writing of research statement

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Graduate School Applications: Writing a Research Statement

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The research statement is a common component of a potential candidate’s application for post-undergraduate study. This may include applications for graduate programs, post-doctoral fellowships, or faculty positions. The research statement is often the primary way that a committee determines if a candidate’s interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

What is a Research Statement?

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

What Should It Look Like?

Research statements are generally one to two single-spaced pages. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application.

Your research statement should situate your work within the larger context of your field and show how your works contributes to, complicates, or counters other work being done. It should be written for an audience of other professionals in your field.

What Should It Include?

Your statement should start by articulating the broader field that you are working within and the larger question or questions that you are interested in answering. It should then move to articulate your specific interest.

The body of your statement should include a brief history of your past research . What questions did you initially set out to answer in your research project? What did you find? How did it contribute to your field? (i.e. did it lead to academic publications, conferences, or collaborations?). How did your past research propel you forward?

It should also address your present research . What questions are you actively trying to solve? What have you found so far? How are you connecting your research to the larger academic conversation? (i.e. do you have any publications under review, upcoming conferences, or other professional engagements?) What are the larger implications of your work?

Finally, it should describe the future trajectory on which you intend to take your research. What further questions do you want to solve? How do you intend to find answers to these questions? How can the institution to which you are applying help you in that process? What are the broader implications of your potential results?

Note: Make sure that the research project that you propose can be completed at the institution to which you are applying.

Other Considerations:

• What is the primary question that you have tried to address over the course of your academic career? Why is this question important to the field? How has each stage of your work related to that question?
• Include a few specific examples that show your success. What tangible solutions have you found to the question that you were trying to answer? How have your solutions impacted the larger field? Examples can include references to published findings, conference presentations, or other professional involvement.
• Be confident about your skills and abilities. The research statement is your opportunity to sell yourself to an institution. Show that you are self-motivated and passionate about your project.

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How to Construct a Compelling Research Statement

A research statement is a critical document for prospective faculty applicants. This document allows applicants to convey to their future colleagues the importance and impact of their past and, most importantly, future research. You as an applicant should use this document to lay out your planned research for the next few years, making sure to outline how your planned research contributes to your field.

Some general guidelines

(from Carleton University )

An effective research statement accomplishes three key goals:

• It clearly presents your scholarship in nonspecialist terms;
• It places your research in a broader context, scientifically and societally; and
• It lays out a clear road map for future accomplishments in the new setting (the institution to which you’re applying).

Another way to think about the success of your research statement is to consider whether, after reading it, a reader is able to answer these questions:

• What do you do (what are your major accomplishments; what techniques do you use; how have you added to your field)?
• Why is your work important (why should both other scientists and nonscientists care)?
• Where is it going in the future (what are the next steps; how will you carry them out in your new job; does your research plan meet the requirements for tenure at this institution)?

1. Make your statement reader-friendly

A typical faculty application call can easily receive 200+ applicants. As such, you need to make all your application documents reader-friendly. Use headings and subheadings to organize your ideas and leave white space between sections.

In addition, you may want to include figures and diagrams in your research statement that capture key findings or concepts so a reader can quickly determine what you are studying and why it is important. A wall of text in your research statement should be avoided at all costs. Rather, a research statement that is concise and thoughtfully laid out demonstrates to hiring committees that you can organize ideas in a coherent and easy-to-understand manner.

Also, this presentation demonstrates your ability to develop competitive funding applications (see more in next section), which is critical for success in a research-intensive faculty position.

2. Be sure to touch on the fundability of your planned research work

Another goal of your research statement is to make the case for why your planned research is fundable. You may get different opinions here, but I would recommend citing open or planned funding opportunities at federal agencies or other funders that you plan to submit to. You might also use open funding calls as a way to demonstrate that your planned research is in an area receiving funding prioritization by various agencies.

If you are looking for funding, check out this list of funding resources on my personal website. Another great way to look for funding is to use NIH Reporter and NSF award search .

3. Draft the statement and get feedback early and often

I can tell you from personal experience that it takes time to refine a strong research statement. I went on the faculty job market two years in a row and found my second year materials to be much stronger. You need time to read, review and reflect on your statements and documents to really make them stand out.

It is important to have your supervisor and other faculty read and give feedback on your critical application documents and especially your research statement. Also, finding peers to provide feedback and in return giving them feedback on their documents is very helpful. Seek out communities of support such as Future PI Slack to find peer reviewers (and get a lot of great application advice) if needed.

4. Share with nonexperts to assess your writing’s clarity

Additionally, you may want to consider sharing your job materials, including your research statement, with non-experts to assess clarity. For example, NC State’s Professional Development Team offers an Academic Packways: Gearing Up for Faculty program each year where you can get feedback on your application documents from individuals working in a variety of areas. You can also ask classmates and colleagues working in different areas to review your research statement. The more feedback you can receive on your materials through formal or informal means, the better.

5. Tailor your statement to the institution

It is critical in your research statement to mention how you will make use of core facilities or resources at the institution you are applying to. If you need particular research infrastructure to do your work and the institution has it, you should mention that in your statement. Something to the effect of: “The presence of the XXX core facility at YYY University will greatly facilitate my lab’s ability to investigate this important process.”

Mentioning core facilities and resources at the target institution shows you have done your research, which is critical in demonstrating your interest in that institution.

Finally, think about the resources available at the institution you are applying to. If you are applying to a primarily undergraduate-serving institution, you will want to be sure you propose a research program that could reasonably take place with undergraduate students, working mostly in the summer and utilizing core facilities that may be limited or require external collaborations.

Undergraduate-serving institutions will value research projects that meaningfully involve students. Proposing overly ambitious research at a primarily undergraduate institution is a recipe for rejection as the institution will read your application as out of touch … that either you didn’t do the work to research them or that you are applying to them as a “backup” to research-intensive positions.

You should carefully think about how to restructure your research statements if you are applying to both primarily undergraduate-serving and research-intensive institutions. For examples of how I framed my research statement for faculty applications at each type of institution, see my personal website ( undergraduate-serving ; research-intensive research statements).

6. Be yourself, not who you think the search committee wants

In the end, a research statement allows you to think critically about where you see your research going in the future. What are you excited about studying based on your previous work? How will you go about answering the unanswered questions in your field? What agencies and initiatives are funding your type of research? If you develop your research statement from these core questions, your passion and commitment to the work will surely shine through.

A closing thought: Be yourself, not who you think the search committee wants. If you try to frame yourself as someone you really aren’t, you are setting the hiring institution and you up for disappointment. You want a university to hire you because they like you, the work you have done, and the work you want to do, not some filtered or idealized version of you.

So, put your true self out there, and realize you want to find the right institutional fit for you and your research. This all takes time and effort. The earlier you start and the more reflection and feedback you get on your research statement and remaining application documents, the better you can present the true you to potential employers.

More Advice on Faculty Job Application Documents on ImPACKful

How to write a better academic cover letter

Tips on writing an effective teaching statement

More Resources

See here for samples of a variety of application materials from UCSF.

• Rules of the (Social Sciences & Humanities) Research Statement
• CMU’s Writing a Research Statement
• UW’s Academic Careers: Research Statements
• Developing a Winning Research Statement (UCSF)
• Academic Packways
• ImPACKful Tips

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How to Write a Research Statement

Last Updated: May 19, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 63,876 times.

The research statement is a very common component of job applications in academia. The statement provides a summary of your research experience, interests, and agenda for reviewers to use to assess your candidacy for a position. Because the research statement introduces you as a researcher to the people reviewing your job application, it’s important to make the statement as impressive as possible. After you’ve planned out what you want to say, all you have to do is write your research statement with the right structure, style, and formatting!

Research Statement Outline and Example

Planning Your Research Statement

• For example, some of the major themes of your research might be slavery and race in the 18th century, the efficacy of cancer treatments, or the reproductive cycles of different species of crab.
• You may have several small questions that guide specific aspects of your research. Write all of these questions out, then see if you can formulate a broader question that encapsulates all of these smaller questions.

• For example, if your work is on x-ray technology, describe how your research has filled any knowledge gaps in your field, as well as how it could be applied to x-ray machines in hospitals.
• It’s important to be able to articulate why your research should matter to people who don’t study what you study to generate interest in your research outside your field. This is very helpful when you go to apply for grants for future research.

• Explain why these are the things you want to research next. Do your best to link your prior research to what you hope to study in the future. This will help give your reviewer a deeper sense of what motivates your research and why it matters.

• For example, if your research was historical and the documents you needed to answer your question didn’t exist, describe how you managed to pursue your research agenda using other types of documents.

• Some skills you might be able to highlight include experience working with digital archives, knowledge of a foreign language, or the ability to work collaboratively. When you're describing your skills, use specific, action-oriented words, rather than just personality traits. For example, you might write "speak Spanish" or "handled digital files."
• Don’t be modest about describing your skills. You want your research statement to impress whoever is reading it.

Structuring and Writing the Statement

• Because this section summarizes the rest of your research statement, you may want to write the executive summary after you’ve written the other sections first.
• Write your executive summary so that if the reviewer chooses to only read this section instead of your whole statement, they will still learn everything they need to know about you as an applicant.
• Make sure that you only include factual information that you can prove or demonstrate. Don't embellish or editorialize your experience to make it seem like it's more than it is.

