How to Write a Research Statement

Thank You Liam thank you everybody for coming today I'm sure all of you have about research statements and this is what we will discuss a little bit so I've outlined the talk today in I think six questions one what is the research statement the second one is why do we need one the third one is who requests a research statement fourth one is what are the key features right what is the structure or format of the of the research statement and what committees look for in a statement and this is really very critical so let's start with what is a research statement right so very simply it's a summary of research achievements now of course this varies depending upon the type of job that you are applying for so if you are a graduate student applying for a postdoc your research research statement will look slightly different than let's say if I'm applying as an as a faculty member from one university to another similarly if you are a postdoc applying for a is a an academic position or even an industry position your research statement would look different than your graduate student research statement then a faculty student and then in Faculty's research statement okay so it all depends on the type of position you're applying and at what level at what stage of your career you are at so it's a proposal for upcoming research and this is very critical right because you know if you're a postdoc and you're you have to think about going beyond what you've been doing as a postdoc because one of the important things is essentially you will be applying for let's say an academic position most of you okay some of you will go into industry and this might change a little bit but if you're applying to become an academic then the research you know the search committee wants to find out exactly what do you think you know your research will be about in the future so yes it's good to talk about you know your your current research which I'll get to in a second but it's very critical to talk about your future research something that you're not doing as a postdoc right now so it does include your past research file links as well as the current and future aims completely now in terms of your past current findings right so if you are a postdoc you can certainly choose to talk about what you did as a graduate student okay of course if you're a graduate student then you're limited to that okay if you are a faculty member for example then you don't need to talk about what you did as a graduate student you really don't need to talk about what you did is a postdoc either but you focus more on what you're doing now as a principal investigator okay but you do have the option if you are applying as a postdoc to include in your research statement your graduate research achievements okay especially if you've gotten some really good papers and they're very exciting you should definitely include it but you don't really have to okay but as a postdoc obviously you know you have to talk about what you're doing so in addition you know you can talk about obviously your current and again this future which ties up to what I said previously it's very key right and I'll get to more about this future later on now you can think of the research statement as really introducing yourself and your research program and your research program again it could be just what you are doing right now but some of the ideas that you have for the future what is it exactly that you want to do when you get to university X okay yes you're doing this right now and of course we all know that as postdocs you're really not doing your own work okay you are doing your pis work he or she has a grant that is funded they have hired you as a postdoc and you're carrying out their project the question becomes now what is it that you're going to do when you leave your PI's lab will you extend your current research that depends on what one of the biggest factors are tell you it's your p i right because he or she can tell you guess what you're going to take anything no reagents no project these are mine and then guess what you have to start something completely new okay now of course most P is are not such pigheaded individuals they are you know they want to see they are personal succeed because ultimately it reflects on them as well so therefore you know they can as you said earlier you can take some of these ideas and branch off in a direction that is not so similar to your adviser but you know it's an offshoot of that project okay and typically you come into agreement with your adviser because if your adviser says no this is going to be mine that's what I want to do guess what you cannot compete with your adviser sometimes people do compete with the advisers and you know it's like this and it becomes a problem okay because you have to think about funding as well because remember your advisor is much ahead and you are he or she has a lot of connections in funding agencies and if you're going to go up against your adviser in terms of funding chances are that you will lose unless you're so much smarter than your advisor so much better scientist than your adviser then you have a good chance otherwise I don't really encourage you to do a thing like that okay so you have to introduce yourself and your research program then you need to explain the importance of your research interest and findings this is very crucial right because this is really at the heart of your research statement so in essence then why is your important your research so important okay what is it about your research that makes it so significant than that in comparison to the other 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 candidates that are applying for that same position at that same department right so what is it what is it about your research that's going to make you stand out well clearly if you have science and nature publications it will stand out right if you're not then obviously you know you have to rely on other things so it's very important to really point to how significant your research is right and of course it's good to show some data too but that's we'll talk a little bit more about that okay so you really need to explain the importance and you don't need you know too much it could be bullets but we'll talk about that later finally your research statement you can think of it as really a map for your career as a scientist because as I will talk in a little bit more in the