in a
better way than it has been
before,
– recognizing something important
that has been ignored,
– Bringing two streams of thinking
together that haven’t spoken to
each other before, etc.

25. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
3- What is the puzzle that current theory
leaves unexplained, and how will you solve
it? ( Energy, Water, Telecommunication
, pharmaceutical Global problems,....)
4- Your dissertation should make a double
contribution: both theoretical and empirical.
Hindustan Unilever Vitality Foundation , Water For Public Good, India water Partnership

26. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
5. Think about what your project will sound like in a job talk.
1. Banish the following words:
» seek
» hope
» try
» wish
» believe
2. Banish the following phrases:
» “is worthy of study”
» “deserves study”
» “merits study”
The fact that you are studying it proves that it is worthy of study.
Saying these words makes you sound like a junior grad
student trying to convince a skeptical advisor of the value of a
dissertation topic.

27. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
6. You need to be able to make the case that your
project is both interesting and relevant.
7. What’s your punchline (the last part of a joke or funny
story that delivers the meaning and the bulk of the
humor) ? What will you say when someone who
could hire you asks you about your research in the
elevator at PGDM?
8. Have a 30–second version of your dissertation that
makes people want to know what you find out.
9. Also, remember that you’ll have to sell your project
to people outside of your field—why does company
need your research?

28. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
10. You must be passionate about your choice of
projects, because you’ll have to work on it and live
with it for sometime .
11. You can’t start off lukewarm—imagine how you’ll feel
after a while down the road.

29. A couple good ways to think
about developing a topic:
12. On the other hand, be a little cautious. Do think
about how your project will “brand” you.
13. In many ways, your dissertation will define where
you sit in terms of the categories that organize our
profession—e.g., a public opinion scholar, a critical
constructivist, a gender studies person, a formal
theorist.
14. Think about how you want to be situated in the
profession—there may be reason to postpone
certain projects.
15. What scholarly community do you most want to be a
part of? What kind of job do you want?

30. Be Cautious
• Don’t try to “game the system” by choosing a topic
that’s “hot” or that you think will be by the time you
finish.
• One of the biggest risks in writing a dissertation is not
finishing it, so you have to actually care about what
you are working on, even three years down the road
if you want to continue on the same topic.
• And you don’t know what the field will look like when
you finally get to the job market.

31. Be Cautious
• Keep timing issues in mind.
• Some projects are more suitable for specific times in
your career than others.
• For a dissertation, you need to finish in a finite period
of time.

34. Founding

35. Applying for Funding
• Some funding proposals can be no more than two
single– spaced pages, and they are due as early as
September.
• Keep this in mind and get to it!
• General Information on Research & Development
Funding Schemes of Central Government
Departments/Agencies in India
• The Echoing Green Fellowship program has provided
more than $2 million in seed funding to a diverse
group of the world’s most promising social
entrepreneurs.

36. • Unicef funded pilot project
• http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Unicef-
funded-pilot-project

37. Interdisciplinary
Research Consultant
Board (IRCB), is a
research programs
that work across
traditional academic
boundaries to
promote research
that is
interdisciplinary, colla
borative and
revolutionary.

38. Interdisciplinary
Research Consultant
Board (IRCB)

40. Harvard Model to Successfully Founded Grant

41. TIPS TO WORK WITH EXCEL
for RESEARCH
• Data Analysis
• Analysis ToolPak

42. Thank you for being
great audience
Any
Question?