How do you develop a research strategy?

A research question need not be the starting point in some contexts. A social study documenting the impact of urbanisation and climate change in a region might first require immersion in the environment to gain insider knowledge of the place and the changes experienced by different segments of that community. Grounded theory is a form of hypothesis development that comes out of in-depth engagement with a place and its inhabitants. The research question or questions may emerge out of weeks or months of data collection using multiple methods, interviews, surveys, archival research, maps, oral histories, etc. The questions usually complicate or challenge prevailing views about social factors and relationships of power among different groups.

One of the most important parts of developing a research strategy is having a clearly stated hypothesis - an assumption about your research area which needs to be tested to determine whether it is true. For example, research about emergency response in Africa may begin with the hypothesis that “Most Africans don’t use emergency services because there is no number to call”. As a researcher, you want to test that hypothesis so you may decide to use a survey. By framing your survey questions correctly, you might learn that indeed, 93%* of Africans don’t call because there is no number, or that actually they don’t call because they don’t trust the response will be fast. (*Not real data) A hypothesis helps you shape your research methods.

A research question pinpoints to exactly what you want to find out. Teams often struggle with getting specific enough when developing a research question. An exercise I tend to use is to do the 5 why's exercise to help people narrow down. Lets say you choose "climate change" as your topic. WHY? Perhaps because this impacts lots of people? WHY is that important? Are you trying to understand how different impacts across groups of people? Do you want to learn more about climate change in the future? Most research questions fall into 3 categories: 1. Describing/Exploring 2. Testing something 3. Evaluating something A good research question will be focus on a single problem or issue that is feasible to conduct.

The development of the research strategy should begin with the identification of the problem that you are planning to solve. In drug discovery/development it is a typically a disease or a patient population across several indications that can be combined due to their similarity, for example on a genetic level. Next step is to define a Target Product Profile (TPP) for the modality that can be used to address the problem. Then, working "backward", an experimental part is put together in such a way that it allows reaching go/no go decisions in the most expedient manner. It is crucial to make sure that all planned experiments are technically feasible and will allow to identify the modality that matches the TPP. And then - off to the races!

Develop a clear agenda and goal of the research. Decide a timeline of the research. Be open to new ideas, observations and data. Know the parameters and resources well in advance. If required, keep a buffer time. Just do it.

Most of peer reviewed journal publications can be found on the PubMed, with a significant percentage of the manuscripts being available in full for free. More information, including poster presentations and book chapters, is available on Google Scholar. bioRvix is a good source of preprints, a place where manuscripts can be placed by authors prior to peer review.

Either build a small team that will help review with you, or join a group/community that you can share such work with and get a review back. Compile this with your own review.

Some great tips I have learnt when doing literature reviews: 1. Seek out Evidence Maps which can act as a good starting point to show you where there is (or is not) a strong body of evidence. Starting first with Metaanalyses can also reduce researcher's time. 2. Read the abstract & introduction of an article, THEN the conclusion, then go back to the rest. This helps you have a better understanding of the article's points

Don't be afraid to embrace literature across disciplines. Insights, data or methodologies from other fields is not just a way to achieve novelty for novelty's sake. In many cases, cross disciplinary work results in better outcomes.

Qualitative methods is so much more than just collecting words images or observations. This is the space where you can conduct UX research, define and co-research with participants, allowing creative freedom for participants to tell their own stories in their own words or methods. This can include videos, theatre, artistic creations.

Think about inclusion of research users at different points in the lifecycle. Participatory research methods might be worth considering when designing your research methods and even earlier, when choosing your research questions. If your research aim is to solve real world problems, involving real-world people with lived experience can really increase the chances of your research being impactful.

It is also worth mentioning that researchers can used mixed-methods, which is a combination of qualitative and quantitative. For example, the researcher can support their qualitative findings with descriptive statistics (quantitative), for example.

Take the time on the front end to think through whether and which biases are being built in to your research methods and designs. Think through how biases might limit the applicability of your findings, and whether other approaches might be preferable.

The vast majority of biomedical research relies on quantitative methods that are used to analyze the data. Modern advances in computer analysis including most recent strides in the use of AI have further moved the focus away from qualitative analysis in such fields as immunohistochemistry (IHC). Use of appropriate statistical/mathematical methods and up-to-date software can significantly improve the robustness of the research project.

In terms of data storage, research teams often fall short by not having a good method to store and then DELETE data after a fixed period of time.

There are lots of best practices out there - learn from them and then be sure to consult with your own internal experts early in your process to help you design systems that are compliant. Much easier to get it right from the get go.

Communicating findings goes beyond just writing up a 2 pager on your results and hoping someone reads them. It is critical you map out utilization of your products. Who will be interested? Why? How do you want them to use this information? For each product, it is important to think through what is the one key message you want to convey for that specific audience? Remember, your readers are lazy and busy. Given a top finding in the first 3 seconds of any video, use formats bolding and shades to highlight key facts. Don't be afraid to rehash your findings into multiple products

If you did a thorough job at the outset of your research thinking through the "why is this important" and "how will it make a difference," communicating your findings will be that much easier. The audiences who most need to see your findings will be obvious.

When developing a research strategy, it is very important to give credit to the revised literature. This means acknowledging the work of other researchers and citing their sources in your own writing. This is important for both ethical and practical reasons. So how do you do that? Use a citation management tool. A citation management tool can help you to keep track of your sources and generate citations in the correct format. Cite all of your sources. This includes both direct and indirect sources. A direct source is a source that you have quoted directly from. An indirect source is a source that you have paraphrased or summarized. Give credit to both the authors of the original papers and the authors of the revised papers.