next couple of slides you know it's not just you know this is what I'm going to do now or in the next year it's essentially outline your career okay typically five years out but of course that five years will determine the next 2025 years of course it's not always a straight path you go in in of offshoots but ultimately that central theme of your research will be there okay so this is basically what a research statement is all about so now we'll go on and ask why do we need one okay why do we need one well we have no choice it is usually requested as part of your curriculum vitae okay search committees basically want to hear about your research they it's part of the job it's part of the application so you cannot escape it you need to write it okay second it defines you as I said earlier as a researcher scientist or of course an engineer right and it helps the committee evaluate five things about yourself one your areas of expertise are your cell biologists are your molecular biologists you know are you a theoretical physicist are you an observational astronomer what are you okay so that's your area of expertise second funding potential and this is crucial especially if you go in to an academic department because as in a big research university maybe not so much in an in a in any undergraduate institution because there the research is not to the level where it is here at Stony Brook for example so it's not as crucial but if you go into a big research university funding potential is by far in my opinion the number one criterion that search committees for okay whether you will be funded okay if even if your science is great if the search committee thinks you're not going to be funded because your research is great because of your advisor not for yourself then guess what they're not going to give you the job okay they will not give you the job okay so funding potential is crucial crucial to a search committee okay and in fact a lot of search committees look for funding so you can come into the department with funding even as a pasta now the third one ability to conduct research well this is a given right obviously you know you're not a postdoc if you haven't done work you know but how successful are you as a postdoc how many papers have you published okay and what kind of papers have have you published and this goes back also to your graduate days as well they will look for that because they'll see okay you know this person has two papers as a graduate student and two papers as a postdoc well how many years did he spend as a graduate student six how many years did you spend as a prospect for hmm you know that's not that impressive okay so you know the ability to conduct research is reflected in the number of publications that you have as well because it talks about your productivity now of course we all know as professors when we evaluate post doctoral applications for jobs that the the lab that you're in place it a big part so if you're in a lab that has you know ten postdocs and ten graduate students and you have multiple collaborations then clearly you can have more publications now if you're in a smaller lab that has two grad students and two postdocs and you have your own project and you work on your own you know then clearly you will have less publications but of course it is the nature of the publication and also the number of authors that are part of those publications that are crucial right so you can have a paper with ten authors versus a paper with just you and your PI okay so we look at all of that stuff okay we look at all that so the ability to conduct research is crew show okay third point or fourth point the scientific compatibility with the department or the school this is another very big factor because ultimately you know departments are like families okay and you want to get along with your family members otherwise there is trouble there's turmoil and remember the department not just the school but the department makes a financial investment in you as a new faculty member okay so if you go there and that is trouble in a year from from from now you decide to leave guess what the department has lost money the school has lost money okay so it's very crucial that you have compatibility with the department are you going into finally research needs so what do I mean when I say research needs what is it that you need to do your research instruments good what else well reagents of course right if your research is very unique and you need a piece of equipment you know that costs a million dollars for example well I know that's tough but you know if you just need you know a light microscope that's not a big deal okay so that's also another factor that search committees look for that types of research needs now of course it also depends on your research made the nature of your research as well okay and you know whether you're going to need also a lot of support stuff to run this piece of equipment so it's not just getting the equipment well how do you run the equipment how do you maintain the equipment right if you need some kind of a special specialist that the person needs to run and maintain the equipment guess what who's going to pay for that well the department's going to pay for it initially and then at some point they're going to look at you and say you know what when you get your grant you're going to pay for this individual because it's your research you deal with it okay so research NEADS also becomes a very critical so all of these five factors that I have here this is what committees look for before they make the decision to give you the offer for that particular position okay so of course this is mostly going from postdoc to you know in a system professor position right so those of you that are graduate students you really don't deal with all of them but clearly you know this is a crucial one ability to conduct research your area of expertise also okay and to some extent compatibility not with the department in the school but the lab that you're going to go into okay so it does translate down to the students so your research statement convinces the committee of your potential to succeed remember it's unfortunate to some extent but this is like a business transaction you make an investment and what do you want to get some return okay thank you lynn some returns okay and of course you know the department the school is making that commitment to you they're making that investment in you they want to