Contents:
The course Research Master Cluster: Proposal Writing focuses on acquiring and improving students' professional skills in writing and defending a scientific research proposal. The students start the course with their own more or less realistic scientific idea and develop it into an attractive grant proposal of high quality that will be defended before a jury of experts and peers. The proposal will be formulated and composed based on the application form “NWO Open Competition Domain Science - M1” provided by NWO.
The students are in charge of the writing process and are responsible to arrange the meetings and make agreements with their personal coach, the group coach, fellow students and/or other experts. To support the process from writing to defending, skills training, such as academic writing, argumentation and presentation skills will be given. Lectures will deal with stakeholder analysis, including the identification of governmental, public, private and industrial funds to finance the research (EU, KNAW, NWO, Top Sectors or company-based R&D). Additional lectures on publication culture, ethics and PhD student’s experiences will be given. Reflection on fellow student’s proposals and performances and on personal development are also integral part of the process.
Learning outcomes:
After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:
apply academic knowledge and skills to design a research project in the context of the Wageningen Life Sciences;
collect relevant information within a scientific field, identify existing knowledge gaps and translate them into research objectives;
define and describe the most suitable methodological approaches for the research project;
critically analyse the scientific merits of peer's research proposals;
present and defend a PhD grant proposal;
communicate effectively with other academics, including personal and group coaches, reviewers, and a scientific jury;
reflect upon their own research proposal, personal development and functioning as an academic;
become efficient in organising meetings and reaching deadlines.
