Research statement: [Your name]

Replace the blue placeholders with your own words and delete the grey notes as you go. Aim for one to three pages, or the limit in the job ad.

Position

[job title, department, institution]

Limit

[pages or words, from the ad]

Field convention

[separate statement, or research overview in the cover letter]

Resources there

[equipment, field sites, archives, data, centers]

Deadline

[date]

One theme, told as findings. Open with the question that connects your work, describe past and current research by what you found, and plan the future as aims that are yours, not your advisor's.

Opening

Your overarching question and why it matters, in words the whole committee can follow.

[The question that connects your work] [Why it matters, and to whom] [The methods or sources you combine]

See an example opening

Two community gardens six blocks apart can have the same flowers in bloom and very different afternoons. In my dissertation fieldwork, the garden that ran 3°C hotter had a third fewer bumblebee visits after 1 p.m. My research asks how heat in cities changes pollination, and what cities can plant, shade or build to keep it working.

An invented example: the candidate, the study and the figures are made up.

Past research

Your dissertation and earlier work. Cite your key papers so the committee can find them on your CV.

  • Question: [what you set out to find]

  • What you found: [results, with numbers where you have them]

  • Why it matters: [what it changed in your field, or outside it]

  • Publications: [published, under review, in preparation]

Current research

  • Project: [what you are working on now]

  • How it builds on the past: [the question your earlier results raised]

  • Early results: [what you have so far, even if incomplete]

  • Next step: [what you will finish in the next year]

Future research

A few aims over about five years, short term first. The first should be something you could start in year one with this department's resources.

Aim

Question

Approach

Years

Funding

Aim 1

[question]

[methods, data or sources]

[1–2]

[source]

Aim 2

[question]

[methods, data or sources]

[2–4]

[source]

Aim 3

[question]

[methods, data or sources]

[4–5 and beyond]

[source]

See an example set of aims

  • Aim 1, years 1–2: map where afternoon pollination is most at risk, block by block, from logger and satellite data.

  • Aim 2, years 2–4: with a city parks department, compare shade trees, pergolas and late-blooming plantings across 30 gardens.

  • Aim 3, years 4–5 and beyond: build a model that planners can run for their own neighborhoods.

Each aim has years and a method, and the set runs from short term to long term.

Funding

  • Past funding: [fellowships, grants and awards you have held]

  • Next proposals: [agency, foundation or program, and when you will apply]

Fit with [Department]

  • Resources: [equipment, field sites, archives, data or centers you would use]

  • People: [faculty whose work connects with yours, and how]

  • Students: [how undergraduates or graduate students would take part]

  • Teaching link: [a course your research could feed]

Closing

Two or three sentences: where the work leads in ten years.

[Closing sentences]

Before you send it

  • The theme fits in one sentence an outsider could repeat

  • Past and current work are told as findings, not activities

  • The future aims are yours, with years attached

  • The first aim could start in year one with this department's resources

  • Likely funding sources are named

  • The fit section names this department's resources, people and students

  • Within the page limit in the ad

  • Read by someone outside your field and someone in it