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Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

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Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Chapter 11: Presenting Your Research

Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style

Learning Objectives

• Identify the major sections of an APA-style research report and the basic contents of each section.
• Plan and write an effective APA-style research report.

In this section, we look at how to write an APA-style empirical research report , an article that presents the results of one or more new studies. Recall that the standard sections of an empirical research report provide a kind of outline. Here we consider each of these sections in detail, including what information it contains, how that information is formatted and organized, and tips for writing each section. At the end of this section is a sample APA-style research report that illustrates many of these principles.

Sections of a Research Report

Title page and abstract.

An APA-style research report begins with a  title page . The title is centred in the upper half of the page, with each important word capitalized. The title should clearly and concisely (in about 12 words or fewer) communicate the primary variables and research questions. This sometimes requires a main title followed by a subtitle that elaborates on the main title, in which case the main title and subtitle are separated by a colon. Here are some titles from recent issues of professional journals published by the American Psychological Association.

• Sex Differences in Coping Styles and Implications for Depressed Mood
• Effects of Aging and Divided Attention on Memory for Items and Their Contexts
• Computer-Assisted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Child Anxiety: Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial
• Virtual Driving and Risk Taking: Do Racing Games Increase Risk-Taking Cognitions, Affect, and Behaviour?

Below the title are the authors’ names and, on the next line, their institutional affiliation—the university or other institution where the authors worked when they conducted the research. As we have already seen, the authors are listed in an order that reflects their contribution to the research. When multiple authors have made equal contributions to the research, they often list their names alphabetically or in a randomly determined order.

In some areas of psychology, the titles of many empirical research reports are informal in a way that is perhaps best described as “cute.” They usually take the form of a play on words or a well-known expression that relates to the topic under study. Here are some examples from recent issues of the Journal Psychological Science .

• “Smells Like Clean Spirit: Nonconscious Effects of Scent on Cognition and Behavior”
• “Time Crawls: The Temporal Resolution of Infants’ Visual Attention”
• “Scent of a Woman: Men’s Testosterone Responses to Olfactory Ovulation Cues”
• “Apocalypse Soon?: Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs”
• “Serial vs. Parallel Processing: Sometimes They Look Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee but They Can (and Should) Be Distinguished”
• “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Words: The Social Effects of Expressive Writing”

Individual researchers differ quite a bit in their preference for such titles. Some use them regularly, while others never use them. What might be some of the pros and cons of using cute article titles?

For articles that are being submitted for publication, the title page also includes an author note that lists the authors’ full institutional affiliations, any acknowledgments the authors wish to make to agencies that funded the research or to colleagues who commented on it, and contact information for the authors. For student papers that are not being submitted for publication—including theses—author notes are generally not necessary.

The  abstract  is a summary of the study. It is the second page of the manuscript and is headed with the word  Abstract . The first line is not indented. The abstract presents the research question, a summary of the method, the basic results, and the most important conclusions. Because the abstract is usually limited to about 200 words, it can be a challenge to write a good one.

Introduction

The  introduction  begins on the third page of the manuscript. The heading at the top of this page is the full title of the manuscript, with each important word capitalized as on the title page. The introduction includes three distinct subsections, although these are typically not identified by separate headings. The opening introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting, the literature review discusses relevant previous research, and the closing restates the research question and comments on the method used to answer it.

The Opening

The  opening , which is usually a paragraph or two in length, introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting. To capture the reader’s attention, researcher Daryl Bem recommends starting with general observations about the topic under study, expressed in ordinary language (not technical jargon)—observations that are about people and their behaviour (not about researchers or their research; Bem, 2003 [1] ). Concrete examples are often very useful here. According to Bem, this would be a poor way to begin a research report:

Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance received a great deal of attention during the latter part of the 20th century (p. 191)

The following would be much better:

The individual who holds two beliefs that are inconsistent with one another may feel uncomfortable. For example, the person who knows that he or she enjoys smoking but believes it to be unhealthy may experience discomfort arising from the inconsistency or disharmony between these two thoughts or cognitions. This feeling of discomfort was called cognitive dissonance by social psychologist Leon Festinger (1957), who suggested that individuals will be motivated to remove this dissonance in whatever way they can (p. 191).

After capturing the reader’s attention, the opening should go on to introduce the research question and explain why it is interesting. Will the answer fill a gap in the literature? Will it provide a test of an important theory? Does it have practical implications? Giving readers a clear sense of what the research is about and why they should care about it will motivate them to continue reading the literature review—and will help them make sense of it.

Breaking the Rules

Researcher Larry Jacoby reported several studies showing that a word that people see or hear repeatedly can seem more familiar even when they do not recall the repetitions—and that this tendency is especially pronounced among older adults. He opened his article with the following humourous anecdote:

A friend whose mother is suffering symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tells the story of taking her mother to visit a nursing home, preliminary to her mother’s moving there. During an orientation meeting at the nursing home, the rules and regulations were explained, one of which regarded the dining room. The dining room was described as similar to a fine restaurant except that tipping was not required. The absence of tipping was a central theme in the orientation lecture, mentioned frequently to emphasize the quality of care along with the advantages of having paid in advance. At the end of the meeting, the friend’s mother was asked whether she had any questions. She replied that she only had one question: “Should I tip?” (Jacoby, 1999, p. 3)

Although both humour and personal anecdotes are generally discouraged in APA-style writing, this example is a highly effective way to start because it both engages the reader and provides an excellent real-world example of the topic under study.

The Literature Review

Immediately after the opening comes the  literature review , which describes relevant previous research on the topic and can be anywhere from several paragraphs to several pages in length. However, the literature review is not simply a list of past studies. Instead, it constitutes a kind of argument for why the research question is worth addressing. By the end of the literature review, readers should be convinced that the research question makes sense and that the present study is a logical next step in the ongoing research process.

Like any effective argument, the literature review must have some kind of structure. For example, it might begin by describing a phenomenon in a general way along with several studies that demonstrate it, then describing two or more competing theories of the phenomenon, and finally presenting a hypothesis to test one or more of the theories. Or it might describe one phenomenon, then describe another phenomenon that seems inconsistent with the first one, then propose a theory that resolves the inconsistency, and finally present a hypothesis to test that theory. In applied research, it might describe a phenomenon or theory, then describe how that phenomenon or theory applies to some important real-world situation, and finally suggest a way to test whether it does, in fact, apply to that situation.

Looking at the literature review in this way emphasizes a few things. First, it is extremely important to start with an outline of the main points that you want to make, organized in the order that you want to make them. The basic structure of your argument, then, should be apparent from the outline itself. Second, it is important to emphasize the structure of your argument in your writing. One way to do this is to begin the literature review by summarizing your argument even before you begin to make it. “In this article, I will describe two apparently contradictory phenomena, present a new theory that has the potential to resolve the apparent contradiction, and finally present a novel hypothesis to test the theory.” Another way is to open each paragraph with a sentence that summarizes the main point of the paragraph and links it to the preceding points. These opening sentences provide the “transitions” that many beginning researchers have difficulty with. Instead of beginning a paragraph by launching into a description of a previous study, such as “Williams (2004) found that…,” it is better to start by indicating something about why you are describing this particular study. Here are some simple examples:

Another example of this phenomenon comes from the work of Williams (2004).

Williams (2004) offers one explanation of this phenomenon.

An alternative perspective has been provided by Williams (2004).

We used a method based on the one used by Williams (2004).

Finally, remember that your goal is to construct an argument for why your research question is interesting and worth addressing—not necessarily why your favourite answer to it is correct. In other words, your literature review must be balanced. If you want to emphasize the generality of a phenomenon, then of course you should discuss various studies that have demonstrated it. However, if there are other studies that have failed to demonstrate it, you should discuss them too. Or if you are proposing a new theory, then of course you should discuss findings that are consistent with that theory. However, if there are other findings that are inconsistent with it, again, you should discuss them too. It is acceptable to argue that the  balance  of the research supports the existence of a phenomenon or is consistent with a theory (and that is usually the best that researchers in psychology can hope for), but it is not acceptable to  ignore contradictory evidence. Besides, a large part of what makes a research question interesting is uncertainty about its answer.

The Closing

The  closing  of the introduction—typically the final paragraph or two—usually includes two important elements. The first is a clear statement of the main research question or hypothesis. This statement tends to be more formal and precise than in the opening and is often expressed in terms of operational definitions of the key variables. The second is a brief overview of the method and some comment on its appropriateness. Here, for example, is how Darley and Latané (1968) [2] concluded the introduction to their classic article on the bystander effect:

These considerations lead to the hypothesis that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide aid. To test this proposition it would be necessary to create a situation in which a realistic “emergency” could plausibly occur. Each subject should also be blocked from communicating with others to prevent his getting information about their behaviour during the emergency. Finally, the experimental situation should allow for the assessment of the speed and frequency of the subjects’ reaction to the emergency. The experiment reported below attempted to fulfill these conditions. (p. 378)

Thus the introduction leads smoothly into the next major section of the article—the method section.

The  method section  is where you describe how you conducted your study. An important principle for writing a method section is that it should be clear and detailed enough that other researchers could replicate the study by following your “recipe.” This means that it must describe all the important elements of the study—basic demographic characteristics of the participants, how they were recruited, whether they were randomly assigned, how the variables were manipulated or measured, how counterbalancing was accomplished, and so on. At the same time, it should avoid irrelevant details such as the fact that the study was conducted in Classroom 37B of the Industrial Technology Building or that the questionnaire was double-sided and completed using pencils.

The method section begins immediately after the introduction ends with the heading “Method” (not “Methods”) centred on the page. Immediately after this is the subheading “Participants,” left justified and in italics. The participants subsection indicates how many participants there were, the number of women and men, some indication of their age, other demographics that may be relevant to the study, and how they were recruited, including any incentives given for participation.

After the participants section, the structure can vary a bit. Figure 11.1 shows three common approaches. In the first, the participants section is followed by a design and procedure subsection, which describes the rest of the method. This works well for methods that are relatively simple and can be described adequately in a few paragraphs. In the second approach, the participants section is followed by separate design and procedure subsections. This works well when both the design and the procedure are relatively complicated and each requires multiple paragraphs.

What is the difference between design and procedure? The design of a study is its overall structure. What were the independent and dependent variables? Was the independent variable manipulated, and if so, was it manipulated between or within subjects? How were the variables operationally defined? The procedure is how the study was carried out. It often works well to describe the procedure in terms of what the participants did rather than what the researchers did. For example, the participants gave their informed consent, read a set of instructions, completed a block of four practice trials, completed a block of 20 test trials, completed two questionnaires, and were debriefed and excused.

In the third basic way to organize a method section, the participants subsection is followed by a materials subsection before the design and procedure subsections. This works well when there are complicated materials to describe. This might mean multiple questionnaires, written vignettes that participants read and respond to, perceptual stimuli, and so on. The heading of this subsection can be modified to reflect its content. Instead of “Materials,” it can be “Questionnaires,” “Stimuli,” and so on.

The  results section  is where you present the main results of the study, including the results of the statistical analyses. Although it does not include the raw data—individual participants’ responses or scores—researchers should save their raw data and make them available to other researchers who request them. Several journals now encourage the open sharing of raw data online.

Although there are no standard subsections, it is still important for the results section to be logically organized. Typically it begins with certain preliminary issues. One is whether any participants or responses were excluded from the analyses and why. The rationale for excluding data should be described clearly so that other researchers can decide whether it is appropriate. A second preliminary issue is how multiple responses were combined to produce the primary variables in the analyses. For example, if participants rated the attractiveness of 20 stimulus people, you might have to explain that you began by computing the mean attractiveness rating for each participant. Or if they recalled as many items as they could from study list of 20 words, did you count the number correctly recalled, compute the percentage correctly recalled, or perhaps compute the number correct minus the number incorrect? A third preliminary issue is the reliability of the measures. This is where you would present test-retest correlations, Cronbach’s α, or other statistics to show that the measures are consistent across time and across items. A final preliminary issue is whether the manipulation was successful. This is where you would report the results of any manipulation checks.