return so what kind of return does the school want from you as a faculty member or even as a postdoc well productivity and that can be in terms of publications or in terms of money and I would think the first the first thing that they look for is money your potential to be funded it's unfortunate but that's what it comes down to how much money can you bring to the department to the university okay because with money you hope to be that the publications will come but that's not always the case I've seen a lot of people with a lot of money and the publication records are not that impressive okay so what else do they look for besides money and publications of course you know it doesn't have to be about research right was teaching right okay yes teaching is another thing okay and of course going back to research you know this you know how what kind of an impact will your research have you know in generally speaking and how will that affect the department okay and in also there's one other critical one mentor as a mentor right this is very critical okay because guess what even if you have money in you're a horrible person you're not going to attract students alright so you can have the money you're gonna have an empty lab so you're not going to be productive you're not going to be able to get the publications which of course then later on it will affect you in getting funding okay so the ability to be a good mentor has to come through your research okay but of course you know this comes first and then if you get the interview then of course your talk becomes very critical which of course we already covered that okay so this is why we need a research statement so now let's talk a little bit about who requests it well as I said earlier basically it is requested by the search committee it is part of your job applications part of your CV right and this is some of the statements that you may run into job advertisements for example they'll say applicants should submit a statement of research interests right because most of the time they will expect multiple projects not just one but multiple ones second research plan okay that's very general research plan then you have you know something that's a little bit more specific like statement of research accomplishments so in this case here you might break it down by graduate student postdoc and even if you are a young assistant professor that's looking to make a transition then you're you know as your academic your when you were a professor there is another way even more specific statement of research interests and accomplishments and future research plans guess what you need to provide all three okay if they specify you need to have that okay and then finally some of them will be even more specific like brief one two three page statement of the candidates five-year research plan okay so now you have to think about five years into the future what is it that you want to be doing okay that of course is different than what your adviser is doing right now and hopefully you'll know where your adviser is going so you don't go in the same direction you're going a different direction because sometimes circum search committee members will know your adviser and they'll have an idea where your adviser is going so if it's too much in alignment with where your advisor is going that's not going to reflect very well in your application okay so so basically all of these are variations on the same theme right and the theme is essentially you know your what your research interests are your accomplishments and the future research funds typically five years out yes right so for for the question is for graduate students applying for a postdoc what would this be can anybody answer that question right so the statement of research interests right but it could also talk a little bit about your accomplishments as you grow as a graduate student okay now so you're not going to talk about future research plans to the level that you're applying for an assistant professor position okay because you are limited because you're going to a laboratory that that's going to work on a specific project that your PI will give you right so basically but you will focus a lot more on your research interest because as a postdoc what you're trying to do is sell yourself based upon what you know your expertise so if you are a molecular biologist well what kind of molecular biology techniques are you familiar with okay is it just two of them or is it ten of them right and then you know you look at the publication's to see the diversity of your techniques that you've published okay so so that changes from going from student to postdoc okay let's talk a little bit then about what are the key features of a research statement okay and of course the first one is that you want to have a brief description of the general research area and as you'll see even in mind I have this top paragraph there that's just a general description and then you get into some of you the important research contributions that you have amassed right so you know which of course this describes your your research and then specific areas of expertise so what what what are your expertise you know again are you a molecular biologist and if you're a molecular biologist what exactly is it that you are you focusing on are you focusing on sort of transcription factors are you focusing on cell cycle regulation what is it okay so these are the kind of things the specific areas of expertise long and short term research goals which we covered before okay and the importance and implications of your research past current and future right and here you can include approaches right because science is not static it's a highly dynamic field right and of course there are always new techniques that come about so the search committee will look for your ability to be able to use cutting-edge techniques right so for example I will use the example of very familiar with gene expression okay so now there are many ways that a scientist can monitor the expression of a gene okay now the old-fashioned way back when I was a graduate student we use what we call northern blots now we have PCR okay not only PCR but we have quantitative PCR so if you're going to write down that you're going to do northern blots and that's a problem right so you want to be able to use cutting-edge techniques okay so that's what we mean here by approaches okay how do you approach the question the research that