IQMR 2025 Research Design Instructions

Research Design Due Date: June 1, 2025

All IQMR participants are required to present a research design. Doing so offers an opportunity to receive helpful suggestions and critiques on a proposed or in-progress project. The designs are presented and discussed in seminars that bring together participants with related interests, and are led by an IQMR faculty member. The sessions are constructive, supportive, and typically provide presenters with valuable new ideas for their projects. IQMR participants routinely indicate that the research design sessions were among the most valuable aspects of IQMR.

It is understood that IQMR participants’ research projects may be at different stages of development. We thus offer two options with regard to the research design you submit in advance of the Institute and present at the Institute: (1) a shorter, “proto research design” in which you outline key elements of your project or (2) a full research design. More details on each type of IQMR research design are outlined below.

IMPORTANT: No matter whether you submit / present a Proto Research Design or a Full Research please make sure you have:

• A clear title
  • The title of your project will be listed on a public web site; consider taking particular care with your title if you have carried out or will carry out research in challenging contexts
• A clear 300-word abstract that includes the substantive topic of your research, the time period of focus, the geography of focus, the methods of data collection that you plan to use and the methods of data analysis that you plan to use

OPTION 1: PROTO RESEARCH DESIGN

Proto research designs are presented in lightning research design discussion sessions comprising five designs rather than the typical three.

Please follow the instructions outlined below, systematically describing each element listed. The body of the research design should be approximately 1,500 words.

1. Note the title and your name at the top of the first page of the design; do not include a separate title page.

2. Clearly describe the research problem or topic in the abstract and help us understand why it is important and worthy of study.

3. Clearly describe the research objectives, including the broad purpose(s) of the analysis (for example, description, causal inference, theory building and/or testing).

4. Describe in general terms the literature to which you will be contributing, with a few examples.

5. State the research question.

6. Discuss the spatial and temporal contexts of the phenomenon/a of interest -- i.e., describe what geographic locations you will study and on what time periods you will focus – and offer some justifications for those choices.

7. Offer any hypothesized or proposed explanations you have developed, and indicate the factors that may intervene between the posited causes and the outcome you are examining.

8. Offer your initial thoughts on the evidentiary basis for your project and how you will gather or generate it, i.e., what data sources you will gather and what information you will draw from them.

9. Offer your initial thoughts on how you will analyze the data that you will collect in order to evaluate your hypotheses or better understand the phenomena of interest..

OPTION 2: FULL RESEARCH DESIGN

Full research designs are presented in full research design discussion sessions comprising three designs.

Please follow the instructions outlined below, systematically describing each element listed. The body of the research design should be between 2,500 and 3,000 words. While we welcome proposals based on your dissertation, please do not simply send your dissertation prospectus. Proposals exceeding 3,000 words may be returned for rewriting.

As noted below, your research design should include a one-page data management plan (DMP) as an appendix. You may also include a one-page bibliography. Neither the DMP nor the bibliography counts towards the word limit.

1. Develop a good title. List the title and your name at the top of the first page of the design; do not include a separate title page. The title of your project will be listed on a public web site; consider taking particular care with your title if you have carried out or will carry out research in challenging contexts.

2. Clearly specify the research problem and research objectives, including the broad purpose(s) of the analysis (for example, description, causal inference, theory building and/or testing). Specify these objectives in relation to the current development and needs of the relevant research program, related literatures, and rival explanations or understandings.

3. Clearly state the research question, and then provide an analytically appropriate specification of the phenomenon to be investigated. For example, if seeking to make causal inferences, this would include a description of the outcome to be explained and what variance you expect to find in the variable on which you will focus (i.e., how much and across what units [space, time, etc.]).

4. Discuss the spatial and temporal contexts of the phenomenon/a of interest -- i.e., describe what geographic locations you will study and on what time periods you will focus. In the context of small-n comparative, interpretive, and/or process tracing research designs, this would include selection of the case/s to be studied, and explicit justification of this selection.

5. Offer an analytically appropriate specification of the hypothesized or proposed explanations, and the factors that may intervene between the posited causes and the outcome you are examining. If seeking to make causal inferences, discuss the variance you expect to find on your hypothesized causes and how this variance will contribute to testing the explanations you are considering. If pursuing an interpretive project (which may or may not require inferring causes), what mechanisms do you expect to find, and why?

6. Specify the evidentiary basis for your project, i.e., what data sources you will gather and what information you will draw from them. If you will generate or collect data yourself, describe the techniques you will use to do so. Such techniques may include, for instance, survey research; experiments; structured, semi-structured, or unstructured interviews; ethnography or participant observation; archival research; collection of pre-existing materials (e.g., secondary sources, government and international organization data, cartoons, newspaper articles, graffiti, etc.). Clearly describe how you will use in your study the information you draw from the data sources you gather – that is, what will you use that information to measure or evaluate?

7. How will you analyze the data that you have collected in order to evaluate your hypotheses or better understand the phenomena of interest? Clearly identify the data analysis technique(s) you will employ (e.g., regression analysis, other quantitative tools, [machine-assisted] content analysis, discourse analysis, small-N comparative method, crisp or fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, process tracing, pattern matching, counterfactual analysis, etc.).

8. Provide a descriptive overview of your expected findings. Then, describe the contributions that such findings could potentially make to your investigation, and in particular to answering your research question. Finally, comment on how your project contributes to the broader research agenda of which it forms part, and to theoretical understandings of the phenomenon/a under study.

9. In a brief appendix, please offer a brief data management plan (DMP). The Qualitative Data Repository has some helpful guidance on creating a DMP, and some public examples are available via the DMP Tool. Your DMP should include the following points:

   • What personnel will work on the project (e.g., will you have collaborators or hire RAs)?
   • In what media/format(s) will you collect data sources/data?
   • How will you organize data sources/data?
   • How will you process and transform data sources (e.g., transcribe or translate)?
   • What documentation will you generate (at the data file-level, and at the project level)?
   • What ethical issues may attend your data (e.g., related to sensitivity / confidentiality)?
   • What legal issues may attend your data (e.g., related to intellectual property / copyright)?
   • How will data be securely stored during project execution? What is your back-up plan?
   • How will you securely store and preserve data sources after project completion?
   • How and when and where and which data will be shared (made available to others)?

SUBMITTING YOUR RESEARCH DESIGN BY June 1, 2025

Please submit your research design, as well as a 100-word abstract and keywords, via this submission form.

• Research designs may be submitted in .doc or .pdf format

• The file name should consist of nothing more than your last name (e.g. Smith.pdf); please do not name your file "research_design.pdf".

• Please submit your research design by no later than June 1, 2025.

If you have any questions, concerns, or issues with submitting your research design, please email Sebastian Karcher (skarcher@syr.edu).