The results section should then tackle the primary research questions, one at a time. Again, there should be a clear organization. One approach would be to answer the most general questions and then proceed to answer more specific ones. Another would be to answer the main question first and then to answer secondary ones. Regardless, Bem (2003) [3] suggests the following basic structure for discussing each new result:

• Remind the reader of the research question.
• Give the answer to the research question in words.
• Present the relevant statistics.
• Qualify the answer if necessary.
• Summarize the result.

Notice that only Step 3 necessarily involves numbers. The rest of the steps involve presenting the research question and the answer to it in words. In fact, the basic results should be clear even to a reader who skips over the numbers.

The  discussion  is the last major section of the research report. Discussions usually consist of some combination of the following elements:

• Summary of the research
• Theoretical implications
• Practical implications
• Limitations
• Suggestions for future research

The discussion typically begins with a summary of the study that provides a clear answer to the research question. In a short report with a single study, this might require no more than a sentence. In a longer report with multiple studies, it might require a paragraph or even two. The summary is often followed by a discussion of the theoretical implications of the research. Do the results provide support for any existing theories? If not, how  can  they be explained? Although you do not have to provide a definitive explanation or detailed theory for your results, you at least need to outline one or more possible explanations. In applied research—and often in basic research—there is also some discussion of the practical implications of the research. How can the results be used, and by whom, to accomplish some real-world goal?

The theoretical and practical implications are often followed by a discussion of the study’s limitations. Perhaps there are problems with its internal or external validity. Perhaps the manipulation was not very effective or the measures not very reliable. Perhaps there is some evidence that participants did not fully understand their task or that they were suspicious of the intent of the researchers. Now is the time to discuss these issues and how they might have affected the results. But do not overdo it. All studies have limitations, and most readers will understand that a different sample or different measures might have produced different results. Unless there is good reason to think they  would have, however, there is no reason to mention these routine issues. Instead, pick two or three limitations that seem like they could have influenced the results, explain how they could have influenced the results, and suggest ways to deal with them.

Most discussions end with some suggestions for future research. If the study did not satisfactorily answer the original research question, what will it take to do so? What  new  research questions has the study raised? This part of the discussion, however, is not just a list of new questions. It is a discussion of two or three of the most important unresolved issues. This means identifying and clarifying each question, suggesting some alternative answers, and even suggesting ways they could be studied.

Finally, some researchers are quite good at ending their articles with a sweeping or thought-provoking conclusion. Darley and Latané (1968) [4] , for example, ended their article on the bystander effect by discussing the idea that whether people help others may depend more on the situation than on their personalities. Their final sentence is, “If people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they may better overcome them” (p. 383). However, this kind of ending can be difficult to pull off. It can sound overreaching or just banal and end up detracting from the overall impact of the article. It is often better simply to end when you have made your final point (although you should avoid ending on a limitation).

The references section begins on a new page with the heading “References” centred at the top of the page. All references cited in the text are then listed in the format presented earlier. They are listed alphabetically by the last name of the first author. If two sources have the same first author, they are listed alphabetically by the last name of the second author. If all the authors are the same, then they are listed chronologically by the year of publication. Everything in the reference list is double-spaced both within and between references.

Appendices, Tables, and Figures

Appendices, tables, and figures come after the references. An  appendix  is appropriate for supplemental material that would interrupt the flow of the research report if it were presented within any of the major sections. An appendix could be used to present lists of stimulus words, questionnaire items, detailed descriptions of special equipment or unusual statistical analyses, or references to the studies that are included in a meta-analysis. Each appendix begins on a new page. If there is only one, the heading is “Appendix,” centred at the top of the page. If there is more than one, the headings are “Appendix A,” “Appendix B,” and so on, and they appear in the order they were first mentioned in the text of the report.

After any appendices come tables and then figures. Tables and figures are both used to present results. Figures can also be used to illustrate theories (e.g., in the form of a flowchart), display stimuli, outline procedures, and present many other kinds of information. Each table and figure appears on its own page. Tables are numbered in the order that they are first mentioned in the text (“Table 1,” “Table 2,” and so on). Figures are numbered the same way (“Figure 1,” “Figure 2,” and so on). A brief explanatory title, with the important words capitalized, appears above each table. Each figure is given a brief explanatory caption, where (aside from proper nouns or names) only the first word of each sentence is capitalized. More details on preparing APA-style tables and figures are presented later in the book.

Sample APA-Style Research Report

Figures 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, and 11.5 show some sample pages from an APA-style empirical research report originally written by undergraduate student Tomoe Suyama at California State University, Fresno. The main purpose of these figures is to illustrate the basic organization and formatting of an APA-style empirical research report, although many high-level and low-level style conventions can be seen here too.

Key Takeaways

• An APA-style empirical research report consists of several standard sections. The main ones are the abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references.
• The introduction consists of an opening that presents the research question, a literature review that describes previous research on the topic, and a closing that restates the research question and comments on the method. The literature review constitutes an argument for why the current study is worth doing.
• The method section describes the method in enough detail that another researcher could replicate the study. At a minimum, it consists of a participants subsection and a design and procedure subsection.
• The results section describes the results in an organized fashion. Each primary result is presented in terms of statistical results but also explained in words.
• The discussion typically summarizes the study, discusses theoretical and practical implications and limitations of the study, and offers suggestions for further research.
• Practice: Look through an issue of a general interest professional journal (e.g.,  Psychological Science ). Read the opening of the first five articles and rate the effectiveness of each one from 1 ( very ineffective ) to 5 ( very effective ). Write a sentence or two explaining each rating.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and identify where the opening, literature review, and closing of the introduction begin and end.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and highlight in a different colour each of the following elements in the discussion: summary, theoretical implications, practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.

Long Descriptions

Figure 11.1 long description: Table showing three ways of organizing an APA-style method section.

In the simple method, there are two subheadings: “Participants” (which might begin “The participants were…”) and “Design and procedure” (which might begin “There were three conditions…”).

In the typical method, there are three subheadings: “Participants” (“The participants were…”), “Design” (“There were three conditions…”), and “Procedure” (“Participants viewed each stimulus on the computer screen…”).

In the complex method, there are four subheadings: “Participants” (“The participants were…”), “Materials” (“The stimuli were…”), “Design” (“There were three conditions…”), and “Procedure” (“Participants viewed each stimulus on the computer screen…”). [Return to Figure 11.1]

• Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. R. Roediger III (Eds.),  The compleat academic: A practical guide for the beginning social scientist  (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ↵
• Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 , 377–383. ↵

A type of research article which describes one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors.

The page at the beginning of an APA-style research report containing the title of the article, the authors’ names, and their institutional affiliation.

A summary of a research study.

The third page of a manuscript containing the research question, the literature review, and comments about how to answer the research question.

An introduction to the research question and explanation for why this question is interesting.

A description of relevant previous research on the topic being discusses and an argument for why the research is worth addressing.

The end of the introduction, where the research question is reiterated and the method is commented upon.

The section of a research report where the method used to conduct the study is described.

The main results of the study, including the results from statistical analyses, are presented in a research article.

Section of a research report that summarizes the study's results and interprets them by referring back to the study's theoretical background.

Part of a research report which contains supplemental material.

Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How To Write The Methodology Chapter

A plain-language explainer – with practical examples.

Overview: The Methodology Chapter

• The purpose  of the methodology chapter
• Why you need to craft this chapter (really) well
• How to write and structure the chapter
• Methodology chapter example
• Essential takeaways

What (exactly) is the methodology chapter?

The methodology chapter is where you outline the philosophical foundations of your research and detail the specific methodological choices you’ve made. In other words, the purpose of this chapter is to explain exactly how you designed your study and, just as importantly, why you made those choices.

Your methodology chapter should comprehensively describe and justify all the methodological decisions involved in your study. For instance, the research approach you took (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), your sampling strategy (who you collected data from), how you gathered your data, and how you analysed it. If that sounds a bit daunting, don’t worry – we’ll walk you through all these methodological aspects in this post .

Why is the methodology chapter important?

The methodology chapter plays two important roles in your dissertation or thesis:

Firstly, it demonstrates your understanding of research theory, which is what earns you marks. A flawed research design or methodology would mean flawed results. So, this chapter is vital as it allows you to show the marker that you know what you’re doing and that your results are credible .

Secondly, the methodology chapter is what helps to make your study replicable. In other words, it allows other researchers to undertake your study using the same methodological approach, and compare their findings to yours. This is very important within academic research, as each study builds on previous studies.

The methodology chapter is also important in that it allows you to identify and discuss any methodological issues or problems you encountered (i.e., research limitations ), and to explain how you mitigated the impacts of these.

Now, it’s important to understand that every research project has its limitations , so it’s important to acknowledge these openly and highlight your study’s value despite its limitations . Doing so demonstrates your understanding of research design, which will earn you marks. 

Need a helping hand?

How to write up the methodology chapter

Before you start writing, it’s always a good idea to draw up a rough outline to guide your writing. Don’t just start writing without knowing what you’ll discuss where. If you do, you’ll likely end up with a disjointed, ill-flowing narrative . You’ll then waste a lot of time rewriting in an attempt to try to stitch all the pieces together. Do yourself a favour and start with the end in mind .

Section 1 – Introduction

As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis, the methodology chapter should have a brief introduction. In this section, you should remind your readers what the focus of your study is, especially the research aims . As we’ve discussed many times on the blog, your methodology needs to align with your research aims, objectives and research questions. Therefore, it’s useful to frontload this component to remind the reader (and yourself!) what you’re trying to achieve.

Section 2 – The Methodology

The next section of your chapter is where you’ll present the actual methodology. In this section, you need to detail and justify the key methodological choices you’ve made in a logical, intuitive fashion. Importantly, this is the heart of your methodology chapter, so you need to get specific – don’t hold back on the details here. This is not one of those “less is more” situations.

Let’s take a look at the most common components you’ll likely need to cover.

Methodological Choice #1 – Research Philosophy

Research philosophy refers to the underlying beliefs (i.e., the worldview) regarding how data about a phenomenon should be gathered , analysed and used . The research philosophy will serve as the core of your study and underpin all of the other research design choices, so it’s critically important that you understand which philosophy you’ll adopt and why you made that choice. If you’re not clear on this, take the time to get clarity before you make any further methodological choices.

While several research philosophies exist, two commonly adopted ones are positivism and interpretivism . These two sit roughly on opposite sides of the research philosophy spectrum.

Positivism states that the researcher can observe reality objectively and that there is only one reality, which exists independently of the observer. As a consequence, it is quite commonly the underlying research philosophy in quantitative studies and is oftentimes the assumed philosophy in the physical sciences.

Contrasted with this, interpretivism , which is often the underlying research philosophy in qualitative studies, assumes that the researcher performs a role in observing the world around them and that reality is unique to each observer . In other words, reality is observed subjectively .

These are just two philosophies (there are many more), but they demonstrate significantly different approaches to research and have a significant impact on all the methodological choices. Therefore, it’s vital that you clearly outline and justify your research philosophy at the beginning of your methodology chapter, as it sets the scene for everything that follows.

The next thing you would typically discuss in your methodology section is the research type. The starting point for this is to indicate whether the research you conducted is inductive or deductive .

Inductive research takes a bottom-up approach , where the researcher begins with specific observations or data and then draws general conclusions or theories from those observations. Therefore these studies tend to be exploratory in terms of approach.

Conversely , d eductive research takes a top-down approach , where the researcher starts with a theory or hypothesis and then tests it using specific observations or data. Therefore these studies tend to be confirmatory in approach.

Related to this, you’ll need to indicate whether your study adopts a qualitative, quantitative or mixed  approach. As we’ve mentioned, there’s a strong link between this choice and your research philosophy, so make sure that your choices are tightly aligned . When you write this section up, remember to clearly justify your choices, as they form the foundation of your study.

Methodological Choice #3 – Research Strategy

Next, you’ll need to discuss your research strategy (also referred to as a research design ). This methodological choice refers to the broader strategy in terms of how you’ll conduct your research, based on the aims of your study.