you're trying to to to achieve what types of approaches what types of methods techniques that you use yes yes well it's a double-edged sword because if you're too diverse then they're going to tell you that you're not focused enough alright so so you got to be very careful I would not if you're a postdoc I would not advise you to have more than two or three sort of defined projects yes no that's fine if it's passed then you should show all of them almost thinking more about the future okay so yes absolutely yes the past is fine because you know what it shows that you are basically you know willing to collaborate and you've done you've got your hands wet in five six different fields or five or six different research projects and that's great but ultimately for the future you need to be more focused right I saw your hand yeah so what if it's something that you want to do they don't know how to do or you don't have any proof right but essentially it's either a new technique those come out fairly recently yeah or something that you like to bring it to your field and that's fine you can talk about that that's great it shows that you're an innovative thinker it shows that you have the ability to come up with novel approaches and that's very desirable as well as long as they are feasible okay so that's also a double-edged sword you don't want to be able to propose something that is so you know out of the realm of reality that you know they're gonna look at you say yeah he's a dreamer so you gotta be very careful absolutely and if you have your collaborators lined up that's even better absolutely absolutely good great questions okay now this is very critical to right again going from postdoc to a faculty position if your research fits with a particular funding agency whether it's the National Institutes of Health whether it is the National Science Foundation whether it is NASA whether it is the army the Office of Naval Research whether it is a private foundation whatever right if it fits well you can list the agency or agencies and briefly outline a proposal so you can say in this particular project I think that if I extend my project to include the following specific games I think this will be funded by the National Institutes of Health you know the for example you know the particular branch of the National Institutes you can be very specific it doesn't have to be general like NIH but which Institute of the NIH is it Nyame Zizi NIDDK is it n IB IB whatever okay so you can do that and that shows also two things what are those two things that if you did this what does it show yes you're moving forward with your ideas well right it shows you that you can you know have potential funding from a specific place and third thing it shows that you thought about these things and this is very critical because once you make the transition remember as a postdoc you don't really think too much about funding why because funding is already covered by your PI okay both for your salary and for your research okay so you really don't think about it so the search committee they really want to see that you're beginning now to take the transition from a postdoc which requires one type of thinking to an independent principal investigator which now requires another type of thinking all right and it's very crucial that this comes out in your research statement and it's very crucial that this comes out at your interview in your in your in your presentation that you do when you have the the interview okay so research statement structure okay so ideally there are six or seven things that I'm going to list here one is the executive summary you can think of this as an abstract because executive summary sounds like some business plan and this is not a business plan although it requires money and it deals with funding right which is all about money so this is not required but it can be useful and as you can see in mine I have one on the top it's like a little abstract you know that basically defines broadly what your research interests broadly right and then you can make it more specific later on so this is like a broad general statement about your research interest the background right now the background focuses on previous research ok so again if you're a postdoc he can talk about that if you are you know an assistant professor applied to another university then you can talk about the stuff that you did as an assistant professor okay the current research and this can include some of the results the key results obviously you're not going to show everything the significance of your research and some of the promising lies will align to require so where do you want to go right where is Lee's research leading you to right and more importantly it has to show independence independence from who your PI right it has to show independent from your PI yes when I was a postdoc I worked on ABC but now I'm going to work on you know X Y Z okay so when I was a postdoc I worked in neuroscience I was at Caltech I spent four years there and I worked on cell and molecular biology in terms of both Schwann cells and neurons okay but then when I made the transition here to to Stony Brook I completely switch fields and I I got into molecular cell biology of the musculoskeletal system so for me there was no issue okay there was no issue because I wasn't doing anything my my adviser did okay it's a completely different field now that's more difficult because you're really making a complete shift okay you know so you could do that to future research agenda again anywhere up to five years nobody will ask you to tell me what you're going to do in 20 years they're not going to do that so three to five years again short and long term goals short being closer to the three years longer being the five-year right and again how do you link your research to funding agencies if it fits put it in if it doesn't fit then obviously you don't want to make a mistake and say you know I'm going to do this clinical project and when I'm going to apply for NSF funding because we all know NSF funding NSF does not fund clinical studies okay so you know you wanna you don't want them show them that you're clueless okay so you got to be very careful okay summary it's always nice to have a summary sort of whether it's bullets or whatever you want to do it abc123 right of the most important aspects of your work and you can break this down you know by graduate in my graduate stuff you know these are the highlights