AEL Research Plan Toolkit
Background to the individual Research Plan exercise:
The individual research plan is designed as a developmental tool to help you ensure
that your research activities are well-focused and appropriately ambitious, careerand reputation-enhancing, and aligned to Research Centre/School/University
strategic imperatives around excellence and impact. By looking across the research
plans, AEL will be assisted in developing a clear view of the Group’s existing and
emerging strength/weaknesses, thereby informing strategies for future staffing,
deployment of research-oriented resources, and development of infrastructure.
A research plan is valuable evidence to bring to bear in support of requests for ASP,
conference travel support, internal seed-funding schemes, applications for
promotion, and could be used as supplementary material for ASRP conversations.
The AEL Research Plan is designed to be a rolling document with prospective and
retrospective dimensions each cast over a 3-year period, updated on an annual
basis.
Process:
Having completed the template, you should arrange to have a discussion of the
content with the relevant Research Centre Director, Deputy Head of School
(Research), or their nominee in order to validate the plan. By validation what is
meant is that through conversation with you, the validating colleague is able to
reach a view that the research plan is coherent, suitably ambitious but achievable,
appropriate for the level of appointment/expertise, and with a clear view of how
impact will be achieved both with the academic peer community and where
appropriate with wider audiences. Once validated, ownership of the plan remains
with you but a copy should be lodged for information with the Head of Element and
Dean(R). As a developmental tool, this research planning function is not tied to the
ASRP cycle, so it can be undertaken at any time during the year. Once validated and
signed-off, a research plan would only have a 12 month shelf-life, but of course
updating a previous year’s plan should involve a relatively light burden and clearly
the benefits of taking part in this exercise will only increase over time as a research
plan matures and evolves.
Professor Gerry Docherty
Dean (Research)
Arts, Education and Law Group
November 2013
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AEL RESEARCH PLAN 2014
NAME AND CONTACT DETAILS
Date
Title
Family name
Given name(s)
Academic Element /
Research Centre
Position Level and
Work Profile
Mode of appointment
Appointment date
If fixed term
appointment, end date
Early Career
Researcher
Full-time / Part-time (________FTE) (circle appropriate)
Yes / No (circle appropriate)
Date awarded:
RESEARCH PLAN
1. RESEARCH AGENDA
Provide a short narrative capturing your overall intellectual agenda as a researcher, including where
appropriate, an indication of the major milestones in its development. (This should effectively respond
to questions such as what is your research about, what’s important about it, what have you found,
why this is of value). In writing this, it is useful to draw out the threads of activity which give your work
thematic and longitudinal coherence.
2. PUBLICATION/DISSEMINATION STRATEGY
Provide a short statement of your publication/dissemination strategy; how does the approach taken to
generation of research outputs support the development of the intellectual agenda outlined in [1]. This
should include comments on different types of output, and an evaluation of the specific outlets which
are most highly-esteemed within the field of research. It should also include an indication of the key
conferences at which it is important for your work to have some visibility and why.
3. RESEARCH PROJECTS, COLLABORATORS & HDR SUPERVISION
Describe the specific project or projects currently being undertaken in pursuit of the wider agenda
described in [1], together with an indication of what is original and innovative about this work and a
sense of the academic (and non-academic) audiences for whom the work is designed. Where relevant,
this section should also give an indication of key collaborators at Griffith University and elsewhere,
highlighting how external partners are woven in to the formulation and execution of research projects
and not simply as recipients of the outcomes of completed projects. This section of the plan should
also describe how HDR supervision draws on and enhances these specific projects.
4. OBJECTIVES, TIMELINES & KEY MILESTONES
For each project listed in [3], give an indication of current objectives and timelines, including plans for
conference presentations and for publications and other outputs. As part of this section, detail should
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be provided of plans for seeking external funding during the forthcoming 3–year window, together
with key milestones and an indication of any personal development and/or collaboration-building
necessary to build the case for external funding support.
5. SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS
Provide a retrospective summary of achievements in the preceding 3-year period: a list of publications,
external/internal grant applications and awards, HDR completions, and conference/seminar
presentations. For the publication information, your GU My Publications listing could simply be
appended to the document in order to avoid duplication.
6. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES FOR THE NEXT 12 MONTHS
In light of the above summary [5], provide your specific research objectives for the next 12 months.
SUPPORT OF HEAD(S) OF ACADEMIC ELEMENT(S) and RESEARCH CENTRE
DIRECTOR(S)
Research Plans must be endorsed by the Academic Element or Research Centre in which
each applicant is employed.
Name of Applicant:
Element/Research Centre:
Deputy Head of Element (Research) Or Research Centre Director
Name:
Comments:
Comment on the Research
Plan’s coherence and ambition,
whether these are appropriate
for the level of
appointment/expertise, its
overall feasibility, and whether
there is a clear view of how
impact will be achieved both
with the academic peer
community and where
appropriate with wider
audiences.
Please note any points that you
would flag up for the owner of
the Research Plan to reflect on.
Signature and date:
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