Several research strategies exist, including experimental , case studies , ethnography , grounded theory, action research , and phenomenology . Let’s take a look at two of these, experimental and ethnographic, to see how they contrast.

Experimental research makes use of the scientific method , where one group is the control group (in which no variables are manipulated ) and another is the experimental group (in which a specific variable is manipulated). This type of research is undertaken under strict conditions in a controlled, artificial environment (e.g., a laboratory). By having firm control over the environment, experimental research typically allows the researcher to establish causation between variables. Therefore, it can be a good choice if you have research aims that involve identifying causal relationships.

Ethnographic research , on the other hand, involves observing and capturing the experiences and perceptions of participants in their natural environment (for example, at home or in the office). In other words, in an uncontrolled environment.  Naturally, this means that this research strategy would be far less suitable if your research aims involve identifying causation, but it would be very valuable if you’re looking to explore and examine a group culture, for example.

The next thing you’ll need to detail in your methodology chapter is the time horizon. There are two options here: cross-sectional and longitudinal . In other words, whether the data for your study were all collected at one point in time (cross-sectional) or at multiple points in time (longitudinal).

The choice you make here depends again on your research aims, objectives and research questions. If, for example, you aim to assess how a specific group of people’s perspectives regarding a topic change over time , you’d likely adopt a longitudinal time horizon.

Another important factor to consider is simply whether you have the time necessary to adopt a longitudinal approach (which could involve collecting data over multiple months or even years). Oftentimes, the time pressures of your degree program will force your hand into adopting a cross-sectional time horizon, so keep this in mind.

Methodological Choice #5 – Sampling Strategy

Next, you’ll need to discuss your sampling strategy . There are two main categories of sampling, probability and non-probability sampling.

Probability sampling involves a random (and therefore representative) selection of participants from a population, whereas non-probability sampling entails selecting participants in a non-random  (and therefore non-representative) manner. For example, selecting participants based on ease of access (this is called a convenience sample).

The right sampling approach depends largely on what you’re trying to achieve in your study. Specifically, whether you trying to develop findings that are generalisable to a population or not. Practicalities and resource constraints also play a large role here, as it can oftentimes be challenging to gain access to a truly random sample. In the video below, we explore some of the most common sampling strategies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSmedyVv-Us Video can't be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Sampling Methods 101: Probability & Non-Probability Sampling Explained Simply (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSmedyVv-Us) Methodological Choice #6 – Data Collection Method

Next up, you’ll need to explain how you’ll go about collecting the necessary data for your study. Your data collection method (or methods) will depend on the type of data that you plan to collect – in other words, qualitative or quantitative data.

Typically, quantitative research relies on surveys , data generated by lab equipment, analytics software or existing datasets. Qualitative research, on the other hand, often makes use of collection methods such as interviews , focus groups , participant observations, and ethnography.

So, as you can see, there is a tight link between this section and the design choices you outlined in earlier sections. Strong alignment between these sections, as well as your research aims and questions is therefore very important.

Methodological Choice #7 – Data Analysis Methods/Techniques

The final major methodological choice that you need to address is that of analysis techniques . In other words, how you’ll go about analysing your date once you’ve collected it. Here it’s important to be very specific about your analysis methods and/or techniques – don’t leave any room for interpretation. Also, as with all choices in this chapter, you need to justify each choice you make.

With the key methodological choices outlined and justified, the next step is to discuss the limitations of your design. No research methodology is perfect – there will always be trade-offs between the “ideal” methodology and what’s practical and viable, given your constraints. Therefore, this section of your methodology chapter is where you’ll discuss the trade-offs you had to make, and why these were justified given the context.

Methodological limitations can vary greatly from study to study, ranging from common issues such as time and budget constraints to issues of sample or selection bias . For example, you may find that you didn’t manage to draw in enough respondents to achieve the desired sample size (and therefore, statistically significant results), or your sample may be skewed heavily towards a certain demographic, thereby negatively impacting representativeness .

In this section, it’s important to be critical of the shortcomings of your study. There’s no use trying to hide them (your marker will be aware of them regardless). By being critical, you’ll demonstrate to your marker that you have a strong understanding of research theory, so don’t be shy here. At the same time, don’t beat your study to death . State the limitations, why these were justified, how you mitigated their impacts to the best degree possible, and how your study still provides value despite these limitations .

Section 4 – Concluding Summary

Finally, it’s time to wrap up the methodology chapter with a brief concluding summary. In this section, you’ll want to concisely summarise what you’ve presented in the chapter. Here, it can be a good idea to use a figure to summarise the key decisions, especially if your university recommends using a specific model (for example, Saunders’ Research Onion ).

Methodology Chapter Example

Wrapping up.

Also, remember the golden rule of the methodology chapter – justify every choice ! Make sure that you clearly explain the “why” for every “what”, and reference credible methodology textbooks or academic sources to back up your justifications.

Learn More About Methodology

Triangulation: The Ultimate Credibility Enhancer

Triangulation is one of the best ways to enhance the credibility of your research. Learn about the different options here.

Research Limitations 101: What You Need To Know

Learn everything you need to know about research limitations (AKA limitations of the study). Includes practical examples from real studies.

In Vivo Coding 101: Full Explainer With Examples

Learn about in vivo coding, a popular qualitative coding technique ideal for studies where the nuances of language are central to the aims.

Process Coding 101: Full Explainer With Examples

Learn about process coding, a popular qualitative coding technique ideal for studies exploring processes, actions and changes over time.

Qualitative Coding 101: Inductive, Deductive & Hybrid Coding

Inductive, Deductive & Abductive Coding Qualitative Coding Approaches Explained...

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How to Write a Research Paper: Parts of the Paper

• Choosing Your Topic
• Citation & Style Guides This link opens in a new window
• Critical Thinking
• Evaluating Information
• Parts of the Paper
• Writing Tips from UNC-Chapel Hill
• Librarian Contact

Parts of the Research Paper Papers should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Your introductory paragraph should grab the reader's attention, state your main idea, and indicate how you will support it. The body of the paper should expand on what you have stated in the introduction. Finally, the conclusion restates the paper's thesis and should explain what you have learned, giving a wrap up of your main ideas.

1. The Title The title should be specific and indicate the theme of the research and what ideas it addresses. Use keywords that help explain your paper's topic to the reader. Try to avoid abbreviations and jargon. Think about keywords that people would use to search for your paper and include them in your title.

2. The Abstract The abstract is used by readers to get a quick overview of your paper. Typically, they are about 200 words in length (120 words minimum to  250 words maximum). The abstract should introduce the topic and thesis, and should provide a general statement about what you have found in your research. The abstract allows you to mention each major aspect of your topic and helps readers decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Because it is a summary of the entire research paper, it is often written last. 

3. The Introduction The introduction should be designed to attract the reader's attention and explain the focus of the research. You will introduce your overview of the topic,  your main points of information, and why this subject is important. You can introduce the current understanding and background information about the topic. Toward the end of the introduction, you add your thesis statement, and explain how you will provide information to support your research questions. This provides the purpose and focus for the rest of the paper.

4. Thesis Statement Most papers will have a thesis statement or main idea and supporting facts/ideas/arguments. State your main idea (something of interest or something to be proven or argued for or against) as your thesis statement, and then provide your supporting facts and arguments. A thesis statement is a declarative sentence that asserts the position a paper will be taking. It also points toward the paper's development. This statement should be both specific and arguable. Generally, the thesis statement will be placed at the end of the first paragraph of your paper. The remainder of your paper will support this thesis.

Students often learn to write a thesis as a first step in the writing process, but often, after research, a writer's viewpoint may change. Therefore a thesis statement may be one of the final steps in writing. 

Examples of Thesis Statements from Purdue OWL

5. The Literature Review The purpose of the literature review is to describe past important research and how it specifically relates to the research thesis. It should be a synthesis of the previous literature and the new idea being researched. The review should examine the major theories related to the topic to date and their contributors. It should include all relevant findings from credible sources, such as academic books and peer-reviewed journal articles. You will want  to:

• Explain how the literature helps the researcher understand the topic.
• Try to show connections and any disparities between the literature.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.

More about writing a literature review. . .

6. The Discussion ​The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe what you have learned from your research. Make the reader understand why your topic is important. The discussion should always demonstrate what you have learned from your readings (and viewings) and how that learning has made the topic evolve, especially from the short description of main points in the introduction.Explain any new understanding or insights you have had after reading your articles and/or books. Paragraphs should use transitioning sentences to develop how one paragraph idea leads to the next. The discussion will always connect to the introduction, your thesis statement, and the literature you reviewed, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the introduction. You want to: 

• Demonstrate critical thinking, not just reporting back facts that you gathered.
• If possible, tell how the topic has evolved over the past and give it's implications for the future.
• Fully explain your main ideas with supporting information.
• Explain why your thesis is correct giving arguments to counter points.

7. The Conclusion A concluding paragraph is a brief summary of your main ideas and restates the paper's main thesis, giving the reader the sense that the stated goal of the paper has been accomplished. What have you learned by doing this research that you didn't know before? What conclusions have you drawn? You may also want to suggest further areas of study, improvement of research possibilities, etc. to demonstrate your critical thinking regarding your research.

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Writing Research Papers

• Research Paper Structure

Whether you are writing a B.S. Degree Research Paper or completing a research report for a Psychology course, it is highly likely that you will need to organize your research paper in accordance with American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines.  Here we discuss the structure of research papers according to APA style.

Major Sections of a Research Paper in APA Style

A complete research paper in APA style that is reporting on experimental research will typically contain a Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References sections. 1  Many will also contain Figures and Tables and some will have an Appendix or Appendices.  These sections are detailed as follows (for a more in-depth guide, please refer to " How to Write a Research Paper in APA Style ”, a comprehensive guide developed by Prof. Emma Geller). 2

What is this paper called and who wrote it? – the first page of the paper; this includes the name of the paper, a “running head”, authors, and institutional affiliation of the authors.  The institutional affiliation is usually listed in an Author Note that is placed towards the bottom of the title page.  In some cases, the Author Note also contains an acknowledgment of any funding support and of any individuals that assisted with the research project.

One-paragraph summary of the entire study – typically no more than 250 words in length (and in many cases it is well shorter than that), the Abstract provides an overview of the study.

Introduction

What is the topic and why is it worth studying? – the first major section of text in the paper, the Introduction commonly describes the topic under investigation, summarizes or discusses relevant prior research (for related details, please see the Writing Literature Reviews section of this website), identifies unresolved issues that the current research will address, and provides an overview of the research that is to be described in greater detail in the sections to follow.

What did you do? – a section which details how the research was performed.  It typically features a description of the participants/subjects that were involved, the study design, the materials that were used, and the study procedure.  If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Methods section.  A rule of thumb is that the Methods section should be sufficiently detailed for another researcher to duplicate your research.

What did you find? – a section which describes the data that was collected and the results of any statistical tests that were performed.  It may also be prefaced by a description of the analysis procedure that was used. If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Results section.

What is the significance of your results? – the final major section of text in the paper.  The Discussion commonly features a summary of the results that were obtained in the study, describes how those results address the topic under investigation and/or the issues that the research was designed to address, and may expand upon the implications of those findings.  Limitations and directions for future research are also commonly addressed.

List of articles and any books cited – an alphabetized list of the sources that are cited in the paper (by last name of the first author of each source).  Each reference should follow specific APA guidelines regarding author names, dates, article titles, journal titles, journal volume numbers, page numbers, book publishers, publisher locations, websites, and so on (for more information, please see the Citing References in APA Style page of this website).

Tables and Figures

Graphs and data (optional in some cases) – depending on the type of research being performed, there may be Tables and/or Figures (however, in some cases, there may be neither).  In APA style, each Table and each Figure is placed on a separate page and all Tables and Figures are included after the References.   Tables are included first, followed by Figures.   However, for some journals and undergraduate research papers (such as the B.S. Research Paper or Honors Thesis), Tables and Figures may be embedded in the text (depending on the instructor’s or editor’s policies; for more details, see "Deviations from APA Style" below).