• If you received a postdoctoral fellowship, describe your postdoc research in this section as well.
• If at all possible, include research in this section that goes beyond just your thesis or dissertation. Your application will be much stronger if reviewers see you as a researcher in a more general sense than as just a student.

• Again, as with the section on your graduate research, be sure to include a description of why this research matters and what relevant skills you bring to bear on it.
• If you’re still in graduate school, you can omit this section.

• Be realistic in describing your future research projects. Don’t describe potential projects or interests that are extremely different from your current projects. If all of your research to this point has been on the American civil war, future research projects in microbiology will sound very farfetched.

• For example, add a sentence that says “Dr. Jameson’s work on the study of slavery in colonial Georgia has served as an inspiration for my own work on slavery in South Carolina. I would welcome the opportunity to be able to collaborate with her on future research projects.”

• For example, if your research focuses on the history of Philadelphia, add a sentence to the paragraph on your future research projects that says, “I believe based on my work that I would be a very strong candidate to receive a Balch Fellowship from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.”
• If you’ve received funding for your research in the past, mention this as well.

• Typically, your research statement should be about 1-2 pages long if you're applying for a humanities or social sciences position. For a position in psychology or the hard sciences, your research statement may be 3-4 pages long.
• Although you may think that having a longer research statement makes you seem more impressive, it’s more important that the reviewer actually read the statement. If it seems too long, they may just skip it, which will hurt your application.

Formatting and Editing

• For example, instead of saying, “This part of my research was super hard,” say, “I found this obstacle to be particularly challenging.”

• For example, if your research is primarily in anthropology, refrain from using phrases like “Gini coefficient” or “moiety.” Only use phrases that someone in a different field would probably be familiar with, such as “cultural construct,” “egalitarian,” or “social division.”
• If you have trusted friends or colleagues in fields other than your own, ask them to read your statement for you to make sure you don’t use any words or concepts that they can’t understand.

• For example, when describing your dissertation, say, “I hypothesized that…” When describing your future research projects, say, “I intend to…” or “My aim is to research…”

• At the same time, don’t make your font too big. If you write your research statement in a font larger than 12, you run the risk of appearing unprofessional.

• For instance, if you completed a postdoc, use subheadings in the section on previous research experience to delineate the research you did in graduate school and the research you did during your fellowship.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/graduate_school_applications/writing_a_research_statement.html
• ↑ https://www.cmu.edu/student-success/other-resources/handouts/comm-supp-pdfs/writing-research-statement.pdf
• ↑ https://postdocs.cornell.edu/research-statement
• ↑ https://gradschool.cornell.edu/academic-progress/pathways-to-success/prepare-for-your-career/take-action/research-statement/
• ↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/executivesummary
• ↑ https://www.niu.edu/writingtutorial/style/formal-and-informal-style.shtml
• ↑ https://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/connections/writing-about-your-research-verb-tense
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/editing-and-proofreading-techniques

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Writing a Research Statement

What is a research statement.

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

The research statement is a common component of a potential student's application for post-undergraduate study. The research statement is often the primary way for departments and faculty to determine if a student's interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

Although many programs ask for ‘personal statements,' these are not really meant to be biographies or life stories. What we, at Tufts Psychology, hope to find out is how well your abilities, interests, experiences and goals would fit within our program.

We encourage you to illustrate how your lived experience demonstrates qualities that are critical to success in pursuing a PhD in our program. Earning a PhD in any program is hard! Thus, as you are relaying your past, present, and future research interests, we are interested in learning how your lived experiences showcase the following:

• Perseverance
• Resilience in the face of difficulty
• Motivation to undertake intensive research training
• Involvement in efforts to promote equity and inclusion in your professional and/or personal life
• Unique perspectives that enrich the research questions you ask, the methods you use, and the communities to whom your research applies

How Do I Even Start Writing One?

Before you begin your statement, read as much as possible about our program so you can tailor your statement and convince the admissions committee that you will be a good fit.

Prepare an outline of the topics you want to cover (e.g., professional objectives and personal background) and list supporting material under each main topic. Write a rough draft in which you transform your outline into prose. Set it aside and read it a week later. If it still sounds good, go to the next stage. If not, rewrite it until it sounds right.

Do not feel bad if you do not have a great deal of experience in psychology to write about; no one who is about to graduate from college does. Do explain your relevant experiences (e.g., internships or research projects), but do not try to turn them into events of cosmic proportion. Be honest, sincere, and objective.

What Information Should It Include?

Your research statement should describe your previous experience, how that experience will facilitate your graduate education in our department, and why you are choosing to pursue graduate education in our department. Your goal should be to demonstrate how well you will fit in our program and in a specific laboratory.

Make sure to link your research interests to the expertise and research programs of faculty here. Identify at least one faculty member with whom you would like to work. Make sure that person is accepting graduate students when you apply. Read some of their papers and describe how you think the research could be extended in one or more novel directions. Again, specificity is a good idea.

Make sure to describe your relevant experience (e.g., honors thesis, research assistantship) in specific detail. If you have worked on a research project, discuss that project in detail. Your research statement should describe what you did on the project and how your role impacted your understanding of the research question.

Describe the concrete skills you have acquired prior to graduate school and the skills you hope to acquire.

Articulate why you want to pursue a graduate degree at our institution and with specific faculty in our department.

Make sure to clearly state your core research interests and explain why you think they are scientifically and/or practically important. Again, be specific.

What Should It Look Like?

Your final statement should be succinct. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application. Finally, stick to the points requested by each program, and avoid lengthy personal or philosophical discussions.

How Do I Know if It is Ready?

Ask for feedback from at least one professor, preferably in the area you are interested in. Feedback from friends and family may also be useful. Many colleges and universities also have writing centers that are able to provide general feedback.

Of course, read and proofread the document multiple times. It is not always easy to be a thoughtful editor of your own work, so don't be afraid to ask for help.

Lastly, consider signing up to take part in the Application Statement Feedback Program . The program provides constructive feedback and editing support for the research statements of applicants to Psychology PhD programs in the United States.

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Writing an Effective Research Statement

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A research statement is a summary of research achievements and a proposal for upcoming research. It often includes both current aims and findings, and future goals. Research statements are usually requested as part of a relevant job application process, and often assist in the identification of appropriate applicants. Learn more about how to craft an effective research statement.

Writing a research statement

By michael ernst, december, 2011 last updated: march 29, 2016.

A research statement lays out your vision of your research, including both your accomplishments to date and your plans for the future. It is a required part of many applications — for graduate school , for fellowships , for jobs (especially academic jobs ), for awards, etc.

This is a short collection of advice regarding some mistakes I have seen people make in their statements. It is incomplete at present, but still useful if it helps you avoid those common but important blunders.

Write your statement in the first person.

Your statement will likely discuss multiple research projects or results. Readers are unlikely to remember each of the projects in detail (though they may remember that you are broad, which is good). It will be easiest for readers to remember your work, and equally importantly to place it in context as they read your statement, if you can show how the projects are related. They might be in the same research subarea, or use related techniques, or stem from your own experiences, etc. Find a way to tie them together, which will make readers more likely to understand them. Furthermore, readers will be more likely to believe that you may continue to produce similar results in the future, if they see a pattern. After starting out with an overview (which might describe the general topic and its importance), tie the description of each result or project into that overview.

Somewhere — maybe at the beginning, though more likely at the end — you need to bring the statement to life and let your personality show through. Permit yourself to gush about how much you enjoy research: show that you really care about this and why. For example, you might state how important it is to you and how it has changed the way you think about your research area computing. Another way to address this (not incompatible with the others) is to say why you got involved in research at all; that might go at the beginning. If readers believe that you are enthusiastic about the topic, they will be more likely to believe that you are doing a great job and will be more favorably inclined toward you in general.

How to Write a Research Statement

• Experimental Psychology

Task #1: Understand the Purpose of the Research Statement

The primary mistake people make when writing a research statement is that they fail to appreciate its purpose. The purpose isn’t simply to list and briefly describe all the projects that you’ve completed, as though you’re a museum docent and your research publications are the exhibits. “Here, we see a pen and watercolor self-portrait of the artist. This painting is the earliest known likeness of the artist. It captures the artist’s melancholic temperament … Next, we see a steel engraving. This engraving has appeared in almost every illustrated publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and has also appeared as the television studio back-drop for the …”

Similar to touring through a museum, we’ve read through research statements that narrate a researcher’s projects: “My dissertation examined the ways in which preschool-age children’s memory for a novel event was shaped by the verbal dialogue they shared with trained experimenters. The focus was on the important use of what we call elaborative conversational techniques … I have recently launched another project that represents my continued commitment to experimental methods and is yet another extension of the ways in which we can explore the role of conversational engagement during novel events … In addition to my current experimental work, I am also involved in a large-scale collaborative longitudinal project …”

Treating your research statement as though it’s a narrated walk through your vita does let you describe each of your projects (or publications). But the format is boring, and the statement doesn’t tell us much more than if we had the abstracts of each of your papers. Most problematic, treating your research statement as though it’s a narrated walk through your vita misses the primary purpose of the research statement, which is to make a persuasive case about the importance of your completed work and the excitement of your future trajectory.

