Is Your Research Proposal Ready to Send?
Run a structured audit across the problem, question, objectives, design, sampling, measurement and analysis before your supervisor or reviewer does.
- Which parts of the proposal are ready
- Which parts a reviewer is likely to challenge first
- What to fix before you submit
- Where to go next for each flagged domain
Is the research problem clear?
- Can the reader identify what is happening?
- Is it clear why it matters?
- Is it clear who and where it affects?
- Is the scale of the problem supported by a source?
Is the existing evidence clear?
- Is what is already known stated plainly?
- Is it clear where that evidence comes from?
- Are the settings of the cited evidence described?
- Is contradictory evidence acknowledged?
Is the research gap specific?
- Can you state what existing evidence cannot yet tell us?
- Is the gap about evidence rather than about a missing publication?
- Is the gap relevant to your setting?
Does the research question follow from the gap?
- Does the question address the gap you stated?
- Is the question answerable with data you can collect?
- Is the population and setting visible in the question?
Do the objectives answer the research question?
- Does each objective contribute to the question?
- Are the verbs consistent with what the design can deliver?
- Is anything in the question left unaddressed?
Can the study design answer the objectives?
- Does the design produce the kind of evidence the objectives require?
- If change over time is claimed, does the design observe it?
- If comparison is claimed, is there a comparison group?
- Are the design's limitations acknowledged?
Is the study population appropriate?
- Can this population actually provide the required evidence?
- Are eligibility criteria stated?
- Does the unit of analysis match what the question is about?
Is the sampling strategy justified?
- Is the source population defined?
- Is there a sampling frame where one is needed?
- Does the sampling strategy match the intended inference?
- Is non-response considered?
- If clustered, is clustering reflected in design and sample planning?
Are variables and concepts defined and measurable or explorable?
- Is each key concept operationally defined?
- Are instruments or topic guides described?
- Are the roles of variables clear: exposure, outcome, confounder, mediator?
Is the sample and data collection plan justified?
- Is the procedure described well enough to be repeated?
- Are data collectors, training and quality checks described?
- Is the timeline realistic for the setting?
- Are ethical procedures and consent described?
Is there an analysis plan for each objective?
- Does every objective have a stated analysis?
- Is the effect estimate or output for each analysis stated?
- Is missing data handling described?
- Is clustering or repeated measurement accounted for where relevant?
Does the full proposal still answer the original problem?
- Does the analysis plan return to the problem you opened with?
- Would the results, as planned, change anything for the people affected?
- Is anything in the proposal there for reasons other than the question?
The red-team question
About the Research Proposal Audit
The Research Proposal Audit reviews a proposal across twelve domains, from problem and evidence gap through question, objectives, design, sampling, measurement, analysis, ethics and feasibility, and returns a readiness picture with the weakest domains named.
Who it is for
Postgraduate students before submission, supervisors triaging drafts, and NGO or institutional teams preparing grant and ethics submissions.
What it helps you decide
Whether the proposal is ready to submit, which sections a reviewer will question first, and what to fix in what order.
Limitations
The audit reflects what you enter about your own proposal. It is a structured self-assessment, not peer review, and it does not judge scientific novelty or approve anything for an ethics committee.
Longer teaching on this sits in the research proposal template. It gives the section-by-section scaffold the audit checks against.
Category · Plan