Supplementary information (optional) – in some cases, additional information that is not critical to understanding the research paper, such as a list of experiment stimuli, details of a secondary analysis, or programming code, is provided.  This is often placed in an Appendix.

Variations of Research Papers in APA Style

Although the major sections described above are common to most research papers written in APA style, there are variations on that pattern.  These variations include: 

• Literature reviews – when a paper is reviewing prior published research and not presenting new empirical research itself (such as in a review article, and particularly a qualitative review), then the authors may forgo any Methods and Results sections. Instead, there is a different structure such as an Introduction section followed by sections for each of the different aspects of the body of research being reviewed, and then perhaps a Discussion section. 
• Multi-experiment papers – when there are multiple experiments, it is common to follow the Introduction with an Experiment 1 section, itself containing Methods, Results, and Discussion subsections. Then there is an Experiment 2 section with a similar structure, an Experiment 3 section with a similar structure, and so on until all experiments are covered.  Towards the end of the paper there is a General Discussion section followed by References.  Additionally, in multi-experiment papers, it is common for the Results and Discussion subsections for individual experiments to be combined into single “Results and Discussion” sections.

Departures from APA Style

In some cases, official APA style might not be followed (however, be sure to check with your editor, instructor, or other sources before deviating from standards of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association).  Such deviations may include:

• Placement of Tables and Figures  – in some cases, to make reading through the paper easier, Tables and/or Figures are embedded in the text (for example, having a bar graph placed in the relevant Results section). The embedding of Tables and/or Figures in the text is one of the most common deviations from APA style (and is commonly allowed in B.S. Degree Research Papers and Honors Theses; however you should check with your instructor, supervisor, or editor first). 
• Incomplete research – sometimes a B.S. Degree Research Paper in this department is written about research that is currently being planned or is in progress. In those circumstances, sometimes only an Introduction and Methods section, followed by References, is included (that is, in cases where the research itself has not formally begun).  In other cases, preliminary results are presented and noted as such in the Results section (such as in cases where the study is underway but not complete), and the Discussion section includes caveats about the in-progress nature of the research.  Again, you should check with your instructor, supervisor, or editor first.
• Class assignments – in some classes in this department, an assignment must be written in APA style but is not exactly a traditional research paper (for instance, a student asked to write about an article that they read, and to write that report in APA style). In that case, the structure of the paper might approximate the typical sections of a research paper in APA style, but not entirely.  You should check with your instructor for further guidelines.

Workshops and Downloadable Resources

• For in-person discussion of the process of writing research papers, please consider attending this department’s “Writing Research Papers” workshop (for dates and times, please check the undergraduate workshops calendar).

Downloadable Resources

• How to Write APA Style Research Papers (a comprehensive guide) [ PDF ]
• Tips for Writing APA Style Research Papers (a brief summary) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – empirical research) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – literature review) [ PDF ]

Further Resources

How-To Videos     

• Writing Research Paper Videos

APA Journal Article Reporting Guidelines

• Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report . American Psychologist , 73 (1), 3.
• Levitt, H. M., Bamberg, M., Creswell, J. W., Frost, D. M., Josselson, R., & Suárez-Orozco, C. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report . American Psychologist , 73 (1), 26.  

External Resources

• Formatting APA Style Papers in Microsoft Word
• How to Write an APA Style Research Paper from Hamilton University
• WikiHow Guide to Writing APA Research Papers
• Sample APA Formatted Paper with Comments
• Sample APA Formatted Paper
• Tips for Writing a Paper in APA Style

1 VandenBos, G. R. (Ed). (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (pp. 41-60).  Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

2 geller, e. (2018).  how to write an apa-style research report . [instructional materials]. , prepared by s. c. pan for ucsd psychology.

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• Formatting Research Papers
• Using Databases and Finding References
• What Types of References Are Appropriate?
• Evaluating References and Taking Notes
• Citing References
• Writing a Literature Review
• Writing Process and Revising
• Improving Scientific Writing
• Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Writing Research Papers Videos

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Section 1- Evidence-based practice (EBP)

Chapter 6: Components of a Research Report

Components of a research report.

Partido, B.B.

Elements of  research report

The research report contains four main areas:

• Introduction – What is the issue? What is known? What is not known? What are you trying to find out? This sections ends with the purpose and specific aims of the study.
• Methods – The recipe for the study. If someone wanted to perform the same study, what information would they need? How will you answer your research question? This part usually contains subheadings: Participants, Instruments, Procedures, Data Analysis,
• Results – What was found? This is organized by specific aims and provides the results of the statistical analysis.
• Discussion – How do the results fit in with the existing  literature? What were the limitations and areas of future research?

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Chapter writing

  A chapter is a discrete unit of a research report or thesis, and it needs to be able to be read as such.

Your examiners may read your thesis abstract, introduction and conclusion first, but then they may come back weeks later and read a chapter at random, or select one that they are interested in (Mullins & Kiley, 2002). This means that each chapter needs to be easy to read, without the reader having to reread the thesis' introduction to remember what it is about. At the same time, it needs to be clear how the chapter contributes to the development of your overall thesis argument. In the following pages you'll find advice on how to effectively plan and structure your chapters, commuicate and develop your argument with authority, and create clarity and cohesion within your chapters. 

Chapter structures

When it comes to structuring a chapter, a chapter should:

• have an introduction that indicates the chapter's argument / key message
• clearly address part of the thesis' overall research question/s or aim/s
• use a structure that persuades the reader of the argument 
• have a conclusion that sums up the chapter's contribution to the thesis and shows the link to the next chapter.

To make your chapter easy to read, an introduction, body and conclusion is needed. The introduction should give an overview of how the chapter contributes to your thesis. In a chapter introduction, it works well to explain how the chapter answers or contributes to the overall research question. That way, the reader is reminded of your thesis' purpose and they can understand why this chapter is relevant to it. Before writing, make an outline and show it to a friend or supervisor to test the persuasiveness of the chapter's structure.

The chapter's body should develop the key message logically and persuasively. The sequence of sections and ideas is important to developing a persuasive and clear argument. When outlining your chapter, carefully consider the order in which you will present the information. Ask yourself these questions. 

• Would it make your analysis clearer and more convincing to organise your chapter by themes rather than chronologically?
• If you were demonstrating why a particular case study contradicts extant theoretical literature, would it be better to organise the chapter into themes toshow how the case study relates to the literature in respect to each theme, rather than having a dense literature review at the beginning of the chapter?
• Is a brief literature review at the beginning of the chapter necessary and sufficient to establish the key ideas that the chapter's analysis develops?
• What is the best order to convince readers of your overall point? 

Our friend the Thesis Whisperer has written about writing  discussion chapters and discussion sections within chapters .

If used appropriately, subheadings can also be useful to help your reader to follow your line of argument, distinguish ideas and understand the key idea for each section. Subheadings should not be a substitute for flow or transitional sentences however. In general, substantive discussion should follow a subheading. Use your opening paragraph to a new section to introduce the key ideas that will be developed so that your readers do not get lost or are left wondering how the ideas build on what's already covered. How you connect the different sections of your paper is especially important in a long piece of writing like a chapter.

Paragraphing techniques are essential to develop a persuasive and coherent argument within your chapters. Each paragraph needs to present one main idea. Each paragraph needs to have a topic sentence and supporting evidence, and a final sentence that might summarise that idea, emphasise its significance, draw a conclusion or create a link to the next idea. Using language that shows the connections between ideas can be helpful for developing chapter  flow  and  cohesion .

As suggested in our  page on thesis structures , a good way to test out the persuasiveness and logic of your chapter is to talk it over with a friend or colleague. Try to explain the chapter's purpose and argument, and give your key reasons for your argument. Ask them whether it makes sense, or whether there are any ideas that weren't clear. If you find that you express your ideas differently and in a different order to how they're written down, consider whether it would better to revise your argument and adjust the structure to persuasively and more logically make your case in writing.

In sum, when you plan, write and edit your chapter, think about your reader and what they need in order to understand your argument.

• Have you stated your chapter's argument?
• Will a reader be able to identify how it contributes to the whole thesis' research question/s or aim/s?
• Does your chapter flow logically from one idea to the next, and is it convincing?
• Finally, does it have a conclusion that pulls the chapter's key points together and explains its connection to the next chapter?

These elements are central to helpfing your reader follow and be persuaded by your work.

• Mullins, G., & Kiley, M. (2002). 'It's a PhD, not a Nobel Prize': How experienced examiners assess research theses.  Studies in Higher Education ,  27 (4), 369-386. doi:10.1080/0307507022000011507

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• Dissertation Table of Contents in Word | Instructions & Examples

Dissertation Table of Contents in Word | Instructions & Examples

Published on May 15, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on July 18, 2023.

The table of contents is where you list the chapters and major sections of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper, alongside their page numbers. A clear and well-formatted table of contents is essential, as it demonstrates to your reader that a quality paper will follow.

The table of contents (TOC) should be placed between the abstract and the introduction . The maximum length should be two pages. Depending on the nature of your thesis , paper, or dissertation topic , there are a few formatting options you can choose from.

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Table of contents

What to include in your table of contents, what not to include in your table of contents, creating a table of contents in microsoft word, table of contents examples, updating a table of contents in microsoft word, other lists in your thesis, dissertation, or research paper, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the table of contents.

Depending on the length of your document, you can choose between a single-level, subdivided, or multi-level table of contents.

• A single-level table of contents only includes “level 1” headings , or chapters. This is the simplest option, but it may be too broad for a long document like a dissertation.
• A subdivided table of contents includes chapters as well as “level 2” headings, or sections. These show your reader what each chapter contains.
• A multi-level table of contents also further divides sections into “level 3” headings. This option can get messy quickly, so proceed with caution. Remember your table of contents should not be longer than 2 pages. A multi-level table is often a good choice for a shorter document like a research paper .

Examples of level 1 headings are Introduction, Literature Review , Methodology , and Bibliography. Subsections of each of these would be level 2 headings, further describing the contents of each chapter or large section. Any further subsections would be level 3.

In these introductory sections, less is often more. As you decide which sections to include, narrow it down to only the most essential.

Including appendices and tables

You should include all appendices in your table of contents. Whether or not you include tables and figures depends largely on how many there are in your document.

If there are more than three figures and tables, you might consider listing them on a separate page. Otherwise, you can include each one in the table of contents.

• Theses and dissertations often have a separate list of figures and tables.
• Research papers generally don’t have a separate list of figures and tables.

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All level 1 and level 2 headings should be included in your table of contents, with level 3 headings used very sparingly.

The following things should never be included in a table of contents:

• Your acknowledgements page
• Your abstract
• The table of contents itself

The acknowledgements and abstract always precede the table of contents, so there’s no need to include them. This goes for any sections that precede the table of contents.

To automatically insert a table of contents in Microsoft Word, be sure to first apply the correct heading styles throughout the document, as shown below.

• Choose which headings are heading 1 and which are heading 2 (or 3)!
• For example, if all level 1 headings should be Times New Roman, 12-point font, and bold, add this formatting to the first level 1 heading.
• Highlight the level 1 heading.
• Right-click the style that says “Heading 1.”
• Select “Update Heading 1 to Match Selection.”
• Allocate the formatting for each heading throughout your document by highlighting the heading in question and clicking the style you wish to apply.

Once that’s all set, follow these steps:

• Add a title to your table of contents. Be sure to check if your citation style or university has guidelines for this.
• Place your cursor where you would like your table of contents to go.
• In the “References” section at the top, locate the Table of Contents group.
• Here, you can select which levels of headings you would like to include. You can also make manual adjustments to each level by clicking the Modify button.
• When you are ready to insert the table of contents, click “OK” and it will be automatically generated, as shown below.

The key features of a table of contents are:

• Clear headings and subheadings
• Corresponding page numbers

Check with your educational institution to see if they have any specific formatting or design requirements.

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Write yourself a reminder to update your table of contents as one of your final tasks before submitting your dissertation or paper. It’s normal for your text to shift a bit as you input your final edits, and it’s crucial that your page numbers correspond correctly.