Writing a persuasive case about your research means setting the stage for why the questions you are investigating are important. Writing a persuasive case about your research means engaging your audience so that they want to learn more about the answers you are discovering. How do you do that? You do that by crafting a coherent story.

Task #2: Tell a Story

Surpass the narrated-vita format and use either an Op-Ed format or a Detective Story format. The Op-Ed format is your basic five-paragraph persuasive essay format:

First paragraph (introduction):

• broad sentence or two introducing your research topic;
• thesis sentence, the position you want to prove (e.g., my research is important); and
• organization sentence that briefly overviews your three bodies of evidence (e.g., my research is important because a, b, and c).

Second, third, and fourth paragraphs (each covering a body of evidence that will prove your position):

• topic sentence (about one body of evidence);
• fact to support claim in topic sentence;
• another fact to support claim in topic sentence;
• another fact to support claim in topic sentence; and
• analysis/transition sentence.

Fifth paragraph (synopsis and conclusion):

• sentence that restates your thesis (e.g., my research is important);
• three sentences that restate your topic sentences from second, third, and fourth paragraph (e.g., my research is important because a, b, and c); and
• analysis/conclusion sentence.

Although the five-paragraph persuasive essay format feels formulaic, it works. It’s used in just about every successful op-ed ever published. And like all good recipes, it can be doubled. Want a 10-paragraph, rather than five-paragraph research statement? Double the amount of each component. Take two paragraphs to introduce the point you’re going to prove. Take two paragraphs to synthesize and conclude. And in the middle, either raise six points of evidence, with a paragraph for each, or take two paragraphs to supply evidence for each of three points. The op-ed format works incredibly well for writing persuasive essays, which is what your research statement should be.

The Detective Story format is more difficult to write, but it’s more enjoyable to read. Whereas the op-ed format works off deductive reasoning, the Detective Story format works off inductive reasoning. The Detective Story does not start with your thesis statement (“hire/retain/promote/ award/honor me because I’m a talented developmental/cognitive/social/clinical/biological/perception psychologist”). Rather, the Detective Story starts with your broad, overarching research question. For example, how do babies learn their native languages? How do we remember autobiographical information? Why do we favor people who are most similar to ourselves? How do we perceive depth? What’s the best way to treat depression? How does the stress we experience every day affect our long-term health?

Because it’s your research statement, you can personalize that overarching question. A great example of a personalized overarching question occurs in the opening paragraph of George Miller’s (1956) article, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.”

My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution. I shall begin my case history by telling you about some experiments that tested how accurately people can assign numbers to the magnitudes of various aspects of a stimulus. …

In case you think the above opening was to a newsletter piece or some other low-visibility outlet, it wasn’t. Those opening paragraphs are from a Psych Review article, which has been cited nearly 16,000 times. Science can be personalized. Another example of using the Detective Story format, which opens with your broad research question and personalizes it, is the opening paragraph of a research statement from a chemist:

I became interested in inorganic chemistry because of one element: Boron. The cage structures and complexity of boron hydrides have fascinated my fellow Boron chemists for more than 40 years — and me for more than a decade. Boron is only one element away from carbon, yet its reactivity is dramatically different. I research why.

When truest to the genre of Detective Story format, the full answer to your introductory question won’t be available until the end of your statement — just like a reader doesn’t know whodunit until the last chapter of a mystery. Along the way, clues to the answer are provided, and false leads are ruled out, which keeps readers turning the pages. In the same way, writing your research statement in the Detective Story format will keep members of the hiring committee, the review committee, and the awards panel reading until the last paragraph.

Task #3: Envision Each Audience

The second mistake people make when writing their research statements is that they write for the specialist, as though they’re talking to another member of their lab. But in most cases, the audience for your research statement won’t be well-informed specialists. Therefore, you need to convey the importance of your work and the contribution of your research without getting bogged down in jargon. Some details are important, but an intelligent reader outside your area of study should be able to understand every word of your research statement.

Because research statements are most often included in academic job applications, tenure and promotion evaluations, and award nominations, we’ll talk about how to envision the audiences for each of these contexts.

Job Applications . Even in the largest department, it’s doubtful that more than a couple of people will know the intricacies of your research area as well as you do. And those two or three people are unlikely to have carte blanche authority on hiring. Rather, in most departments, the decision is made by the entire department. In smaller departments, there’s probably no one else in your research area; that’s why they have a search going on. Therefore, the target audience for your research statement in a job application comprises other psychologists, but not psychologists who study what you study (the way you study it).

Envision this target audience explicitly.Think of one of your fellow graduate students or post docs who’s in another area (e.g., if you’re in developmental, think of your friend in biological). Envision what that person will — and won’t — know about the questions you’re asking in your research, the methods you’re using, the statistics you’re employing, and — most importantly — the jargon that you usually use to describe all of this. Write your research statement so that this graduate student or post doc in another area in psychology will not only understand your research statement, but also find your work interesting and exciting.

Tenure Review . During the tenure review process, your research statement will have two target audiences: members of your department and, if your tenure case receives a positive vote in the department, members of the university at large. For envisioning the first audience, follow the advice given above for writing a research statement for a job application. Think of one of your departmental colleagues in another area (e.g., if you’re in developmental, think of your friend in biological). Write in such a way that the colleague in another area in psychology will understand every word  — and find the work interesting. (This advice also applies to writing research statements for annual reviews, for which the review is conducted in the department and usually by all members of the department.)

For the second stage of the tenure process, when your research statement is read by members of the university at large, you’re going to have to scale it down a notch. (And yes, we are suggesting that you write two different statements: one for your department’s review and one for the university’s review, because the audiences differ. And you should always write with an explicit target audience in mind.) For the audience that comprises the entire university, envision a faculty friend in another department. Think political science or economics or sociology, because your statement will be read by political scientists, economists, and sociologists. It’s an art to hit the perfect pitch of being understood by such a wide range of scholars without being trivial, but it’s achievable.

Award Nominations . Members of award selection committees are unlikely to be specialists in your immediate field. Depending on the award, they might not even be members of your discipline. Find out the typical constitution of the selection committee for each award nomination you submit, and tailor your statement accordingly.

Task #4: Be Succinct

When writing a research statement, many people go on for far too long. Consider three pages a maximum, and aim for two. Use subheadings to help break up the wall of text. You might also embed a well-designed figure or graph, if it will help you make a point. (If so, use wrap-around text, and make sure that your figure has its axes labeled.)

And don’t use those undergraduate tricks of trying to cram more in by reducing the margins or the font size. Undoubtedly, most of the people reading your research statement will be older than you, and we old folks don’t like reading small fonts. It makes us crabby, and that’s the last thing you want us to be when we’re reading your research statement.

Nice piece of information. I will keep in mind while writing my research statement

Thank you so much for your guidance.

HOSSEIN DIVAN-BEIGI

Absolutely agree! I also want to add that: On the one hand it`s easy to write good research personal statement, but on the other hand it`s a little bit difficult to summarize all minds and as result the main idea of the statement could be incomprehensible. It also seems like a challenge for those guys, who aren`t native speakers. That`s why you should prepare carefully for this kind of statement to target your goals.

How do you write an action research topic?? An then stAte the problem an purpose for an action research. Can I get an example on language development?? Please I need some help.

Thankyou I now have idea to come up with the research statement. If I need help I will inform you …

much appreciated

Just like Boote & Beile (2005) explained “Doctors before researchers” because of the importance of the dissertation literature review in research groundwork.

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About the Authors

Morton Ann Gernsbacher , APS Past President, is the Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic Bartlett Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Patricia G. Devine , a Past APS Board Member, is Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Careers Up Close: Joel Anderson on Gender and Sexual Prejudices, the Freedoms of Academic Research, and the Importance of Collaboration

Joel Anderson, a senior research fellow at both Australian Catholic University and La Trobe University, researches group processes, with a specific interest on prejudice, stigma, and stereotypes.

Experimental Methods Are Not Neutral Tools

Ana Sofia Morais and Ralph Hertwig explain how experimental psychologists have painted too negative a picture of human rationality, and how their pessimism is rooted in a seemingly mundane detail: methodological choices. 

APS Fellows Elected to SEP

In addition, an APS Rising Star receives the society’s Early Investigator Award.

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Writing a Research Statement

Introduction.

Writing a research statement was one of the more challenging things that I’ve had to do in my career, because it reflected a transition point between being a PhD student, to thinking more like a PI. As a student, I become used to thinking of research in terms of separate projects: I would motivate an aim, run some experiments, output a research paper, and then move onto the next project (obviously, the process is far, far less straight-forward than that trite summary, but the point is that I had become used to thinking of research as atomized outputs). But as I was looking down the tunnel to the next stage in my career, the research statement was the main document that made me realize that kind of thinking would no longer suffice: instead of simply describing a bunch of separate projects, I now had to convince hiring committees that a) I had a larger research vision, and b) this larger research vision would serve as a wellspring for sustained research, as opposed to a scattering of one-off projects.

I got a lot of mentorship in this process - postdocs, faculty mentors, and my supervisor were all incredibly supportive and helped review multiple iterations of my drafts, providing detailed feedback. However, one thing that struck me about the process was how inequitable it was: I was fortunate to have a lot of intensive one-on-one attention in developing my vision, but not everyone has access to this. Job adverts are remarkably low in detail about what a research statement actually entails, and if you’re unlucky with mentorship, and you don’t know where to look, you might not actually know what a research statement looks like or is supposed to accomplish. By sharing my own research statements and a few high-level tips, I’m hoping to (minorly) level the playing field a little.