of my research one two when I was a postdoc these are the highlights or my research one two three four five right so this is very clear so you can these are the most important aspects in other words you know what are the key elements of your past research tell me about them right two three bullets that's about it okay at the end as a summary and then finally you want to talk a little bit about relevance to the department school institution discipline and society when I say Society not the general society but the Society of the area of research that you're willing so if you're doing neuroscience it would be the Society for Neuroscience you know if you're doing you know bioengineering it would be biomedical engineering Society okay chemistry whatever okay so the point here is what the point of this relevance it should be that you thought about where you're applying and you took the time to look into the department to see what other professors in that department are doing and whether you can fit and when I say fit propose some collaboration so you can say you know what if I go to the biomedical engineering department you know there are three professors there but I can see myself collaborating with okay and if you're even smarter you can say and here are three projects that I would use with these three professors I'm going to do this with this professor I'm going to do that with this professor and I'm going to do this with professor and possibly for successful we can go for funding to NIH NSF you know some private foundation okay so it shows that you care you've done your homework you've looked into it you've identified possible collaborations and it talks about this future funding as well so obviously you're not going to advance your idea that much you can just simply say that there are three professors that I could see myself collaborating with right so you're not going to go into great detail because that's not the point there okay but it's nice because again it shows you that you've done your homework you've identified potential collaborators and it's very critical to have collaborators because remember the days where we went into our lab and shut the door behind and we were all by ourselves those days are over nobody works like that anymore I everything you look at papers now how often do you see two authors on a paper very seldom right even more seldom is you one of unless it's a review but if it's a research paper almost never now right typically have three four five six seven offers okay because everything is about collaborations okay so the relevance becomes very critical as well yes the question is you know if you're going to if you think you're going to collaborate with one of the professors in the department is it better to mention that in the cover letter or is it better to put it here in the research statement you could put it in both places that's there's nothing wrong with that because it shows in the cover letter that you thought about fitting into the department as well and that's it they see it first and that's nice and then they look for it here okay but if you put it there and you don't put it here that's not good so you've got to be consistent right you've got to be consistent yes okay so the research statement format the writing should be clear clear and concise chronological again crowd school even if you did some work as an undergraduate you can work that in a little bit there's nothing wrong with that especially if you had a publication out of it that's even better okay and you have to use headings subheadings bullets and you can bold some of the important points it's a typical stuff that we do write never write these long long one-page long paragraphs it's just too dense of a material so typically I want to keep it a third of a page maybe tops half a page right and again each project should be a different section or research interest if you don't have projects right and and it should be labeled you know you'll see my in just a second right you can include data now if you're again young in age and experience you could show that if you're like me you don't need to show data you didn't show the publications and that's good enough people can go look at your papers right I don't show them a graph with something okay you can cite your own publications as well as those of others this is very critical because again this is you it's about you your research accomplishments your future right this is very critical you're not bragging right again you can use this is one time when you can say aye aye aye okay even though you had collaborations it's very important to say I use the first person because this is about you you're selling yourself and aim for two to three pages if you really have a lot like you see my mind is like four and a half pages because of the different number of projects right now if you if you're really not sure because they said just research statement you can always call the chair of the committee if you know or typically it tells you who the chair of the committee because that's where you're going to send your application to right so you can call you can email the person and say you know what is your expectation for the research statement two pages three five so this way you have a guideline and then you you're able to plan a much better research statement right because you know if you don't know and they have in mind you know three four pages and you give them one page that's not going to look good and then other candidates come in with three or four okay so it's it there's nothing wrong by asking okay so a little bit more about this right you want to be brief clear succinct focused solid thoughtful readable right you want to be creative pragmatic careful honest credible logical strategic okay and the last thing you need to get feedback from your advisor and other senior colleagues not just other postdocs but other professors in the department perhaps you've collaborated with other department with other professors in the department get their opinion let them help you streamline your research statement right and of course proofread proofread proofread right don't sending with spelling errors or other grammatical errors that does not reflect good on you okay because it shows that you did not take the time to go over the document and corrected the problems alright so your future what what the committees look for we covered a lot of these your future research direction potential