It’s easy to update your page numbers automatically in Microsoft Word. Simply right-click the table of contents and select “Update Field.” You can choose either to update page numbers only or to update all information in your table of contents.

In addition to a table of contents, you might also want to include a list of figures and tables, a list of abbreviations, and a glossary in your thesis or dissertation. You can use the following guides to do so:

• List of figures and tables
• List of abbreviations

It is less common to include these lists in a research paper.

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All level 1 and 2 headings should be included in your table of contents . That means the titles of your chapters and the main sections within them.

The contents should also include all appendices and the lists of tables and figures, if applicable, as well as your reference list .

Do not include the acknowledgements or abstract in the table of contents.

To automatically insert a table of contents in Microsoft Word, follow these steps:

• Apply heading styles throughout the document.
• In the references section in the ribbon, locate the Table of Contents group.
• Click the arrow next to the Table of Contents icon and select Custom Table of Contents.
• Select which levels of headings you would like to include in the table of contents.

Make sure to update your table of contents if you move text or change headings. To update, simply right click and select Update Field.

The table of contents in a thesis or dissertation always goes between your abstract and your introduction .

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WRITING RESEARCH REPORT

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Research of Sculpting Methods and the Phases of the Creative Process with 3D Printed Objects

• Conference paper
• First Online: 27 September 2024
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• Yoshizumi Fukue   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1784-8775 3  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies ((LNDECT,volume 218))

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This research investigates Sculpting Methods and Phases of the Creative Process from a technical point of view by investigating 3D printed objects of the Japanese modern sculptor Tsuruzo ISHII’s woodwork masterpieces “Shimazaki Toson” (“Toson-zo (1)”, “Toson-zo (2)”), showing how this research discovered mechanisms of modern sculpture. In a rare case in art history, Tsuruzo left numerous saw-cut wood pieces to present the principles of modern sculpture for posterity. The construction process can be simulated using 3D capture technology and 3D digitization techniques. This research has two series of objects, “Toson 7” from “Toson-zo (1)” and “Toson 6” from “Toson-zo (2)”. “T7” and “T6” are downsized models based on the full-size 3D-scanned shape data from real wood pieces. Their “7” or “6” numbers represent the number of days in took to create them. They are created using the traditional process which is called “Kidori”. Kidori means a traditional wood carving method of “Kidori”, which is sawing away from a wooden solid, usually done for efficiency. However, Tsuruzo’s method of Kidori redefined and revolutionized it into a basic modern method of sculpture. “T7” and “T6” demonstrate basic daily steps of the creative process. By comparing them, it is deduced that the originality of sculpture is determined at the beginning of the structure, “The Base”. Analyzing these structures, this research specified the coincidence of outer structure and inner central movement, “The Armature”, which is like a rotating shaft within the solid material. These two basic structures closely relate, and their functions can be demonstrated as a phenomenon of moving or auto-morphological appositional growth of form, which is a feature of Cubism.

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Fukue, Y. (2025). Research of Sculpting Methods and the Phases of the Creative Process with 3D Printed Objects. In: Takenouchi, K. (eds) ICGG 2024 - Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Geometry and Graphics. ICGG 2024. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 218. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71013-1_43

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Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter

• Published: 10 June 2021
• Version: V 1.0
• 43 min read

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated clearly the vital contribution that research into health makes to society. Lives have been saved at home and across the world due to UK-based COVID-19 research, much of it funded and delivered by the NIHR. We say a huge thank you to patients and the public, health and care professionals and the wider research community whose collective efforts have found, through research, new paths to help us emerge from the pandemic.

Across the NIHR, we have reflected deeply on our experiences over recent years, including during the pandemic, and what they mean for the future of the research that we fund and help to deliver.

Many areas of health research have been consistently successful. Remarkable improvements in heart disease, stroke, many cancers, major infections and rheumatological diseases are testament to the power of science to save and improve lives. We need to expand our capabilities and our output in the many fields of mental health research, and vastly improve the science behind understanding and addressing the needs of people with multiple long-term conditions (sometimes termed multimorbidity). Research to underpin strategies for prevention of ill health at population level must be boosted.

In a world that is increasingly breaking down the barriers between what we currently differentiate as ‘healthcare’, ‘public health’ and ‘social care’ delivery, NIHR research will need to become much more integrated across disciplines and better serve the more holistic research questions that we will increasingly be asked to address in years to come. 

Health and social care research also has a fundamental role to play in helping to reduce the disparities that exist in health outcomes caused by socio-economic factors, geography, age and ethnicity.

Working with partners, NIHR needs to tackle the ingrained injustices that exist in the world of research in terms of who is involved, engaged or participating and also the inequities which exist in the professional research workforce.

Research needs to be practically and meaningfully embedded as part of the experience of patients and service users, regardless of where they live or whether the health and social care professionals who care for them are traditionally ‘research active’. Furthermore, applied health and care research, whether to improve clinical outcomes, public health or social care, should be conducted with patients and citizens in those communities and geographies most affected. To support this, NIHR will of course need to weave research experience into the daily lives of health and social care professionals across the country.

Research presents huge economic opportunities. NIHR will be intensifying its work to help the NHS and wider health and social care system adapt practice to improve both the quality and the cost-effectiveness of care. It will also build on its success to date in helping to make the UK a great place for the global life sciences industry to invest and for funders of research across the charity and public sectors to have maximum impact.

NIHR is not only ready to tackle these challenges, it is already working to resolve them. We are determined to play our part in ensuring that people receive the quality of care that they should rightly expect from an increasingly connected world of health, public health and social care.

In this document, we set out how NIHR aims to address health and social care challenges across the nation and further afield, through a re-affirmation of our core workstreams, by clarifying the principles which guide our work, and by setting out areas of strategic focus where significant changes are needed in how we will work in future.

Prof Christopher Whitty CB FMedSci, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser, Department of Health and Social Care

Dr Louise Wood CBE, Director of Science, Research and Evidence, Department of Health and Social Care

Introduction

NIHR’s mission is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research.

We were established in 2006 under the government’s health research strategy ‘Best Research for Best Health’ (Department of Health 2006) to complement the Medical Research Council (MRC), a long-established funder of biomedical research ( Atkinson et al 2019 ). The goal was to create a health research system in which the NHS supported outstanding researchers, working in world-class facilities, conducting leading-edge research focused on the needs of patients and the public. Within ten years, we were acknowledged for having transformed R&D in and for the NHS and the people it serves ( Davies et al 2016 ; Bell 2016 ; Hanney & González-Block 2016 ; Morgan Jones et al 2016 ).

Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NIHR focuses on the elements of the ‘innovation pathway’ from early ‘translational’ research (translating discoveries from the laboratory to the clinic) through clinical research and on to applied health and social care research. We work in partnership with funders of discovery science and those elements of the system focused on adoption and diffusion of innovation. Centred on England, we collaborate with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which co-fund many of our research programmes.

Our remit has grown over time. Since 2016 we have been able to support a significant portfolio of applied global health research for the benefit of people in low and middle income countries, principally using Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding. At a national level, social care has become a greater area of focus for NIHR, reflecting the shift from the Department of Health to DHSC in early 2018, as has public health. And we have taken on responsibility for DHSC’s policy research programme, which commissions research to help Ministers and DHSC Arms-Length Bodies make policy decisions that can improve people’s health and wellbeing.

We deliver against our mission through six core workstreams:

• We fund high quality, timely research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care
• We invest in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services
• We partner with patients, service users, carers and communities, improving the relevance, quality and impact of our research
• We attract, train and support the best researchers to tackle complex health and social care challenges
• We collaborate with other public funders, charities and industry to help shape a cohesive and globally competitive research system
• We fund applied global health research and training to meet the needs of the poorest people in low and middle income countries

Each of these workstreams is explored later in this document

In recent years, we have had much to be proud of. For example we have:

• Led the world in terms of research into COVID-19 ( Lamontagne et al 2021 ; Angus et al 2021 ; Lurie et al 2021 ), working in partnership with the NHS. We recruited over a million people to studies, providing the evidence needed to support the use of corticosteroids such as dexamethasone and immunosuppressive drugs and to discourage the use of ineffective interventions, and delivering large-scale vaccine trials at speed. Dexamethasone alone is estimated to have saved one million lives worldwide ( NHS 2021 ).
• Strengthened our relationship with the public by developing, with the devolved administrations, UK Standards for Public Involvement (NIHR 2021) for use by everyone undertaking health or social care research. The NIHR-funded James Lind Alliance has celebrated 100 Priority Setting Partnerships, through which clinicians, patients, service users and carers collaborate to identify and prioritise evidence gaps where research is needed.
• Developed new ways of diagnosing and treating health conditions affecting millions of people across the world. For example, through our experimental medicine infrastructure we delivered the world’s first successful gene therapy trial to treat haemophilia A ( Rangarajan et al 2017 ) and demonstrated the efficacy of the first new cough drug in 50 years ( Smith et al, 2020 ). Through our clinical and applied research, we demonstrated that a simple blood test could accelerate diagnosis of pre-eclampsia ( Duhig et al, 2019 ], that MRI was more effective than biopsy at detecting prostate cancer [ Ahmed et al 2017 ; Kasivisvanathan 2018 ], that trastuzumab treatment could be cut from 12 to six months in women with early breast cancer ( Earl et al 2019 ), and that a computerised test could support diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( Hollis et al 2018 ).
• Delivered significant cost savings to the NHS. For example, we funded trauma research that informed a widely-used NICE guideline and is estimated to be saving over 500 lives and £6 million in NHS costs each year ( CRASH-2 2010 ; NICE 2016 ). We also funded research that supported the use of ‘biosimilar’ rituximab and infliximab in the NHS in place of the original versions of these medicines, leading to savings of nearly £100 million and over £50 million (respectively) in 2017/18 alone ( NHS 2018 ).
• Successfully informed government policy, for example by demonstrating that companies implementing the Soft Drinks Industry Levy continued to experience positive share price growth ( Law et al 2020 ), and by highlighting that care workers directly employed by disabled people had been overlooked in government Personal Protective Equipment guidelines for COVID-19 ( Woolham et al 2020 (.PDF) (.PDF) ).
• Generated an estimated £8 billion of gross value added to the UK economy and 47,467 full time equivalent jobs through our clinical research network between 2016 and 2019 ( Iacobucci 2019 ).
• Funded nearly 3,600 career development awards across 118 different professions and specialties since 2016.
• Worked with the Care Quality Commission to include key research-related questions in its inspection framework for NHS Trusts, based on a growing body of evidence that research-active hospitals have better health outcomes ( Ozdemir et al 2015 ; Jonker & Fisher 2018 ; Downing et al 2017 ; Bennett et al 2012 ; Boaz et al 2015 ).

Many of our successes have been enabled by our significant, long-term investment in translational, clinical and applied research infrastructure, firmly anchored in the NHS and the wider health and social care system.

We have an absolute commitment to continuing these long-term investments, as they have resulted in world-class research outputs that are delivering benefits to people today and will continue to deliver benefits into the future.

We have, however, identified several areas of health, public health and social care research where we need to accelerate the pace of development if we are to fully address the changing needs of people and communities in the 21st Century. Each of these ‘areas of strategic focus’ is explored later in this document.

We also recognise the need to improve our ways of working, making it easier for people to understand and work with us, access our evidence and evaluate our impact:

• We are committed to strengthening our communications in order to engage and involve stakeholders in the work of NIHR, support the dissemination of our research findings, and promote the value of health and social care research more broadly.
• We are also collaborating with other research funders, sponsors and regulators to harmonise research processes and reduce the burden of unnecessary bureaucracy, while maintaining high standards of transparency and accountability and ensuring we have sufficient information for robust decision-making.
• We are improving how we provide evidence of our impact on the health and wealth of the nation, tracking progress against the outcomes we are aiming to achieve and adjusting course as needed.

Investing in our digital capabilities supports all of these objectives. We are committed to speeding up the research process by linking and automating the flow of data through each stage of the research pathway, and by integrating our systems with those of our regulatory partners. We will also use digital tools to disseminate our evidence more widely, to broaden our communications with the public and to build lasting relationships with research participants. And we will make it easier to track the impact of our work by making better use of the data we hold.