Disclaimer: Everything in this article is from my own perspective, and other people have have different experiences with the process. Not everything I write here will work for everyone! I encourage you to seek out multiple perspectives.

Download the first draft and the final version of my research statements here.

Some contextual notes: I’m a computational biologist. Different fields have different standards for research statements. Some fields only require 1-2 pages; other fields expect up to 10 pages. I would check in with mentors in your area to understand field-specific nuances (tip: ask recently hired assistant professors, since they were just through the process and are most “up to date”). I also mostly targeted my application towards research-intensive institutions. If you’re targeting an institution that emphasizes a blend of teaching/research (e.g. R2s, PUAs, SLACs), your research statement should look different.

High-level tips

At the core, the research statement should a) summarize your research interests, b) explain your future plans for research in the position you’re applying for, c) convince the hiring committee that your research is impactful and fundable, and d) you are capable of carrying out independent and sustained research program.

That’s a lot to achieve in one document. As a result, the research statement is a tight balancing act between many elements:

• Establish a research vision. As I explained in the introduction, this a transition point that many PhD students struggle with, since it’s not a muscle that not everyone exercises at the PhD level. What are the larger problems that motivate you? Why are these problems exciting and impactful? At the same time, even if you can pitch an incredibly exciting, impactful, and ambitious research vision, it’s no good if you can’t convince the hiring committee that you can actually do it. So the research statement needs to include just enough details to show that you have some specific plans and the know-how to execute these plans (but not enough that your statement gets lost in the trees and loses conciseness). One common format is to propose three research projects unified by a central vision, as having some specific projects gives a sense of direction and an opportunity to impress technical knowledge.
• The research statement should be a forward facing document. The CV describes that you did in the past; the research statement should be more focused on what you will do in the future. At the same time, convincing research builds upon past experience and doesn’t just materialize out of nowhere. Thus, you should also emphasize your skillset and past successes in a way that doesn’t make them the focal point of your research statement, but supports what you have written about your goals.
• Demonstrate independence and demonstrate that your proposed research is unique. One common pitfall is when candidates propose research that is basically what their advisor(s) do. For example, a research statement that is simply a straight-forward extension of the PhD or postdoc work can give this impression. At the core, the committee wants to know if you can propose new ideas even without the support of an official mentor. But there is also a pragmatic element to this: it’s usually desirable to show that you’re not in direct competition with your previous lab. This is a larger point that should be impressed on by the research statement. Ideally, you’re proposing an impactful research vision: but if the research vision has impact, why aren’t other scientists already working on it? Thus, you should demonstrate that even though you’re working on an important problem, you have some unique angle or skills that differentiate you from other people working on similar problems - including your advisor, but also the larger scientific community at hand.
• Finally, even as you show that your research is ambitious, impactful, and independent, you still need to convince the hiring committee that you can actually execute it. Usually, this is a point that has to executed from multiple fronts. I alluded to some of these above: referencing specific projects and past experience. Another point that (some) researchers choose to incorporate is pointing to collaborators. Not only does this help in proposing a more ambitious research agenda by pointing to skills or resources that you alone may not be able to cover, but it shows that you are connected to a larger community as an academic (and presumably, this community cares about your research.) As with the other points, this needs to be executed in moderation: too much, and you’ll raise questions about how independent your research program will be.

My research statement as an example

The advice I gave above is rather abstract - it can be hard to see how to actually execute some of these points. To make this more concrete, I encourage you to look at how my own research statement evolved from the first draft to the final draft, with again, ample help from my supervisor and other mentors.

Here are some things to look out for:

• I improved the scope and impact of my research vision: This is especially apparent in how I introduce my research statement. In the first draft, I am narrowly focused on machine learning for microscopy images. This was mostly what I did in my PhD, so it felt “safe” when I was first drafting the statement. In my final draft, I propose a more ambitious vision of applying deep learning in biology in general. Note that none of the research projects that I am proposing have drastically changed. Instead, I’ve just framed these projects to have more widespread impact (than just the limited subset of biologists who work with high-throughput image screens alone.)
• I inverted the chronological order of each project section into a “supporting experience” section: My first draft tries to tell my story in a chronological order, but I ultimately decided this detracted from the vision of the research statement. In the final draft, I separate my past work, and instead put it at the bottom of each section as evidence that I can carry out the research. Hopefully you can see that again, much of the content has not changed. Instead, what this new structure does is alter the motivation underlying each project: instead of being the rationale for past work, the motivation for each section now comes off as more arching subgoals (e.g. “make computational analysis the first option biologist use to understand their datasets”, “enhance the depth of insight across many experiments in many labs, not just big dataset generated by a few centralized groups”) that I will address in my research program, and the past work is shown as evidence that I’ve made strides towards these motivations.
• I consolidated the background into a single section: This helps centralize what I view my core strength and differentiating angle is. I go to pains to emphasize that this is a recent angle (i.e. “I pioneered one of the first self-supervised methods for biology”), and to emphasize that even as the strategy becomes popular, I still take a different perspective than the field at large ("[Other work] repurpose methods from mainstream data domains. I design methods athat incorporate biological assumptions.") Emphasizing that these are newer ideas that I established helps answer questions of independence and differentiation. It also helps set up the rest of the proposal, which is proposing a significant amount of breadth: typically, it would be challenging for a researcher to work on so many different modalities and domains, but I suggest that this is feasible through naming specific collaborations, and emphasizing that I still have a “core” background uniting work in all of these different domains, which is my methodological expertise.

One final tip is that everyone’s research statement will look different. Some of the strategies I executed in my research statement make sense for me, but would not make sense for everyone: this includes not just content, but even the format and structure of the statement. I suspect this is why so little “official” guidance or templates exist for research statements - everyone has a different path through their academic training, so everyone’s story will look different. In other words, the flexibility of the research statement makes it daunting, but is also a strength you can leverage: what would be the best way to tell your story?

Last updated on Aug 22, 2022

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July 8, 2013, by dan cosley | july 8, 2013, writing a research statement (for a tenure package).

tl/dr : Research statements should demonstrate that you have made or will make an impact through effective, clear storytelling about what you have done and how it connects to your research community. Careful organization and clear evidence of impact can help you make this case to the many different kinds of people who will read your statement.

One of the main docs you write as part of the tenure process is a research statement, and before revising mine, I wanted to spend some time thinking about what makes for an effective statement. We also write these during the job search and various other times during the career, so hopefully this post will have broad appeal. The thoughts below are based on my own thinking, talking with other professors, and looking at my own and other people’s past research statements for tenure [0].

We’ll start with a few key points up front. First, in line with the typical tenure and promotion criteria at research universities [1], a main goal of the statement is to demonstrate that your work has had, and will continue to have, an impact on your research community. So a glorified annotated bibliography of your work is not going to cut it. You need to talk about how your work fits into the broader conversation, why it’s interesting and exciting and important.

Second, as stated by Mor Naaman in a comment on my original tenure post , not everyone who reads your statement (or your dossier [2]) is going to be an expert in your field. So, a glorified annotated bibliography of your work is not going to cut it. Not only do you need to position your work in your community, you need to do this in a way that letter writers, your dean, and faculty across the university will appreciate.

Third, even for those who are experts, they’re not likely to be experts on you, meaning that your research statement has real impact on how and when people think about you [3]. So, a glorified… well, you get the picture, but the key insight here is that the research statement is telling a story about you just as much as it is about the research [4].

So, how do research statement writers go about accomplishing these goals? For the most part, what I saw was a lot of work around organizing the story and showing current impact in ways that was broadly accessible, but less on the questions of ‘so what’ and ‘what next’.

Organizing the story

Based on the statements I looked at, the general approach was to focus on some small number of broad topical themes that represent research questions or areas that people claim to make key contributors to. The work itself is used to illustrate the contributions, possibly with some sub-themes inside the area to help readers group the individual papers. Then, an overall story ties the areas together with some kind of bigger picture and/or longer-term research goals.

How broad the goals, themes, and sub-sections are depends in part on how long you’ve been in the game and how broad your interests are–which implies that your research statement will continue to evolve over time [5]. For instance, my fall 2007 job hunt statement  and spring 2011 third year review statements  are organized quite differently because I had another 3.5 years of deepening and broadening my work and thinking both on specific projects and on how the different strands tied together [6]. (I wrote a bit about this evolution in “ The Incredible Evolving Research Statement “, which is a reasonable companion to this post.)

Most of the statements were broadly chronological, especially within areas. I think this on balance was used to show the accumulation, evolution, and deepening of one’s own work in an area. Some (including mine), but not all, were also chronological across the areas, which as a reader I saw as illustrating the person’s career arc. None was comprehensive, and some work was left out; instead, the statements focused on telling a more or less coherent story [7].

There are other ways to tell the story of your research besides chronology plus research areas. For instance, I could imagine talking about my own work as a grid where levels of analysis (individual, dyad, group/community) are on one axis and major research area/question (recommendation, user modeling, system-building, reflection) is on the other [8], then positioning work in the grid cells. This would be particularly useful for showing breadth across a couple of intersecting areas, maybe for highlighting interdisciplinarity. If I wanted to emphasize my techy/system-building bits, I could imagine organizing the statement around the systems that I’ve built, supervised, and studies along the way, with research questions emerging as themes that repeatedly occur across the systems [9]. But the overall story plus themes and chronological evolution model feels both fairly common and effective, and I do like the 2011 version a lot — so I’m likely to do an update but not rework of it for the tenure package.

