Research proposal guidelines (80%)

Back ground:

Include the following research questions (you can do more, but do include these 3): 

 (1) what are the characteristic of the stakeholder infrastructure for standardization, (2) whether there exist standards battles in the field of quantum computing and, if so, (3) what are the relevant and important factors for standard success.

Make a proposal of maximum 2500 words with the following instruction:

Research proposal guidelines:

Introduction (600-700 words):

In this section, provide a brief overview of the general background and of the -practical and research- problem you intend to tackle in your master’s thesis. Present your research objective and its significance, formulate a research question, as well as the sub-questions you need to answer in order to achieve your objective. Specifically, include the following:

Background and context Provide some background information on the topic. This helps to establish the context for your study.

Problem statement Define the problem that your research intends to investigate. Describe its practical significance and the broader context in which it occurs. Simultaneously, emphasize the research aspect by detailing the challenges that need to be addressed to comprehensively understand and potentially solve this problem.

Research objective Provide the research objective of the study and its relevance. This should naturally flow from the problem statement.

Research Questions and sub-questions Introduce your main research question and the sub-questions at the end of the introduction. Explain how these questions are derived from the problem statement. Keep your sub-questions to a reasonable number (3-4 should be more than enough) and ensure they are consistent with the main research question

Theoretical background (1000-1100 words):

The focus of this section is contingent upon your research objectives. In this section you can link your research to the current literature related to the central theme of your thesis, synthesize literature, highlight debates, while identifying a knowledge gap for your research. If you take a quantitative (i.e. theory-testing) approach, you should precisely describe the variables and concepts central in your research by making use of theory and present a well-supported conceptual model. If you take a qualitative approach (for example, your goal is to explore the mechanisms that cause the effect of X on Y, then you can describe what is suggested in literature on this issue and why further exploration would be beneficial. Specifically, provide the following:

Key Themes and Research Areas Discuss the key themes and research areas within the existing literature. Highlight the main ideas and theories, and define concepts that have been explored by previous researchers.

Synthesis and Integration Describe your approach to synthesizing and integrating the findings, theories, and concepts from the literature. Remember to mainly focus on the key concepts of your study and the relationships between them.

Literature gap Identify a literature gap, or unanswered questions within the current body of literature. Highlight areas where further research or exploration is needed and explain how this gap relates to your research objective.

Conceptualization Identify (and even visualize if you want) the mechanism that explains the relationship between your key variables.

Methodology (600-700 words):

Central in the methodological part of your proposal is the rationale for the methodological decisions you have made to achieve your research objectives. Emphasizing this justification, allows you to avoid merely listing or describing various design, data collection, or data analysis methods. In order to fully justify your research strategy, you have to pay attention on the following:

Research design Describe the research design that will be applied (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, etc). Provide a rationale for your methodological choices and discuss how these methods align with your research objectives.

Data collection Explain how you will collect data, and include details for your subjects and research instruments (e.g., questionnaires, interviews, etc).

Data analysis Be specific of the specific data analysis techniques (e.g., regressions, content analysis, etc), and describe how they align with your research objectives.

Sample strategy Describe the sampling strategy you will apply in your research.

Validity and Reliability Describe how you will ensure the validity and reliability of the research process and how you intend to the limitations of your research design.

Timeline Provide a visual representation (e.g., table, Gantt chart) of the duration of the research project. Include a schedule with key milestones and activities, and deadlines, indicating when specific tasks will be completed. Keep it simple!

References (no word count)

Include a list of references formatted based on APA style. A total number of 10-15 references is suggested.

Grading rubric – Research proposal