This document is called Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter to signify that the strategy which underpinned our creation is still relevant. It is, however, 15 years since NIHR was founded and the environment has changed. Recognising these wider changes, this document sets out our current operational priorities, re-affirming our core workstreams and highlighting the areas of strategic focus that will underpin a forward-looking strategy for NIHR which will be developed and published at a later date.

Our operating principles

We have five operating principles which shape and reflect our culture and guide our decision-making.

We prioritise the challenges that are most important to those who use, work in and manage health and social care services and that could most benefit from research evidence. We accelerate the translation of discoveries and partner with others to ensure our evidence is used to improve everyday practice. We track progress against our goals and strive to ensure that our research addresses the needs of patients, service users, carers, communities and the public.

The quality of our researchers, research outputs and training is world-leading, and we have a highly skilled research design and delivery workforce. We embrace the latest developments in technology, research data and methods and knowledge mobilisation. We operate to the highest standards of integrity and transparency in our funding and commissioning processes, and ensure that our evidence is accessible and actively disseminated.

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do. Diverse people and communities shape our research, and we strive to make opportunities to participate in research an integral part of everyone’s experience of health and social care services. We develop researchers from multiple disciplines, specialisms, geographies and backgrounds, and work to address barriers to career progression arising from characteristics such as sex, race or disability.

Collaboration

We partner with the NHS, public health and social care systems, people and communities, universities, government, regulators, the devolved administrations, industry, charities and other research funders to maximise our collective impact. We encourage collaboration across disciplines and specialisms, between researchers and the public, and within our own organisation. We foster equitable partnerships with researchers and institutions in low and middle income countries.

Effectiveness

We are sound custodians of public money. We have a strong track record of improving the efficiency of research and of generating evidence that enables health and social care systems to become more effective. We have a culture of continuous improvement, finding ways to simplify and streamline our processes, improve our communications and accessibility, harness the power of digital technology, and enhance people’s experience of working with and for us.

Our core workstreams

We deliver against our mission through six core workstreams

Funding high quality, timely research…that benefits the NHS, public health and social care

NIHR is committed to funding high quality health, public health and social care research that translates into improvements in outcomes for patients, service users, carers and the public, and improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness and safety of the health and social care system.

We have a number of distinct funding programmes. These range from the long-established Health Technology Assessment programme - which funds research on the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of treatments and tests within our health and social care system and supports the evidence base used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) - through to a new programme set up to improve the way adult social care is delivered for service users, carers and the public.

Some of our funding programmes are open to researchers working in the private as well as the public sector, for example we have a programme that helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to generate evidence for promising medical devices, in vitro diagnostics and digital health technologies.

We also have research schools that fund outstanding research in primary care, public health and adult social care, and research units that fund vital research in priority areas related to health, health protection and health and social care policy.

As part of our ongoing efforts to avoid waste in research and achieve maximal societal, economic and academic impact, NIHR has developed an internationally-recognised model (Hilton 2017; Nasser et al 2017 ; Cochrane 2017 ) to ensure that the research we fund answers the most important questions and that it is well-designed, efficiently delivered, unbiased, published in full, widely disseminated, and usable. We expect researchers to make research outputs openly available for analysis, dissemination, adoption, and to inform further research.

We have a clear view of the challenges the NHS and broader health, public health and social care system are facing over the coming years, based on the NHS Long Term Plan (NHS 2019), ongoing conversations with NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I), local authorities and others, and a range of evidence sources ( Corbett et al 2017 ; Academy of Medical Sciences 2016 ;  Campaign for Social Sciences 2017 ; DHSC 2020 ).

Challenges include:

• Transforming the organisation and delivery of health and social care, enabling greater integration and ensuring that these systems are resilient and sustainable.
• Helping people to recover from the medium and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 infection, and the NHS and wider health and social care system to recover and learn from the pandemic.
• Responding to demographic pressures, including the challenges faced by our ageing population and the growing number of people living with dementia, multiple long-term conditions and frailty.
• Tackling environmental and lifestyle drivers of disease risk such as air pollution, obesity, smoking and physical inactivity, through improved strategies for public health and prevention.
• Tackling health inequalities and their wider determinants.
• Ensuring that the research we fund is truly inclusive and that it is shaped by and reaches the people, communities and regions which have the greatest health and social care needs.
• Encouraging the safe, effective and equitable implementation of advances in technology and medical science.
• Addressing the causes and effects of mental ill health.
• Improving maternal and child health as part of a life-course approach.
• Responding to global health challenges and changing patterns of disease, including climate change, emerging infectious diseases and potential future pandemics, and the continued threat of antimicrobial resistance.

We will increase our focus on these challenges, working closely with stakeholders across the health, public health and social care system to ensure we are responsive to their research needs. We will work with our partners in the NHS’s Accelerated Access Collaborative to promote adoption and diffusion of proven innovations and decommissioning of ineffective or superseded interventions.

‘Big data’ and advances in technology and medical science such as artificial intelligence and genomics-based medicine will be increasingly important enablers of research and help underpin new models of diagnostic and therapeutic development. New methodologies, better use of ‘real-world’ evidence and the involvement of a wider range of disciplines (including the social sciences and implementation science) will be critical if we are to accelerate progress.

Our research funding schemes – programmes, schools and research units – will adapt to meet these evolving priorities. We will work across our portfolios to fund a coherent programme of research in key areas, including both response mode and commissioned research, and strike a balance between providing a long-term research base and adapting with pace to meet changing needs.

Investing in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce... to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services

Since our establishment, we have sustained our investment in research expertise, specialist facilities, a research delivery workforce and support services - what we term our ‘infrastructure’. This infrastructure spans the innovation pathway, from early translational research – including in our Biomedical Research Centres - through to the design and delivery of clinical trials and applied health and social care research across the nation.

NIHR infrastructure delivers and disseminates high quality research throughout the health and social care system, working in partnership with the nation’s universities. It has transformed the system’s ability to translate scientific discoveries into new or improved treatments, diagnostics, medical technologies and services, and to conduct high quality applied research studies that enable uptake of these innovations across the nation. It also provides an important environment for nurturing talent and building capacity and skills.

Our infrastructure supports the research we fund and also plays a crucial role in underpinning research funded by others: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), medical research charities, the life sciences industry (biopharmaceuticals, medtech, genomics, diagnostics and digital health), and other relevant industries.

The life sciences industry chooses to work with NIHR infrastructure to access expertise in designing, setting up and delivering high quality, innovative research. By offering this support to multinational companies, we encourage them to conduct their clinical studies in the UK, allowing researchers, patients and the public access to potential new treatments as well as growing the UK’s share of the global market.

We also help home-grown SMEs to establish themselves and thrive. Through our support for companies large and small, we make a significant contribution to the UK economy.

We will continue to invest in our infrastructure. Specifically, we will:

• Maximise opportunities for patients and the public to influence and participate in research taking place in our facilities, or being delivered by our national clinical research network in the NHS and in community settings such as homes, schools, care homes and hospices.
• Develop new infrastructure to support public health and social care research.
• Integrate research delivery into ‘real world’ health and social care settings, reducing the barriers to all staff contributing to research endeavours.
• Increase the use of flexible workforce and innovative delivery models, making it easier for people from diverse communities to participate in research by bringing it to ‘where they are’.
• Build our capacity to help innovators, particularly SMEs, build the evidence required for the development, evaluation and uptake of new medical technologies and diagnostics.
• Increase collaboration across the NIHR infrastructure to drive progress in priority areas and create opportunities to build research capacity across the country.

Through our sustained support for world-class infrastructure, we will ensure that the health and social care system can work in partnership with leading academics and experts on research that addresses the needs of the public, increases the productivity and sustainability of the system locally and nationally, stimulates inward investment and supports wider economic growth. 

Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities… improving the relevance, quality and impact of our research

Since our inception, our research has increasingly been shaped in collaboration with patients, service users, carers and the public. People contribute at every stage of the research pathway, shaping priorities and research questions, the design of studies, the evaluation of research proposals, the conduct of research and the dissemination of results. They also play a vital role by volunteering to participate in studies and trials.

We are guided by the strategy set out in our Going the Extra Mile report (NIHR 2015), with its vision of a population ‘actively involved in research to improve health and wellbeing for themselves, their families and their communities’. 

Going the Extra Mile report

Download the report

Going-the-Extra-Mile.pdf

Attracting, training and supporting the best researchers…to tackle complex health and social care challenges.

NIHR is the nation’s largest funder of health and social care research training. Since our establishment in 2006, we have developed career pathways for clinical academics and created new opportunities for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (AHPs) to integrate research with clinical practice. We have also grown our training portfolio to attract a broad range of non-clinical scientists into careers that are both exciting and sustainable.  

In 2018 we launched the NIHR Academy following a strategic review of our training programmes in 2017.

NIHR Strategic Review of Training 2017

Download our review of training

NIHR%20Strategic%20Review%20of%20Training%202017.pdf

This led to sweeping changes that have simplified NIHR’s training offer and increased the flexibility and accessibility of our schemes so that they are attractive to a wider group of health and social care researchers as a route into an academic career.

Through the NIHR Academy, we are delivering our long-term vision for training, career development and capacity building and responding to the complex and changing needs of the health and social care system, as well as embracing new technologies and ways of working. We will continue to innovate, developing our programmes and initiatives to build research capacity and capability, particularly in priority areas such as prevention, public health and social care.

Bringing together NIHR-funded health and social care researchers under the umbrella of the NIHR Academy provides us with opportunities to create a collegiate ethos that includes our research delivery workforce. This inclusive culture enables researchers to make connections important to their work and sparks innovative new ways of working across disciplines and specialisms - vitally important if we are to bring new thinking to complex issues such as multiple long-term conditions.

Working in partnership with Health Education England will continue to be important, not only to ensure our programmes dovetail with those of other funders (including UKRI, Wellcome and the devolved administrations), but also to ensure a more cohesive approach to flexible career pathways for health and social care researchers from all backgrounds. We are extending our reach by creating joint fellowships with research charities and the life sciences industry, and will go beyond the established partnerships between universities and NHS Trusts to integrate research and practice within local authorities and other sectors.

We are facilitating the involvement of early career researchers in NIHR’s strategic initiatives, listening to what they have to say about creating an inclusive culture and establishing a stronger community of support for our current and next generation leaders.

Looking ahead, we will:

• Boost areas of high research need and historical under-investment by developing new networking and partnership structures and initiatives to attract and develop under-represented sectors such as primary care and public health, as well as groups such as nurses, pharmacists and social scientists.
• Develop additional capacity in disciplines such as bioinformatics, data science, medical statistics, health economics and machine learning so that our research workforce is professionally supported in dealing with the opportunities and challenges associated with big data.
• Collaborate with other funders and key stakeholder groups to make research careers attractive to a broader range of people and to identify and address barriers to career progression, especially for women (who often do not progress at the post-doctoral stage), ethnic minorities and under-represented professions.
• Support the new medical schools to develop their roles in clinical academic training, helping to spread opportunity across the country and strengthen geographical areas where disease burden is often the greatest.
• Expand NIHR’s mentorship programme to reach more people in non-clinical roles, public health and social care where additional support would enhance career progression.
• Increase opportunities and strengthen development and support packages for career stages where we know that current provision is limited.
• Keep our investment at all career stages under review to ensure we provide attractive pathways and the right balance of opportunities for health and social care researchers with an interest in research.
• Collaborate with partners from the life sciences industry, charities and other sectors to provide researchers with new skills, experiences and training opportunities and encourage entrepreneurship

Collaborating with other public funders, charities and industry…to shape a cohesive and globally competitive research system

A key ingredient in our success has been working with partners from across the public sector and with charities and industry to create an integrated research system that meets the needs of the public, is at the forefront of research internationally and attracts inward investment.

We work closely with UKRI and its constituent bodies, who jointly fund a number of our programmes and initiatives and provide us with important opportunities for interdisciplinary working. We also partner with the UK’s remarkable charity sector, for example in the fields of cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular disease and dementia, and charities actively inform our research priorities. And we increasingly collaborate with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who both co-fund and participate in much of our work.

