Writing a Research Proposal

Your research proposal is a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of Computer Science and your particular research interest. The aim is to convince your application reviewers that you have a solid grounding in the area, can identify where there is research to be done, and have an understanding of how to start on that.

• It is not a personal statement. It should be a standalone research proposal.
• Your proposal should be no more than two pages.
• Figures, tables and bullet points are often useful to explain your ideas.
• Please avoid paraphrasing material from web pages, this tells me very little about how imaginative you are!

It almost, but surprisingly not quite, goes without saying that you should read a little about my current research, so you know the areas in which I am interested in having PhD students work. Here are a few tips to plan your proposal (borrowed from “Heilmeier Catechism”):

1. Research Vision and Questions: What are you trying to do? Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?

You should identify, motivate and describe an interesting and novel research direction. A good research proposal will look into the future and consider tomorrow’s problems, not today’s. If you have identified an active research area, try to think what the next important challenge in that area might be. This is NOT describing a solution. Finding a good solution is obviously what the PhD is for!

2. Related Work: How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?

This is a good way of showing that you are familiar with related work in the field, highlighting both positives and areas where there are gaps.

3. Novelty and Challenges: What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?

Try to be precise when you write especially when describing the reason for pursuing research in your chosen area. Why is it a particularly interesting time to do research in this area? Don’t assume it is obvious or that the reader knows what you are thinking.

4. Proposed Research: How would you achieve towards this?

Your proposal should begin to show how you will tackle the problem, i.e. break it down into smaller sub-problems, goals and deliverables. Please ensure you at least identify concrete goals and deliverables for the first year.

I am very happy to comment on a draft. I am unlikely to comment repeatedly on many drafts. In the end, the document needs to reflect your ideas, not mine!

More information regarding your research proposal can be found here.

Keynote talks from the top computer architecture and compiler conferences (ISCA, MICRO, HPCA, ASPLOS, POPL, PLDI, etc..) may also be a good source of inspiration.