for funding again research accomplishments right you look at your publication record that's going to be in your resume as well your CV how well you fit in the department not just in terms of research activities but personality and expertise look if I'm a molecular biologist and I'm going to department therefore other molecular biologists that's not really good but if I'm a molecular biologist I got in the department and there is no molecular biologist that's excellent okay that's excellent so and of course personality okay this is very critical okay you're going to work with these people for years okay you're going to deal with them okay so this has to be a fit right what resources will you need how much will you cost them you meaning not as an individual as a researcher okay what kind of a lot do you need what kind of special facilities do you need is your is your easier research so unique that you require a certain type of facility let's say a cleanroom for example you know clean rooms are not cheap they're very expensive the department in the school has to invest money to do that right so that's why the funding potential becomes very critical whether you're a solid scientist you know if you are in a postdoc and you're applying and essentially you don't have any publications well you know that's not going to make your solid scientist if you're a poor stock applying and you have ten publications you know what's that's very good that's excellent okay so that's what we mean by solid scientist is buried in your publication record basically right and how independent you are okay are you going to continue the same projects that your adviser is doing or are you really taking off and you're going in this direction okay now that's also a risk if you go too much like what I did completely switch fields you know it's like changing you know going from a bicycle to a car you know it's a completely different experience so so this becomes very critical as well okay and some web resources you know and almost every University has a little bit about research statement I just picked three four of them here to show you science magazine this is very nice what they have this academic scientists toolkit because it looks it helps you at every level from from undergraduate to graduate to postdoc to faculty member so I really highly recommend that you take a look at this and that's an excellent question did everybody hear the question so if you have some really good idea do you want to reveal your idea to a bunch of professors that you're applying to and remember you're not applying to one job you might be applying to 15 jobs or 20 jobs right now you don't want to give your ideas away so if your idea is that good don't give it away maybe you can discuss your idea when you go for an interview better because then that narrows that narrows down to the number of individuals and then you can also discuss the idea only to those individuals that you think may have an interest in it and they might be impressed by it you know not generally so yeah so that's a very good question and it's a fine line that you have to walk through but you know if it's that good you think it's going to revolutionize something don't give it away save it until you get the job and then you do it so any questions comments yes that's that's excellent and and in fact we do expect to see manuscripts in preparation it's something it's a standard operating procedure we do put manuscripts in preparation because it shows what you're doing right now and some of the work that's going to come out from from your research and that's very critical now you don't want to people and essentially you know write down you have you know 16 papers in preparation alright because then then that doesn't look good on you either because it says why are you taking so long to publish your papers right so so I mean you can have one or two that's fine three maybe right and that's okay you know but don't overdo it yeah that's now a but but but but remember but remember if you put that you have a paper in preparation people will expect to see that within whatever six months a year all right so if you're a you know if you're a graduate student and you just started this project now and you think you're going to get a paper three years from now don't put it in preparation don't preparation means that you're actually writing the paper or you're in you're almost finished with the paper getting ready to be submitted right and then also if you have a paper submitted you should list it down you say submit it and give the journal okay and some people what they do if they submit it for the second time as a revised manuscript they can say in revision so we know that this is the second time that they're going in and the chances are that the paper will be accepted for publication good question anybody else yes kind of back to what I asked before about putting in publications yeah if you don't have a lot of publications of your own so you want to use I guess some publications from somebody else to bolster absolutely absolutely absolutely a thing I said that in the previous one right yeah here right as well as those of others as they relate to your research exactly definitely it's legit and in fact you know you should put other people because you're not the only one that contributes to this field right so but if it fits into your into your scope then use it don't go out of your way to cite somebody else but remember it's about you yes and since you'll be applying to people who are outside your field should you I just try to explain certain jargon words from within your I wouldn't do it in the research statement you can do this in your presentation at your interview when you give a talk clearly you have an introduction into your research you're not going to slide one bank data right no you're going to describe a little bit some background about your research that's where that information comes in I wouldn't do it here now you can say something a little bit in the general background section that's fine too but you don't want to go into too many details because remember this is about you you want to focus on yourself and your accomplishments past current and future ok well thank you guys for listening I hope this was thank you thank you

Channel: Stony Brook University

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Id: Su8NxxK_7Uc

Length: 44min 8sec (2648 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2012