We also have long-standing relationships with regulators, with whom we have worked closely to accelerate and adapt research processes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and newer relationships with bodies responsible for digital technology and data science.

We continue to strengthen our strategic relationship with the NHS, working together to simplify research processes and enhance our data infrastructure ( NHS England and NIHR 2017 (.PDF) (.PDF) ), and as the research capacity of public health and social care expands will engage these areas also.

We work with all of these stakeholders - and with industry, both directly and through trade associations - to coordinate, streamline and expedite end-to-end research processes. In this way, we play our part in delivering the government’s life sciences industrial strategy ( Office for Life Sciences 2017 (.PDF) (.PDF) ), strengthening the environment for commercially-supported studies and ensuring the UK remains a globally attractive destination for high quality clinical research.

• Collaborate with other research funders and regulators on creating a more supportive, diverse and inclusive research community, lessening the burden of unnecessary bureaucracy, and encouraging open access publication of publicly-funded research.
• Partner with key stakeholders to more fully embed research in the Care Quality Commission’s monitoring of standards of care in the health and social care system.
• Play our part in implementing the government’s strategy to extend the UK’s leadership in genomic healthcare and research ( DHSC 2020a )
• Help to shape the research ecosystem through supporting implementation of the government’s R&D Roadmap ( Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy 2020 ) and via established partnership bodies such as the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR), the Life Sciences Council Clinical Research Working Group and Innovation, Research and Data Expert Group, and the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC).

Funding applied global health research and training…to meet the needs of the poorest people in low and middle income countries

Our global health research portfolio, principally funded through Official Development Assistance (ODA), was established in 2016 and has since grown and developed at pace. We fund high-quality global health research for the direct and primary benefit of people in low and middle income countries (LMICs), and build R&D capacity and capability in both the UK and in LMICs through mutual learning and knowledge exchange.

Working closely with the global health research community, we commission and invest in applied health research and training that responds to the diverse needs of LMIC communities, anticipates the evolving global burden of disease and addresses health system priorities. We fund work in more than 50 countries through:

• Programmes that award research funding to equitable partnerships between groups of researchers or groups of research institutions in LMICs and the UK.
• Partnerships with other global health research organisations, supporting existing, high quality funding schemes and co-creating new initiatives to respond to areas of need.
• Investment in People, funding the career development of researchers at all career stages and supporting research managers and support staff in LMICs and the UK.

In support of the UK’s global commitments, our portfolio is aligned to the sustainable development goals, promotes universal health coverage, and contributes towards addressing emerging health challenges such as COVID-19 and climate change. We are committed to transparency, accountability and value for money for the UK taxpayer.

Looking ahead, we will continue to shift the ‘centre of gravity’ of our global health research portfolio, strengthening LMIC-led research teams, partnerships and consortia to address locally identified health challenges.

In future, we envisage our funding will focus on three strategic priorities:

• Improving the treatment, management and care of disease and chronic conditions.
• Strengthening health systems and resilience to respond to population needs.
• Reducing preventable deaths across the life course.

In addressing these, we will build on our established expertise in fostering equitable partnerships, engaging and involving communities ( Tembo et al 2021 ) and strengthening research capacity.

Specifically, we will:

• Promote equity of opportunity for LMIC-led research, strengthening global health research capability at individual, institutional and systems levels.
• Increase our direct funding to research partnerships led by LMIC institutions and directly fund proposals from LMIC researchers to design, lead and author high-quality research on an equal footing with researchers in the UK.
• Embed community engagement and involvement among our award-holders across our portfolio, giving people and communities a genuine voice in research design, delivery and dissemination to enable real-world impact.
• Monitor and improve equality, diversity and inclusion across our portfolio, recognising that the contexts in LMICs can be different to the UK and that we have much to learn from our LMIC research partners.
• Foster a culture of learning and knowledge sharing among our award-holders, and promote communication, dissemination and uptake of research findings by policy makers and health service providers in the UK and in LMICs.
• Encourage and enable uptake into the UK health and care system of innovation, technologies and processes developed through our award-holders in LMICs, including in areas such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory health and surgery.

We recognise the need to develop more efficient mechanisms to facilitate knowledge exchange across our UK and global programmes. Building this evidence base and fostering greater exchange of applied knowledge and expertise will enable us to strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes in the UK as well as in LMICs.

We know that we have much further to go if we are to ensure that the involvement of diverse patients, service users, carers and communities in research is inclusive, consistently makes a difference and avoids tokenism.

We are determined that people’s perspectives and lived experiences in relation to their health and care are heard and acted upon, and that their contributions are valued and appropriately recognised. By constantly strengthening our collaborations with people and communities, we know that we can make improvements in the relevance of our research ( NIHR 2020 ) and also in its quality and impact ( Crocker et al 2018 ; Kovlund et al 2020 ).

Looking ahead, our commitments include:

• Creating a diverse and inclusive research environment founded on close and equitable partnerships with communities and groups, including those who have previously not had a voice in research. As the COVID-19 pandemic starkly illustrated, the people at highest risk of ill-health are often the least likely to engage with research or to participate as volunteers in studies. This will require NIHR to work differently, taking research closer to people in the communities where they live and work and building relationships of trust over time.
• Making it easier for people to participate in research by investing in user-friendly and accessible digital and online approaches. We will build on the success of the registry which was instrumental in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as platforms such as Be Part of Research and Join Dementia Research. We will also strengthen non-digital channels, working with patient and user groups, charities and the wider voluntary sector as well as our network of research champions. We know we have a long way to go before people see opportunities to take part in research as a routine part of care and treatment ( HRA and NIHR 2017 (.PDF) (.PDF) ).
• Helping the research community become more skilled and confident in partnership working by embedding the UK Standards for Public Involvement, sharing learning about how to implement effective approaches such as co-production and community engagement, and building an evidence base that supports practitioners.
• Collaborating with other public funders, research charities and the life sciences industry to help build the widest possible culture of partnership working in research. 

All these efforts will take place in the context of broader efforts to engage with the public. Our overall approach is to foster openness and transparency, build trust and understanding in health and social care research, and stimulate people’s confidence and motivation to get involved in every aspect of our research endeavour.

Our areas of strategic focus

We have identified seven areas where we need to deliver transformative change.

We are proud of our work and continuously innovate in order to deliver against our mission of improving the health and wealth of the nation through research.

We have, however, identified seven areas where the environment is changing or there are potential structural weaknesses and we need to work with urgency and in fundamentally different ways if we are to deliver transformative change over the next five to ten years. We call these our ‘areas of strategic focus’.

• Build on learnings from the research response to COVID-19 and support the recovery of the health and social care system
• Build capacity and capability in preventative, public health and social care research
• Improve the lives of people with multiple long-term conditions through research
• Bring clinical and applied research to under-served regions and communities with major health needs
• Embed equality, diversity and inclusion across NIHR's research, systems and culture
• Strengthen careers for research delivery staff and under-represented disciplines and specialisms
• Expand our work with the life sciences industry to improve health and economic prosperity

Building on learnings from the research response to COVID-19 and supporting the recovery of the health and social care system

Through studies funded, co-funded or supported by NIHR, the UK is at the forefront of international research efforts to find new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Whilst the emergence of vaccines gives us hope for the future, we know that COVID-19 will cast a long shadow and that research will continue to be needed to tackle its long-term impacts, including in relation to the operation and resilience of the NHS and social care. Furthermore, our experiences of COVID-19 have provided us with evidence to strengthen our abilities to fund and support research across health, public health and social care and to tackle future pandemics and other global health challenges.

We continue to tackle the ongoing threat from COVID-19, for example by commissioning further research into ‘Long COVID’ and vaccines and scoping the role of antiviral therapies. Looking ahead, we plan to:

• Prepare for future pandemics by ensuring that the whole research system is aligned and ready to develop, fund and deliver pandemic research studies.
• Incentivise greater use of platform studies to rapidly evaluate the effectiveness of multiple interventions to tackle new infectious diseases.
• Support the work of the UK Health Security Agency through close partnership working, including via our Health Protection Research Units.
• Provide the research outputs which the NHS and wider health and social care system need to recover post COVID-19. Knowledge generated by NIHR will help them not only to restore services for patients and the wider public but also to design and deliver them in a way that builds resilience.
• Ensure that lessons learned from COVID-19 help to shape the future of research more generally. We will aim for greater integration of research within the NHS and wider health and social care services, and seek to deploy expedited processes of research approval and delivery into topic areas beyond COVID-19. We will also scale up our use of digital enablers and develop new ways of realising the potential of patient data to accelerate recruitment into clinical research studies.
• Support plans to develop a coordinated cross-agency response to a pandemic or other future health emergency.
• Build on heightened awareness of research as a result of COVID-19 to strengthen our engagement of people and communities, including through better use of digital technologies and by reaching out more effectively to communities under-served by research.

Building capacity and capability in preventative, public health and social care research

Preventing ill health (including early diagnosis) and improving public health and social care represent some of the most difficult and important challenges facing the nation today.

We need to build up research capacity to provide a stronger evidence base in these fields. This is particularly important in local authorities and third sector organisations working in social care, which typically lack the research infrastructure, experience and resources that can be widely found in NHS Trusts. Research capacity in primary and community care is also vitally important.

It is incumbent on us to increase the volume of research in populations with high disease burden across the life-course, which have historically been under-served by research.

To improve people’s health and wellbeing, reduce health inequalities and lessen the burden on public services, we need to have a greater understanding of how to affect the wider determinants of health. This will require us not only to incentivise the most able researchers to get involved in these areas, but also to access radically new thinking from a much broader range of disciplines and specialisms than are engaged in health and social care research at present.

We have made some progress in recent years but we know more is needed.

For example, we are funding local authorities to think about how they could build a local research system, identifying the resources they have and the gaps that need plugging, and helping them to evaluate the interventions they are undertaking. Furthermore, the NIHR Academy is running ‘incubators’ in public health, social care, primary care and mental health to support research capacity building and multi-disciplinary career development, and is working with our research schools to offer fellowships in public health, social care and primary care. And we are strengthening research capability and supporting career pipelines in global health, both in the UK and in low and middle income countries.

• Work to draw in new communities of researchers, particularly those working in areas of deprivation, giving them the freedom and flexibility to find innovative solutions to long-standing prevention challenges.
• Research how to reach those populations with the poorest health and how to encourage them to engage with screening and other preventative and early detection services.
• Work across government and with researchers from a broad range of disciplines to drive a more joined-up approach to obesity research generation and policy-making.
• Widen the geographical spread of research excellence in mental health to reach more patients and service users across the nation.
• Increase our funding for dementia research, working in partnership with UKRI to deliver against government commitments.
• Invest in public health and social care research in local authority settings, where many of the levers for change to the wider determinants of health reside.
• Create new fellowship and placement schemes that will enable individuals to undertake roles that combine research and practice

Improving the lives of people with multiple long-term conditions through research

The term ‘multiple long-term conditions’ (MLTC) refers to the co-existence of two or more chronic conditions (physical or mental) in a single individual ( Academy of Medical Sciences 2018 ). In medical and research circles, this is often known as multimorbidity.

It is estimated that more than 14 million people in England alone are living with MLTC and that they account for over half of NHS primary and secondary care costs ( Stafford et al 2018 (.PDF) (.PDF) ). These numbers are expected to rise in line with our ageing population, making MLTC arguably the biggest health and social care challenge we face.

While a substantially greater proportion of older people have MLTC, often combined with frailty, they can occur across the life-course. For example, we know that people living in deprived circumstances are more likely to have MLTC earlier in their lifetime, that MLTC often present during pregnancy, and that there are many children and young people with complex care needs who experience the health and social care system in a way that is similar to that of people living with MLTC.

The needs of people living with MLTC are not well served either by clinical services or by science, both of which are organised vertically around single conditions. NIHR is taking steps to address these needs through research, working in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences, the MRC, Wellcome and a number of medical research charities, but we know that more needs to be done.

