Academic Competencies for PhD Proposal Development

This course is designed for PhD students from various disciplines who want to strengthen their skills in developing and writing a PhD research proposal. Although disciplines vary in research content, their broad approach in terms of operational steps in the research process is similar, addressing questions such as what to research (decide) and why (justify) and how to do the research (design and plan). This course will concentrate on the following steps in research proposal development: generating innovative research ideas, reviewing the literature, formulating a research problem that it is clearly linked to the research questions or objectives, developing a conceptual framework that captures the information needed to answer the research questions, and conceptualizing a research design that covers research methodologies for each of your research questions.

Course Format 

• Dates: 19-30 January 2026  
• Attendance: In-person 
• Form of tuition: In-class lectures and self-study 
• Form of assessment: Individual pitch presentation 
• Language of instruction: English 

Course Level 

• Level: PhD candidates 
• English language requirement: B2 level or higher (equivalent to IELTS 6.5) 

Workload 

• Credits: Equivalent to 3 ECTS 
• Contact hours: 24 
• Self-study hours: 60