Showing (current) impact

Much of the discourse on this side focused on various forms of evidence that other people, mostly in the academic community, cared about the work.

Most folks worked in some mention of support for their work, notably grant funding. Funding is direct evidence that people think you and your work are interesting enough to spend money on [10]. Yes, this is in your CV, but so are many other things you’ll talk about in the statements, and yes, done to excess or done badly it could feel a little off-putting. But it is honest and valuable to acknowledge support and it is pretty easy to make it part of the story (e.g., “I received an NSF grant to help answer my questions around X”).

Likewise, everyone talked about collaborators and students they’ve worked with. Much as with grants, collaboration says people think you and your work are interesting enough to spend time on [11]. Further, to some extent we’re known by the company that we keep, and collaborating with good people reflects well on you. Again, done as an exercise in name-dropping this could be tedious, but again, it’s easy to work naturally into the conversation–and again, it’s a worthy and honest thing to point out that you had help along the way.

People also mentioned how the work connected to and through groups or workshops they organized, led, and contributed to that are directly related to their research [11a]. To some extent, this overlaps with the service statement , but as with direct collaboration, if people are willing to band together with you it shows that people value the kinds of work that you do and see you as a positive influence.

Some folks talked about citations, h-indices, and other citation metrics. Citations are a proxy for attention, interest, and quality in your work, both the particular work being cited and in your reputation more generally (because well-known and -regarded people are more likely to come to mind). There are some problems with quantitative metrics of scholarly impact: differing practices and sizes across fields affects numbers; not all citations are positive; to do it right you’d probably need to compare to peers’ citation activity; etc. But citations have some value as an indicator of impact [12]. It’s a little harder to weave this in naturally, though you can use the numbers to point out particularly impactful papers, or use the data to give an overview to make the case that your career as a whole has been noticed.

For the most part, those were the high points. I do want to point out that there are lots of other ways one might talk about making impact. I’ll pass the torch to Elizabeth Churchhill’s discussion of impact more generally  that among other things riffs off of Judy Olson’s Athena award talk about the many paths to scholarly impact at CSCW 2012 . A group called altmetrics is pushing on other ways to think about impact, and other folks such as danah boyd [13] and Johnny Lee have carved careers out of making impact beyond research papers. These kinds of impact are worth talking about. However, for all that academia is pretty liberal politically, it’s fairly conservative in how it measures impact, and so a diversified portfolio with a fair percentage invested in traditional impact measures is probably less risky.

The statements didn’t have so much to say about potential future impact and work directly. There was sometimes a discussion of the next questions on a current line of work, and sometimes the overarching research question was used to highlight a general next line or lines. I guess this makes sense, because our next research moves are shaped by resources, people, contexts, and events [14], but it was a little surprising given the ‘future continued potential’ part of the tenure evaluation process.

Likewise, there was not as much “so what” as there probably could be, especially. There were reasonable connections to other work at a high level [15], to help make novelty claims and make the ‘so what’ case within the field. But there is much less of an argument about why the work is important to do in the grand scheme of things. This may be in part an artifact of length restrictions (there’s not a formal limit, but most of the tenure-time ones seem to clock in around 4-5 pages plus references). Our values around academic freedom also probably help us out when folks in other fields look at our tenure cases, even if they don’t see obvious indicators of importance, and our external letter writers are probably close enough to our work to appreciate it for its own sake. But I was still surprised at how little this was addressed in our statements.

So, that’s it for now–I should probably stop writing about writing research statements and get on to the business at hand. It was, however, useful spending some time thinking about what might make for a good research statement and hopefully some of this thinking will help future fellow travelers out.

[0] Web search turns up a variety of other useful resources and perhaps I should have just read them rather than writing my own. However, spending some time writing and analyzing myself felt valuable, and most of those I did find seem to be tuned toward research statements for the graduating PhD seeking a job rather than tenure. Many also seem to have been generated by searching for other articles about writing research statements. That said, this article on research statements from Penn’s career services  looked useful and had pointers to some examples. Oregon Academic Affairs also has some thoughtful slides on writing tenure statements, including the research statement.

[1] Here’s an example of promotion guidelines from Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences .

[2] Also part of Cornell ADVANCE’s  “Successful Tenure Strategies” document .

[3] I haven’t been on a tenure committee yet, because you don’t get to vote on tenure cases until you have it, but for faculty hiring a number of recommendation letters look a lot like the candidate’s research statement or dissertation proposal/outline. I am guessing similar effects will happen for tenure letter writers.

[4] John Riedl often gave me talk advice that a key takeaway, in addition to the main points, should be that you’re awesome (not via self-aggrandizing–not John’s style–but through being interesting and demonstrating competence). It seems apropos here as well.

[5] Dan Frankowski , a research scientist at GroupLens when I was there, once claimed that the main thing we learn in grad school is how to tell bigger and better stories about the work.

[6] I made a followup post about how these statements evolved with some behind-the-scenes thinking, but this is already a pretty long post in its own right.

[7] It is fine to leave side projects out. A piece of career/tenure advice I have received from multiple sources is that it’s good to become known as “the X guy” for some very small number of X’s (often 1). Thus, focusing on the coherent and compelling story of ($1 to Richard Hamming) You and Your Research is probably best. Your side stuff will be in your CV and your online portfolio, and if people care about them and/or they’ve had an impact, you’ll get to talk about them.

[8] Joe Konstan sometimes talks about the grid as a useful way to organize a research story. For instance, for a dissertation you might try different items on the axes (levels of analysis, research questions, time periods, systems, theories, etc.), and think about a research path that cuts across a column, a row, or (to sample the space) a diagonal. If I were to do this for my tenure case, it feels like most of the cells should be filled in, at least some.

[9] Unless you’re in a clearly systems areas, though, focusing on systems runs the risk of pigeonholing you. You probably want to study recommender systems, not GroupLens; crisis informatics, not Katrina; collaboration, not Wikipedia; crowd work, not Mechanical Turk. I know that some people think of me as a “Wikipedia guy”, and that’s part of my story, but only part.

[10] The contrapositive is not true; if work isn’t funded, it still might be important and impactful. There are lots of ways to not get funding.

[11] Again, the contrapositive isn’t true; some disciplines and traditions value solo research more than my home area of HCI, and some people are just more comfy working alone and don’t seek collaborators.

[11a] Folks who are creating or colonizing quite new areas may find it useful to do a bunch of community-building through workshops, special issues, and the like to build and connect to fellow travelers.

[12] Here, unfortunately, the contrapositive is more plausible: you do want your work to be cited.

[13] Who has enough impact that, at least as I was writing this, if you typo her name to “danah body” Google will give you a “Did you mean: danah boyd”.

[14] FYI, although this is a true answer to kind of “Where do you see yourself in N years” question that you might get asked during a job interview, it is not a good answer. This I can attest from personal experience.

[15] Not many citations though, which was a little surprising, because that could both help ground the work and suggest appropriate tenure letter writers.

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Very helpful – thank you so much for taking the time to share this.

Welcome and hopefully it’s actually useful down the road. If so, feel free to share with your friends. 🙂

thanks a ton. Nice post, great for centering my mind around this daunting task! Merci! -Chris @whiteliesbook

Yeah, good point on making clear what the request is, and when it’s needed. A post on making effective requests would be pretty useful. slope game

Crafting a compelling research statement for the tenure process involves more than just presenting a glorified annotated bibliography. Your emphasis on demonstrating the impact of your work within the broader research community is crucial. The chronological organization of your research reminds me of the online help I got at https://customwriting.com/buy-research-paper resource where experts supported arguments by thematic areas, effectively illustrates the evolution and depth of your contributions. Incorporating evidence of impact, such as grant funding, collaboration, and workshops, adds a layer of validation that extends beyond the academic sphere. While future potential and the broader significance of your work could receive more attention, your insights into constructing an impactful research narrative are valuable for academics.

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/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="writing of research statement"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Writing your research statement, set yourself apart.

Most reviewers volunteer their time. Faced with a huge pile of applications, they’ll move quickly and won’t take time to search out hidden answers.

In reviewing your application, the reader will scan for clear answers to three questions:

• What new knowledge will be generated for the discipline?
• Why is it valuable?
• How can they be assured the conclusions will be valid?

You want to make sure that the reviewer will be left with something to remember: a message that will remain after reading many other proposals. Make sure your proposal is clear and has a strong opening paragraph that will grab the reader’s attention. Your statement should tell a compelling story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Avoid jargon

Always keep in mind that reviewers may not be experts in your particular research area. It is essential that you couch your proposal in language and a narrative that will be accessible to an intelligent but non-specialized reviewer. In particular, don’t use jargon. Eliminate any theoretical discourse that is only accessible to those trained in your area.

Keep the spotlight on ideas

Start with a subject that interests you – a research proposal or a question – and develop a good proposal around it. Don’t worry if your proposed research project isn’t the “hot” topic in the field right now. In fact, an off-the-beaten-path project may stand out among all the other applications.