We are funding large-scale, multidisciplinary research to identify and map common clusters of disease and their trajectories, using artificial intelligence and data science methods. We are also funding research into methods to support the rapid uptake of research findings into routine practice, and have run workshops to identify the problems and outcomes that matter most to people with MLTC and their carers and how they would like to see services configured to meet their needs. And we have commissioned global MLTC research in recognition that this challenge is not limited to the UK.

We have published a strategic framework for MLTC research (NIHR 2020a) which sets out priority research aims and a pathway to foster the cultural changes set out above. In particular, we plan to:

• Review all our funding processes to ensure they actively support MLTC applications throughout the commissioning pathway.
• Require panel members across prioritisation and funding committees to accommodate the inevitable complexity of MLTC studies and encourage collection of appropriate and consistent outcomes measures relevant to MLTC.
• Ensure our research studies do not unjustifiably exclude people with MLTC.
• Build capacity by providing and promoting MLTC research opportunities and encouraging researchers to move between, and collaborate across, multiple disciplines and disease areas. A ‘team science’ approach across health, social care and public health will be needed.
• Deliver research that enables the health and social care system to reconfigure services and improve system efficiency, taking a whole person approach and focussing on what matters to people with MLTC and their carers.
• Support design and delivery of interventions to prevent people progressing from one long-term condition to MLTC.
• Engage with delivery and implementation partners to ensure that MLTC is recognised as a challenge and that research is pulled through into practice.

Bringing clinical and applied research to under-served regions and communities with major health needs

While it makes sense for early translational research to be concentrated in the big urban centres of excellence, it is important for clinical and applied research to take place in the regions and communities with the greatest health and social care needs. That includes not only cities but also the coastal towns, rural and semi-rural areas where many older people live.

People in regions and communities where the burden of need is greatest are often under-served by research. For example, research into long-term conditions such as mental ill-health and diabetes indicates that recruitment is disproportionately low in areas with higher prevalence ( Bower et al 2020 ), and NIHR data suggest that the picture is similar for liver disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

For both scientific and ethical reasons, we must support the nation’s best researchers to extend their research into these regions and communities, which may not be adjacent or easily accessible to them.

This will help to ensure that research is well-designed and relevant to the end-user, that results are generalisable to a broad and diverse population, and that any resulting intervention can be successfully delivered to the people who most need it. It will also provide people and communities across the nation with earlier access to innovative treatments, facilitate an improvement in local health and social care services, and give everyone the ability to shape, participate in and benefit from research.

These same principles apply to our work in low and middle income countries.

As a first step, we have developed a roadmap ( NIHR 2021a ) which identifies potential points along the research pathway where intervention could improve inclusion of regions and communities under-served by research. We have also developed a set of questions to help researchers, funders, reviewers and delivery teams to consider such inclusiveness when they design and assess research proposals. We are piloting approaches to encourage applicants to extend their research into regions and communities with a high disease burden. And we are actively working to extend the reach of our global health research portfolio through community engagement and involvement.

• Gather together all the relevant initiatives that have been undertaken across the research ecosystem, both within and outside NIHR, to understand what has worked and what challenges have been encountered.
• Based on this intelligence, determine how NIHR should systematically gather information to help inform decisions on ideation, funding and initiation of new research priorities.
• Prioritise and orientate funding calls around the needs of under-served regions and communities, encouraging and enabling investigators to extend the reach of their research beyond ‘tried and trusted’ research sites.
• Encourage and support healthcare professionals and researchers in under-served regions to apply for and receive funding to build capacity and capabilities to support and conduct research.
• Foster greater local and national co-creation and collaboration, engaging communities in under-served regions in dialogue about research, building long-term relationships with community leaders and giving people the confidence to get involved.
• Nurture new NHS and non-NHS research sites located in regions that have high health and social care needs and have historically been less active in research, introducing new initiatives to enhance their capacity and capabilities.

Embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion across NIHR's research, systems and culture

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in terms of the people who lead NIHR, the people who sit on our funding committees and provide peer review, and the people who lead, deliver and are involved in our research.

However, we know that we are not fully representative of the society we serve, that there are inequalities in the type of research we fund, who we fund and our decision-making processes, and that we have not attracted a sufficiently diverse range of people to participate in our research studies. We must do more to embed diversity and inclusion in all our ways of working, not only nationally but also in low and middle income countries.

Consistent with the Equality Act 2010 ( HM Government 2010 ), we are committed to tackling discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics, and are also concerned about imbalances and inequalities associated with socio-economic status, geographic location and ability to access health and social care. In addition to these priorities, NIHR will specifically consider intersectionality, recognising that multiple social identities overlap to exacerbate the experience of health inequities.

We have made some progress in fostering an inclusive culture in research, particularly in terms of addressing barriers to career progression for female academics. A number of interventions over the years have successfully promoted gender equality in our research workforce, and today half our research professors are women and two thirds of personal fellowships are awarded to women. We are now championing gender equality in our global research programming also.

NIHR is now systematically turning its attention to race and disability. As a first step, we have worked with partners to develop an ethnicity framework (Trial Forge 2020) to support clinical trial teams to understand the unique barriers for ethnic minorities and to encourage applicants and trial teams to take a more inclusive approach to research design.

• Develop robust evidence to understand the impediments in our systems and the biases in our processes which have led to some communities, particularly ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, being under-represented in our research. We will introduce programmes of change, for example as part of our fellowship and research professorship programmes, testing our plans with relevant communities to ensure that we are deploying resources to the areas of greatest need.
• Diversify research participants in the studies we support and the voices of those who shape our research agenda, by redesigning our processes, introducing targeted interventions and the effective monitoring and evaluation of impact. Using an intersectional approach, we will ensure that we are reflecting diverse interests in our processes.
• Embed diversity in all our business processes. We will dedicate resources to the systematic tracking, reporting and evaluation of diversity within NIHR, including data on applications and awards for our research and training programmes, on our workforce and the constitution of our committees and advisory boards, and on the people who shape and participate in our research studies. We will use these data to set appropriate targets to diversify participation in our research and systems.
• Prioritise a cross-funder approach for addressing behavioural and culture change in research and the research environment, for example tackling bullying and harassment. 

Through these measures, we will foster an inclusive environment, engage the talents and energy of diverse people in all areas of our work, and improve the relevance and quality of our research.

Strengthening careers for research delivery staff and under-represented disciplines and specialisms

NIHR has been highly successful in developing academic career pathways that support individuals across a range of backgrounds, but we are increasingly aware that there are groups within our research community that lack recognition and career support. These include methodologists, such as statisticians, economists and qualitative researchers, as well as research assistants.

We also recognise that, in order to deliver research at scale and pace, we need to provide advancement opportunities for a breadth of roles and professions including research nurses and our growing community of clinical research practitioners.

These roles are critical to NIHR’s success and it is imperative that we properly recognise their contribution and provide career structures that are exciting and attractive. By investing in skills, we can strengthen R&D delivery capacity, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and enhance the country’s global competitiveness as a partner of choice for the life sciences industry.

We have taken a number of steps but we know there is more to do.

We have introduced programmes to strengthen and promote nurse and midwife leadership in health and social care research, and have created an accredited register for clinical research practitioners, raising their profile and establishing a community of practice. We have also introduced an ‘Associate Principal Investigator’ scheme, endorsed by appropriate professional colleges, to fast track junior doctors, nurses and AHPs to become the PIs of the future. Our AHP Champions actively encourage more AHPs to get involved in research.

We have established an ‘incubator’ to examine career blocks and create better opportunities for methodologists, and are supporting the Royal Colleges and standard setting bodies to develop bespoke online learning resources to develop research capacity in their professional communities. We are also collaborating with partners to promote ‘team science’, shaping academic reward and recognition systems so that they mirror the trend toward teams working together to solve complex problems. Through our global programming, we are strengthening capability in research management functions to support the delivery of high quality research in LMIC institutions.

• Build capacity across disciplines and in the practitioner, specialist and technical roles required across the sector, including in statistics, data science, economics, behavioural and social sciences.
• Examine postdoctoral careers that exist outside the academic track to understand the skills people need and the development opportunities that will enhance their career experience and help them succeed.
• Work with other funders to engage clinicians in research, including co-funding with MRC expansion of programmes designed to attract research-qualified full-time clinicians back into research.
• Introduce a new credentialing framework to recognise Clinician Researchers.
• Improve the attractiveness of academic career pathways for nurses, midwives and AHPs where advancement into senior research posts is still challenging.

Expanding our work with the life sciences industry to improve health and economic prosperity

The life sciences industry is one of the pillars of the UK economy, is highly diversified and geographically dispersed, and plays a vital role in improving the health of patients and the public. In 2019, it generated almost £81 billion in turnover and employed over 250,000 people across the country ( Office for Life Sciences 2021 (.PDF) (.PDF) ).

Since its inception, NIHR has supported industry’s early stage development pipeline by facilitating access to the country’s leading experts, enabled collaborations to support medtech and diagnostics development, and helped to drive major growth in commercial trials across the country.

The international clinical research market is changing, with new technologies transforming the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of illness and growing competition from countries around the world. Working with NHSE/I, regional medical teams and Integrated Care Systems, NIHR is determined to maintain and grow the UK’s share of this market and to be at the forefront of the healthcare revolution.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrated the extraordinary strength of NIHR and the broader UK research system and, as we emerge from the pandemic, we can use these same assets to restore and grow opportunities for industry investment.

To further increase our capacity to deliver large scale studies, we have established five national Patient Recruitment Centres dedicated to the rapid set-up and delivery of late-phase commercial clinical trials. These also increase opportunities for patients to access cutting-edge treatment and therapies that are not yet widely available through the NHS.

More broadly, we have the opportunity to increase our work with industry in areas where we have particular strength, including in early phase trials, innovative trial design, genomics and precision medicine, and to expand our industry partnerships into new areas such as artificial intelligence and digital health.

We have established initiatives to increase the number of researchers and clinical academics with experience of working at the interface of industry, academia and the health and care sector. We have also introduced a funding scheme that enables researchers to develop entrepreneurial skills and gain experience of working closely with an SME partner, and are partnering with life science companies over mutually-beneficial fellowships and training awards.

• Work with partners to realise the vision for UK clinical research delivery (DHSC 2021) and deliver the associated action plan for England.
• Further the recommendations of the life sciences industrial strategy, helping the government meet its ambition of increasing R&D investment to 2.4% of gross domestic product by 2027.
• Expand our engagement with industry by developing and promoting a pan-NIHR offer for companies large and small across biopharma, diagnostics and medtech, identifying opportunities to support their pipelines.
• Deepen our engagement with nascent industries such as digital, design and artificial intelligence, and work with the university sector to develop new industries.
• Invest in the infrastructure and support that home-grown life science companies, from university spin-outs to more established SMEs, need to attract venture capital and accelerate the development and uptake of commercial medtech innovations.
• Partner with the Office for Life Sciences, universities, local government and Academic Health Science Networks to ensure our infrastructure can support the development of life science clusters across the country that will increase opportunities to establish new companies, create a critical mass of expertise that stimulates internal investment, and facilitate the rapid growth of home-grown SMEs.
• Support the NHS’s Accelerated Access Collaborative as it enters into agreements with commercial companies to align research, manufacturing and deployment activities, ensuring the rapid delivery of necessary clinical trials and investigations.

In this document, we have set out how – consistent with our mission - NIHR funds, enables and delivers world-leading health and social care research that improves people’s health and wellbeing and promotes economic growth.

We have shared our current operational priorities, highlighting areas where the environment is changing and where we need to work with urgency and in markedly different ways if we are to tackle the health and social challenges facing people and communities today. These areas of strategic focus will provide the foundation for a forward-looking strategy for NIHR that will be developed and published subsequently.

We remain committed to the principles of excellence, effectiveness and inclusion in everything we do, and to ensuring that our research has a positive impact on people’s lives. We know that collaboration with others is fundamental to our success and look forward to building on the multitude of partnerships we have established with patients and the public, health and social care professionals and the research community.