Megabuyte Scholarship

Research proposal

You are expected to produce a 1,000-1,200 word individual research proposal that would explain your intended future research in finance.

This proposal should lay a foundation for your MSc Finance thesis.

It should contain:

• a research question and relevant objectives, including the justification for your choice
• a critical review of relevant literature supporting the identified research gap
• an outline of the intended research methodology, including data collection and analysis process
• ethical consideration of the proposed data, if applicable
• relevant reference list, which is not included in the word count

The proposal will be assessed by a panel of experts, consisting of academics with a focus on both qualitative and quantitative research.

Suggested structure

Your proposed research proposal should have the following sections.

A guideline word count for each section is indicated. 

Introduction (max 200 words)

This provides the underlying rationale and purpose of the study.  It should set out the business context, demonstrating to the reader the relevance of the study in this context. In this section, you are expected to describe your research question and objectives for the investigation.

Literature 5eview (max 500 words)

This section provides a critical review of the literature related to the problem area you are studying. This means that you should demonstrate your ability to identify and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the theories or schools of thought relevant to your topic as well as previous research on the topic. You should also demonstrate your ability to identify how your study may contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

Research methodology (max 300 words)

This section includes a reference to your ‘measurable concepts’ or research variables. You need to indicate the data sources and the data that will help you achieve your research objectives. When identifying the sources of evidence or data, and when planning the data collection, you may decide that you will collect most of the data yourself (primary data), or you may decide that you will use mostly data collected by second parties (secondary data). You need to discuss the choice of method(s) for data collection, a rationale for the implementation of the method, how the gathering of raw data will operationalise, and a choice of method(s) for data analysis. This section should describe and justify the choice of methodology and methods adopted for the work, exposing any potential weaknesses.

Ethical considerations (max 200 words)

In this section, you need to discuss any ethical issues arising from your proposed research and the ways you intend to address these issues. 

More information on ethics and governance. 

Reference list

Details of the bibliographic references made in the text should be included in this section. You should use Harvard referencing style standard.

The Library website provides detailed instructions on how to cite and reference different sources.

You can also use EndNote software to manage your database of references, and help you apply the Harvard referencing standard to your work.

The Library website provides guidance on how to use EndNote.