Show the reviewer that you are ready to take on the challenge of independent research; that you have not only a strong foundation for research as evidenced by a knowledge of the core scholarly publications in your discipline, but also that you possess the creativity, passion, and drive that will take you from more passive learning to active invention and hypothesis. Be clear about how you will undertake the research and how you will analyze the results. Argue why you think this is the best approach to the problem.

Explain which approaches are standard and which are innovative. The way you formulate your questions and describe how you will address them will reveal a lot to the review committee about your thought processes.

Your proposal is not the same as a final plan

If you’re a first-year student, remember that you’re writing a proposal: you are not committed to following the exact path you establish in your proposal. Most funding agencies expect that your project will change as you get underway. The important thing is to show that you’ll be capable of carrying out research in the discipline area proposed given the resources available to you.

Applying for dissertation-year fellowships

If you’re applying for a dissertation-year fellowship, the bar has been raised. Given your breadth of experience, the reviewers will expect to see more from you than they will from a first-year student. Reviewers will want to see that you’ve taken an interest in your professional development by presenting at national conferences and by having publications accepted to peer-review journals or in process, so be sure to address those issues.

Discuss your research proposal with your special committee chair, your director of graduate studies, faculty in your field, and other students. If you can identify students who have had successful proposals or faculty who have served as adjudicators, ask them. It’s okay to tailor your research statement to present the version most likely to win the fellowship. Focus on the aspects of your project that are the best fit with the sponsoring agency’s stated goals for the fellowship program. If you need inspiration, check out the reference notebooks of successful applications available in 350 Caldwell Hall.

Details matter, so sweat them

Your bibliography is important. This is where you will show experts in your field that you know the discipline and that you’ve done your homework. Make sure you cover the key papers in your discipline, but don’t make the bibliography too long. Reviewers want to see that you can distinguish between the most important contributions and secondary papers. A good bibliography shows you know enough about the discipline to avoid duplicating other work.

Proof your work

Make sure that there are no typographical or grammatical errors and follow the guidelines carefully. Your statements reflect on the level of professionalism you will bring to your research. When the competition is extreme, reviewers look for clues that differentiate one application from another. Typographical errors, grammatical errors, and inattention to guidelines will create suspicion over your attention to detail and will probably result in your application being passed over.

Allow enough time

You need to be exceptional in an excellent group of applicants. A good proposal may take up to three months to develop. Write a draft, seek input from others, revise, set it aside, come back to it, revise again, seek input again. Keep working until you have a polished product. If you put in the time to make your proposal as good as it can be, it will show in the end result and your application will be more competitive.

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Writing is a big part of being a scientist, whether in the form of manuscripts, grants, reports, protocols, presentations, or even emails. However, many people look at writing as separate from science—a scientist writes, but scientists are not regarded as writers. 1 This outdated assertion means that writing and communication has been historically marginalized when it comes to training and educating new scientists. In truth, being a professional writer is part of being a scientist . 1 In today’s hypercompetitive academic environment, scientists need to be as proficient with the pen as they are with the pipette in order to showcase their work. 

Using the Active Voice

Stereotypical academic writing is rigid, dry, and mechanical, delivering prose that evokes memories of high school and undergraduate laboratory reports. The hallmark of this stereotype is passive voice overuse. In writing, the passive voice is when the action comes at the end of a clause—for example, “the book was opened”. In scientific writing, it is particularly prevalent when detailing methodologies and results. How many times have we seen something like “citric acid was added to the solution, resulting in a two-fold reduction in pH” rather than “adding citric acid to the solution reduced the pH two-fold”?

Scientists should write in the active voice as much as possible. However, the active voice tends to place much more onus on the writer’s perspective, something that scientists have historically been instructed to stay away from. For example, “we treated the cells with phenylephrine” places much more emphasis on the operator than “the cells were treated with phenylephrine.” Furthermore, pronoun usage in academic writing is traditionally discouraged, but it is much harder, especially for those with non-native English proficiency, to properly use active voice without them. 

Things are changing though, and scientists are recognizing the importance of giving themselves credit. Many major journals, including Nature , Science , PLoS One , and PNAS allow pronouns in their manuscripts, and prominent style guides such as APA even recommend using first-person pronouns, as traditional third-person writing can be ambiguous. 2 It is vital that a manuscript clearly and definitively highlights and states what the authors specifically did that was so important or novel, in contrast to what was already known. A simple “we found…” statement in the abstract and the introduction goes a long way towards giving readers the hook that they need to read further.

Keeping Sentences Simple

Writing in the active voice also makes it easier to organize manuscripts and construct arguments. Active voice uses fewer words than passive voice to explain the same concept. It also introduces argument components sequentially—subject, claim, and then evidence—whereas passive voice introduces claim and evidence before the subject. Compare, for example, “T cell abundance did not differ between wildtype and mutant mice” versus “there was no difference between wildtype and mutant mice in terms of T cell abundance.” T cell abundance, as the measured parameter, is the most important part of the sentence, but it is only introduced at the very end of the latter example.

The sequential nature of active voice therefore makes it easier to not get bogged down in overloading the reader with clauses and adhering to a general principle of “one sentence, one concept (or idea, or argument).” Consider the following sentence: 

Research on CysLT 2 R , expressed in humans in umbilical vein endothelial cells, macrophages, platelets, the cardiac Purkinje system, and coronary endothelial cells , had been hampered by a lack of selective pharmacological agents , the majority of work instead using the nonselective cysLT antagonist/partial agonist Bay-u9773 or genetic models of CysLT 2 R expression modulation) .

The core message of this sentence is that CysLT 2 R research is hampered by a lack of selective pharmacological agents, but that message is muddled by the presence of two other major pieces of information: where CysLT 2 R is expressed and what researchers used to study CysLT 2 R instead of selective pharmacological agents. Because this sentence contains three main pieces of information, it is better to break it up into three separate sentences for clarity.

In humans, CysLT 2 R is expressed in umbilical vein endothelial cells, macrophages, platelets, the cardiac Purkinje system, and coronary endothelial cells . CysLT 2 R research has been hampered by a lack of selective pharmacological agents . Instead, the majority of work investigating the receptor has used either the nonselective cysLT antagonist/partial agonist Bay-u9773 or genetic models of CysLT 2 R expression modulation.

The Right Way to Apply Jargon

There is another key advantage to organizing sentences in this simple manner: it lets scientists manage how jargon is introduced to the reader. Jargon—special words used within a specific field or on a specific topic—is necessary in scientific writing. It is critical for succinctly describing key elements and explaining key concepts. But too much jargon can make a manuscript unreadable, either because the reader does not understand the terminology or because they are bogged down in reading all of the definitions. 

The key to using jargon is to make it as easy as possible for the audience. General guidelines instruct writers to define new terms only when they are first used. However, it is cumbersome for a reader to backtrack considerable distances in a manuscript to look up a definition. If a term is first introduced in the introduction but not mentioned again until the discussion, the writer should re-define the term in a more casual manner. For example: “PI3K can be reversibly inhibited by LY294002 and irreversibly inhibited by wortmannin” in the introduction, accompanied by “when we applied the PI3K inhibitor LY294002” for the discussion. This not only makes things easier for the reader, but it also re-emphasizes what the scientist did and the results they obtained.

Practice Makes Better

Finally, the most important fundamental for science writing is to not treat it like a chore or a nuisance. Just as a scientist optimizes a bench assay through repeated trial and error, combined with literature reviews on what steps others have implemented, a scientist should practice, nurture, and hone their writing skills through repeated drafting, editing, and consultation. Do not be afraid to write. Putting pen to paper can help organize one’s thoughts, expose next steps for exploration, or even highlight additional experiments required to patch knowledge or logic gaps in existing studies. 

Looking for more information on scientific writing? Check out The Scientist’s TS SciComm  section. Looking for some help putting together a manuscript, a figure, a poster, or anything else? The Scientist’s Scientific Services  may have the professional help that you need.

• Schimel J. Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited And Proposals That Get Funded . Oxford University Press; 2012.
• First-person pronouns. American Psychological Association. Updated July 2022. Accessed March 2024. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/first-person-pronouns  

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Research statements for faculty job applications

The purpose of a research statement.

The main goal of a research statement is to walk the search committee through the evolution of your research, to highlight your research accomplishments, and to show where your research will be taking you next. To a certain extent, the next steps that you identify within your statement will also need to touch on how your research could benefit the institution to which you are applying. This might be in terms of grant money, faculty collaborations, involving students in your research, or developing new courses. Your CV will usually show a search committee where you have done your research, who your mentors have been, the titles of your various research projects, a list of your papers, and it may provide a very brief summary of what some of this research involves. However, there can be certain points of interest that a CV may not always address in enough detail.

• What got you interested in this research?
• What was the burning question that you set out to answer?
• What challenges did you encounter along the way, and how did you overcome these challenges?
• How can your research be applied?
• Why is your research important within your field?
• What direction will your research take you in next, and what new questions do you have?

While you may not have a good sense of where your research will ultimately lead you, you should have a sense of some of the possible destinations along the way. You want to be able to show a search committee that your research is moving forward and that you are moving forward along with it in terms of developing new skills and knowledge. Ultimately, your research statement should complement your cover letter, CV, and teaching philosophy to illustrate what makes you an ideal candidate for the job. The more clearly you can articulate the path your research has taken, and where it will take you in the future, the more convincing and interesting it will be to read.

