What makes a good PhD research project?

What makes a good PhD research project?

The typical answer would be something about finding a gap in the literature or making a significant contribution to the body of knowledge. This is kinda true, but it’s incomplete and it’s a bit vague.

Of course the exact requirements will differ depending on your field and there will be a lot of different aspects of research design that will be different depending on the project aims and the techniques you’re using, but there are some universal principles we can follow.

So in this video I’m going to share what I think are 4 crucial factors that need to come together to make a good PhD project, and why if any of these are missing it can cause a lot of problems.

What do we mean by a “good” project?

So let’s start by thinking about what we mean by a good project. Now many people will think about it in terms of coming up with a PhD project proposal that will get accepted, or completing a project and getting the degree.

But there’s more to it than this. A PhD project isn’t just about you meeting the requirements for a degree. It’s also about what you get from the process. Ideally a PhD project should be a vehicle for developing useful or valuable skills and expertise (and it’s quite possible to pass a PhD, but then find that there’s no demand for the expertise you’ve developed).

So it’s also important to think about the skills you want to develop and how the project will serve you in the long term.

And it’s important to think about the kind of work that suits you because what might be a suitable project for one person might be completely unsuitable for another.

For example, if you don’t like doing statistics but love talking to people, it makes much more sense to do qualitative research. The quantitative aspect might be worthwhile, but maybe not for you.

So let’s say the first factor is that the project has to align with your interests in two senses of the word; in terms of the subject matter you’re interested in, and in terms of your long term benefit.

The project has to be practicality achievable

Another way in which a perfectly good project for one person might be unsuitable for another relates to the resources available.

This might be access to equipment, to data sources, to participants, or other resources.

So let’s add practicality as a second key factor, so the project has to align with your interests and be practically achievable. A lot of projects I come across are wildly over ambitious or over-complicated, because when you don’t have clear guidelines the natural temptation is to make the project as ambitious as you can imagine. But often it’s the simpler, more focused projects that are the best. Simple doesn’t mean easy, but it at least means the project is actually achievable.

The project has to be of interest to the field

What determines whether a simple project is a good project is whether or not it’s of potential interest to the field. Novelty, in terms of finding a “gap in the literature” is not necessarily enough here, because you could have a completely original, well designed and well executed study, but if it’s a topic that nobody cares about then it’ll be extremely difficult to get published (and you may find that your PhD is of little value to potential employers, unless you’ve developed other clearly-valuable skills on the way).

Often, it’s best to find a research area or problem that others are working on, and find something original to work on within that area, or if you’re doing something really obscure, find a way to relate it to an existing problem that others are looking at, and make sure you’re developing skills that could be valuable to others later.

One way to judge this is to look at the job market and see what kinds of skills and knowledge are in demand. It’s probably better to do this early than to wait until your final year and then discover that there are no jobs available.

So let’s add this third factor, meaning your project should be practical, align with your interests and be of potential interest to the field.

The project needs the support of an interested supervisor

1. The fourth and final factor is the support you get from your supervisor and department.

I often say that who you work with is just as important as what you do, because the support and guidance you get from your supervisor and your department is one of the biggest factors in the experience and outcome of your PhD.

If you have a good supervisor whose interests align with yours and who acts in your best interest, they can help you in terms of the practical aspects of the project, help shape your project to the interests of the field, teach you how to do research and think like an academic and help mentor you in your career. Their job is to help facilitate your research while also allowing you the freedom to find your own path.

But then there are supervisors who, instead of acting as facilitators, act as barriers. Holding you back until you meet their unspecified standards, often refusing to meet with their students or abandoning them part-way through if the project doesn’t interest them.

Or, worse, they’ll keep students around to do teaching or other work.

If your interests don’t align with your supervisors, or if you think they don’t have your best interest in mind, I think it’s better to change supervisor or leave than to suffer for their approval.

A good supervisor, if their research interests don’t align with yours and they’re unable to offer support, should step aside and help you find a more suitable supervisor.

If they don’t do this, or if you fear reprisals if you were to change supervisor it’s a massive red flag.

So these are the 4 factors that I think need to come together to make a good project;

1. it needs to align with your interests

2. it needs to be practically achievable

3. it needs to be of potential interest to the field

4. it needs the support of an interested supervisor