Separate research statements are usually requested from researchers in engineering, social, physical, and life sciences, but can also be requested for researchers in the humanities. In many cases, however, the same information that is covered in the research statement is often integrated into the cover letter for many disciplines within the humanities and no separate research statement is requested within the job advertisement. Seek advice from current faculty and new hires about the conventions of your discipline if you are in doubt.

Timeline: Getting Started with your Research Statement

You can think of a research statement as having three distinct parts. The first part will focus on your past research, and can include the reasons you started your research, an explanation as to why the questions you originally asked are important in your field, and a summary some of the work you did to answer some of these early questions.

The middle part of the research statement focuses on your current research. How is this research different from previous work you have done, and what brought you to where you are today? You should still explain the questions you are trying to ask, and it is very important that you focus on some of the findings that you have (and cite some of the publications associated with these findings). In other words, do not talk about your research in abstract terms, make sure that you explain your actual results and findings (even if these may not be entirely complete when you are applying for faculty positions), and mention why these results are significant.

The final part of your research statement should build on the first two parts. Yes, you have asked good questions, and used good methods to find some answers, but how will you now use this foundation to take you into your future? Since you are hoping that your future will be at one of the institutions to which you are applying, you should provide some convincing reasons why your future research will be possible at each institution, and why it will be beneficial to that institution, or to the students at that institution.

While you are focusing on the past, present, and future or your research, and tailoring it to each institution, you should also think about the length of your statement and how detailed or specific you make the descriptions of your research. Think about who will be reading it. Will they all understand the jargon you are using? Are they experts in the subject, or experts in a range of related subjects? Can you go into very specific detail, or do you need to talk about your research in broader terms that make sense to people outside of your research field focusing on the common ground that might exist? Additionally, you should make sure that your future research plans differ from those of your PI or advisor, as you need to be seen as an independent researcher. Identify 4-5 specific aims that can be divided into short-term and long-term goals. You can give some idea of a 5-year research plan that includes the studies you want to perform, but also mention your long-term plans, so that the search committee knows that this is not a finite project.

Another important consideration when writing about your research is realizing that you do not perform research in a vacuum. When doing your research you may have worked within a team environment at some point, or sought out specific collaborations. You may have faced some serious challenges that required some creative problem-solving to overcome. While these aspects are not necessarily as important as your results and your papers or patents, they can help paint a picture of you as a well-rounded researcher who is likely to be successful in the future even if new problems arise, for example.

Follow these general steps to begin developing an effective research statement:

Step 1: Think about how and why you got started with your research. What motivated you to spend so much time on answering the questions you developed? If you can illustrate some of the enthusiasm you have for your subject, the search committee will likely assume that students and other faculty members will see this in you as well. People like to work with passionate and enthusiastic colleagues. Remember to focus on what you found, what questions you answered, and why your findings are significant. The research you completed in the past will have brought you to where you are today; also be sure to show how your research past and research present are connected. Explore some of the techniques and approaches you have successfully used in your research, and describe some of the challenges you overcame. What makes people interested in what you do, and how have you used your research as a tool for teaching or mentoring students? Integrating students into your research may be an important part of your future research at your target institutions. Conclude describing your current research by focusing on your findings, their importance, and what new questions they generate.

Step 2: Think about how you can tailor your research statement for each application. Familiarize yourself with the faculty at each institution, and explore the research that they have been performing. You should think about your future research in terms of the students at the institution. What opportunities can you imagine that would allow students to get involved in what you do to serve as a tool for teaching and training them, and to get them excited about your subject? Do not talk about your desire to work with graduate students if the institution only has undergraduates! You will also need to think about what equipment or resources that you might need to do your future research. Again, mention any resources that specific institutions have that you would be interested in utilizing (e.g., print materials, super electron microscopes, archived artwork). You can also mention what you hope to do with your current and future research in terms of publication (whether in journals or as a book), try to be as specific and honest as possible. Finally, be prepared to talk about how your future research can help bring in grants and other sources of funding, especially if you have a good track record of receiving awards and fellowships. Mention some grants that you know have been awarded to similar research, and state your intention to seek this type of funding.

Step 3: Ask faculty in your department if they are willing to share their own research statements with you. To a certain extent, there will be some subject-specific differences in what is expected from a research statement, and so it is always a good idea to see how others in your field have done it. You should try to draft your own research statement first before you review any statements shared with you. Your goal is to create a unique research statement that clearly highlights your abilities as a researcher.

Step 4: The research statement is typically a few (2-3) pages in length, depending on the number of images, illustrations, or graphs included.  Once you have completed the steps above, schedule an appointment with a career advisor to get feedback on your draft. You should also try to get faculty in your department to review your document if they are willing to do so.

Explore other application documents:

• Developing a Research Question

by acburton | Mar 22, 2024 | Resources for Students , Writing Resources

Selecting your research question and creating a clear goal and structure for your writing can be challenging – whether you are doing it for the first time or if you’ve done it many times before. It can be especially difficult when your research question starts to look and feel a little different somewhere between your first and final draft. Don’t panic! It’s normal for your research question to change a little (or even quite a bit) as you move through and engage with the writing process. Anticipating this can remind you to stay on track while you work and that it’ll be okay even if the literature takes you in a different direction.

What Makes an Effective Research Question?

The most effective research question will usually be a critical thinking question and should use “how” or “why” to ensure it can move beyond a yes/no or one-word type of answer. Consider how your research question can aim to reveal something new, fill in a gap, even if small, and contribute to the field in a meaningful way; How might the proposed project move knowledge forward about a particular place or process? This should be specific and achievable!

The CEWC’s Grad Writing Consultant Tariq says, “I definitely concentrated on those aspects of what I saw in the field where I believed there was an opportunity to move the discipline forward.”

General Tips

Do your research.

Utilize the librarians at your university and take the time to research your topic first. Try looking at very general sources to get an idea of what could be interesting to you before you move to more academic articles that support your rough idea of the topic. It is important that research is grounded in what you see or experience regarding the topic you have chosen and what is already known in the literature. Spend time researching articles, books, etc. that supports your thesis. Once you have a number of sources that you know support what you want to write about, formulate a research question that serves as the interrogative form of your thesis statement.

Grad Writing Consultant Deni advises, “Delineate your intervention in the literature (i.e., be strategic about the literature you discuss and clear about your contributions to it).”

Start Broadly…. then Narrow Your Topic Down to Something Manageable

When brainstorming your research question, let your mind veer toward connections or associations that you might have already considered or that seem to make sense and consider if new research terms, language or concepts come to mind that may be interesting or exciting for you as a researcher. Sometimes testing out a research question while doing some preliminary researching is also useful to see if the language you are using or the direction you are heading toward is fruitful when trying to search strategically in academic databases. Be prepared to focus on a specific area of a broad topic.

Writing Consultant Jessie recommends outlining: “I think some rough outlining with a research question in mind can be helpful for me. I’ll have a research question and maybe a working thesis that I feel may be my claim to the research question based on some preliminary materials, brainstorming, etc.” — Jessie, CEWC Writing Consultant

Try an Exercise

In the earliest phase of brainstorming, try an exercise suggested by CEWC Writing Specialist, Percival! While it is normally used in classroom or workshop settings, this exercise can easily be modified for someone working alone. The flow of the activity, if done within a group setting, is 1) someone starts with an idea, 2) three other people share their idea, and 3) the starting person picks two of these new ideas they like best and combines their original idea with those. The activity then begins again with the idea that was not chosen. The solo version of this exercise substitutes a ‘word bank,’ created using words, topics, or ideas similar to your broad, overarching theme. Pick two words or phrases from your word bank, combine it with your original idea or topic, and ‘start again’ with two different words. This serves as a replacement for different people’s suggestions. Ideas for your ‘word bank’ can range from vague prompts about mapping or webbing (e.g., where your topic falls within the discipline and others like it), to more specific concepts that come from tracing the history of an idea (its past, present, future) or mapping the idea’s related ideas, influences, etc. Care for a physics analogy? There is a particle (your topic) that you can describe, a wave that the particle traces, and a field that the particle is mapped on.

Get Feedback and Affirm Your Confidence!

Creating a few different versions of your research question (they may be the same topic/issue/theme or differ slightly) can be useful during this process. Sharing these with trusted friends, colleagues, mentors, (or tutors!) and having conversations about your questions and ideas with other people can help you decide which version you may feel most confident or interested in. Ask colleagues and mentors to share their research questions with you to get a lot of examples. Once you have done the work of developing an effective research question, do not forget to affirm your confidence! Based on your working thesis, think about how you might organize your chapters or paragraphs and what resources you have for supporting this structure and organization. This can help boost your confidence that the research question you have created is effective and fruitful.

Be Open to Change

Remember, your research question may change from your first to final draft. For questions along the way, make an appointment with the Writing Center. We are here to help you develop an effective and engaging research question and build the foundation for a solid research paper!

Example 1: In my field developing a research question involves navigating the relationship between 1) what one sees/experiences at their field site and 2) what is already known in the literature. During my preliminary research, I found that the financial value of land was often a matter of precisely these cultural factors. So, my research question ended up being: How do the social and material qualities of land entangle with processes of financialization in the city of Lahore. Regarding point #1, this question was absolutely informed by what I saw in the field. But regarding point #2, the question was also heavily shaped by the literature. – Tariq

Example 2: A research question should not be a yes/no question like “Is pollution bad?”; but an open-ended question where the answer has to be supported with reasons and explanation. The question also has to be narrowed down to a specific topic—using the same example as before—”Is pollution bad?” can be revised to “How does pollution affect people?” I would encourage students to be more specific then; e.g., what area of pollution do you want to talk about: water, air, plastic, climate change… what type of people or demographic can we focus on? …how does this affect marginalized communities, minorities, or specific areas in California? After researching and deciding on a focus, your question might sound something like: How does government policy affect water pollution and how does it affect the marginalized communities in the state of California? -Janella

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Politicians may rail against the ‘deep state,’ but research shows federal workers are effective and committed, not subversive

Associate Professor of Sociology, Hamilton College

Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs Emeritus, Indiana University

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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It’s common for political candidates to disparage “the government” even as they run for an office in which they would be part of, yes, running the government.

Often, what they’re referring to is what we , as scholars of the inner workings of democracy, call “the administrative state.” At times, these critics use a label of collective distrust and disapproval for government workers that sounds more sinister: “ the deep state .”

Most people, however, don’t know what government workers do, why they do it or how the government selects them in the first place.

Our years of research about the people who work in the federal government finds that they care deeply about their work, aiding the public and pursuing the stability and integrity of government.

Most of them are devoted civil servants. Across hundreds of interviews and surveys of people who have made their careers in government, what stands out most to us is their commitment to civic duty without regard to partisan politics.

From spoils to merit

From the country’s founding through 1883, the U.S. federal government relied on what was called a “ spoils system ” to hire staff. The system got its name from the expression “to the victor goes the spoils.” A newly elected president would distribute government jobs to people who helped him win election.

This system had two primary defects: First, vast numbers of federal jobholders could be displaced every four or eight years; second, many of the new arrivals had no qualifications or experience for the jobs to which they were appointed.

Problems resulting from these defects were smaller than modern Americans might expect, because at that time the federal government was much smaller than it is today and had less to do with Americans’ everyday lives. This method had its defenders, including President Andrew Jackson, who believed that government tasks were relatively simple and anyone could do them.

But even so, the spoils system meant government was not as effective as it could have been – and as the people justifiably expected it to be.

In 1881, President James Garfield was assassinated by a man who believed he deserved a government job because of his support for Garfield but didn’t get one. The assassination led to bipartisan passage in Congress of the Pendleton Act of 1883 .

The law brought sweeping change. It introduced for the first time principles of merit in government hiring: Appointment and advancement were tied to workers’ competence, not their political loyalties or connections. To protect civil servants from political interference, they were given job security: Grounds for firing now revolve around poor performance or misconduct, rather than being a supporter of whichever political party lost the last election.

Nearly 3 million career civil servants continue to have these protections today. New presidents still get to hire roughly 4,000 political appointees with fewer protections.

As a result of these changes and related reforms in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 , the U.S. government is far more effective today than it was prior to the Pendleton Act.

In fact, U.S. civil service institutions, built on merit-based appointments, merit-based advancement and security of employment, have become the standard for democratic governments around the globe. U.S. federal workers are generally high-performing, impartial and minimally corrupt compared with other countries’ civil servants.

Increasing government responsibilities

Since 1776, the U.S. population has increased from about 2.5 million people to over 330 million today . With its growing size and with technological advances, the federal government now provides a great many services, including protecting its citizens from complex environmental, health and international threats.

Environmental Protection Agency employees help maintain clean air and water and clean up toxic waste dumps to protect human health. Department of Energy scientists and managers oversee the treatment and disposal of radioactive nuclear waste from our weapons program and power plants. National Park Service staff manage over 85 million acres of public land across all 50 states . The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s forecasters’ advance detection of potential weather emergencies enable early warnings and evacuations from high-risk areas, which has saved countless lives .

Federal Emergency Management Agency employees aid survivors of natural disasters. That agency also subsidizes flood insurance, making home insurance available in flood-prone areas. The U.S. government additionally provides billions of dollars in subsidies per year to support farmers and maintain food security.

These programs are all administered by government employees: environmental scientists, lawyers, analysts, diplomats, security officers, postal workers, engineers, foresters, doctors and many other specialized career civil servants. Andrew Jackson’s idea of government work no longer applies: You do not want just anyone managing hazardous waste, sending a space shuttle into orbit or managing public lands constituting one-third of the country’s territory .

A dedicated workforce

Research, including our own, shows that these workers are not self-serving elites but rather dedicated and committed public servants.

That’s generally true even of Internal Revenue Service staffers, postal service clerks and other bureaucratic functionaries who may not earn much public respect. Federal employees mirror demographics in the United States and are hired, trained and legally obligated to uphold the Constitution and serve the public interest .

One of us, Jaime Kucinskas, with sociologist and law professor Yvonne Zylan , tracked the experiences of dozens of federal employees across the EPA, Department of Health and Human Services, State Department, Department of Interior, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and various other agencies during the Trump administration. That research found these workers were dedicated to serving the public and the Constitution, upholding the missions of their agencies and democracy, and working to support leadership and the elected president .

Even though 80% of the centrist and Democratic Party-leaning government workers they spoke with did not believe in the ideas behind the Trump presidency, they were careful to follow legal official orders from the administration.

They noted the importance of speaking up while leaders deliberated what to do. After political appointees and supervisors made their decisions, however, even the civil servants who most valued speaking truth to power acknowledged, “Then it’s time to execute,” as one State Department employee told Kucinskas. “As career professionals we have an obligation to carry out lawful instructions, even if we don’t fully agree with it.”

Another international affairs expert told Kucinskas, “People have voted and this is where we’re at. And we’re not going to change things. We don’t do that here.” He said if political appointees “want to do what you consider bad decisions … we do our best to give more information. … And if they still decide to do (it), then we say okay, that’s what we’re going to do.”

He was firm in this loyal and deferential position to the elected president and his administration in 2018 and again in a 2020 follow-up interview. “If you want to be an advocate, you can leave and work in a different sector,” he concluded.

Some decided to do just that: More than a quarter of the upper-level government workers Kucinskas spoke with left their positions during the Trump administration. Although exits typically rise during presidential transitions, they typically remain under 10% , making this degree of high-level exits unusually high.

Even as many Americans express frustration with the president, Congress and the federal government as a whole , however, we believe it is important not to take for granted what federal government workers are doing well. U.S. citizens benefit from effective federal services, thanks in part because the government hires and rewards civil servants because of their merit rather than loyalty.

• civil service
• Federal civil service
• US Constitution
• US Environmental Protection Agency
• Andrew Jackson
• US government
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• US Department of Energy
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Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind and Inflection Co-founder, joins Microsoft to lead Copilot

Mar 19, 2024 | Microsoft Corporate Blogs

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Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, shared the below communication today with Microsoft employees.

I want to share an exciting and important organizational update today. We are in Year 2 of the AI platform shift and must ensure we have the capability and capacity to boldly innovate.

There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. Let us use this opportunity to build world-class AI products, like Copilot, that are loved by end-users! This is about science, engineering, product, and design coming together and embracing a learning mindset to push our innovation culture and product building process forward in fundamental ways.

In that context, I’m very excited to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan are joining Microsoft to form a new organization called Microsoft AI, focused on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research.

Mustafa will be EVP and CEO, Microsoft AI, and joins the senior leadership team (SLT), reporting to me. Karén is joining this group as Chief Scientist, reporting to Mustafa. I’ve known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions.

Karén, a Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Inflection, is a renowned AI researcher and thought leader, who has led the development of some of the biggest AI breakthroughs over the past decade including AlphaZero.

Several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft. They include some of the most accomplished AI engineers, researchers, and builders in the world. They have designed, led, launched, and co-authored many of the most important contributions in advancing AI over the last five years. I am excited for them to contribute their knowledge, talent, and expertise to our consumer AI research and product making.

At our core, we have always been a platform and partner-led company, and we’ll continue to bring that sensibility to all we do. Our AI innovation continues to build on our most strategic and important partnership with OpenAI. We will continue to build AI infrastructure inclusive of custom systems and silicon work in support of OpenAI’s foundation model roadmap, and also innovate and build products on top of their foundation models. And today’s announcement further reinforces our partnership construct and principles.

As part of this transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge; and Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team will move to report to Mustafa. These teams are at the vanguard of innovation at Microsoft, bringing a new entrant energy and ethos, to a changing consumer product landscape driven by the AI platform shift. These organizational changes will help us double down on this innovation.

Kevin Scott continues as CTO and EVP of AI, responsible for all-up AI strategy, including all system architecture decisions, partnerships, and cross-company orchestration. Kevin was the first person I leaned on to help us manage our transformation to an AI-first company and I’ll continue to lean on him to ensure that our AI strategy and initiatives are coherent across the breadth of Microsoft.

Rajesh Jha continues as EVP of Experiences & Devices and I’m grateful for his leadership as he continues to build out Copilot for Microsoft 365, partnering closely with Mustafa and team.

There are no other changes to the senior leadership team or other organizations.

We have been operating with speed and intensity and this infusion of new talent will enable us to accelerate our pace yet again.

We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly. I’m looking forward to doing so with you.

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