Prof.
Scott Campbell (home page) |
Sample Research Proposals (for a class project) |
Below are two examples of a proposal. (I wrote them as examples for another class: Tech Clusters and Smart Cities, so the specific themes are high tech and urban economics -- but the elements of the proposal are still relevant.)
Elements of your individual project proposal: |
example (NOTE: these are rather short, abbreviated answers. For your actual proposal, you will likely have longer, more detailed answers for one or more of these sections.) Note: you can either use this sample table as a template or instead organize your proposal in a format that works for you and your project. |
| title | The historical and contemporary role of defense spending in Silicon Valley |
| names of student(s) in the group | Robert McNamara* [*a name worth googling, for the history of US military, the Detroit auto industry and the World Bank. A former Ann Arbor resident.] |
central question(s) that guide your project research. (For this solo project, your research and/or policy question is critical, so think carefully about your question.) Note: one optional strategy is to ask one major research question, and then pose several subquestions that either further elaborate the main question and/or break the main question into several (more easily answerable) components. |
Does military spending (in the form of defense contracting) still play a significant role in the funding of high tech innovative work in Silicon Valley? (Subquestions: a. If so, how can this be measured, e.g., in terms of contract dollars, employment, etc.? b. What sectors are most supported by defense dollars? c. More broadly, can one gauge the impact of contemporary defense spending on the trajectory of technological development in the Valley?) |
| context of project (that is, put your specific case study and question in a larger context of course readings, outside readings, scholarly or public debates/controversies; etc.) | Military contracts played a significant role in the early history of Silicon Valley, providing demand for products that didn't yet have a civilian market and/or the initial price of such technologies was too high to generate much civilian demand. Such technologies included early radio technologies, vacuum tubes, oscilloscopes, computers (including components such as chips), etc. The commonly told story is that this military demand was important in the early years of the Valley, but that firms eventually shifted mostly to commercial markets, resulting in a much diminished dependence and influence on defense spending. (And that defense contracting exerted more influence on Southern California than Northern California in the late 20th century.). But is this historical narrative true? |
| proposal format of your final project (e.g., traditional scholarly essay; multimedia; maps/graphics; models; etc.) | An essay (with supporting data tables, and a chronology/timeline of key events in SV’s history as linked to defense contracting.) |
| proposed structure/content (i.e., a table of contents) | 1. Introduction and central questions |
| your methods -- that is, the steps of your work (e.g., analysis of the literature; field work; observation; interviews, either in person or remote; etc.) | 1. conduct an initial literature review, focusing on such key words as “Silicon Valley,” “defense contracting,” “Military spending,” as well as keyword searches using specific defense technologies and Silicon Valley firms. (Building on the initial list of citations below) 2. Explore what data sources are available, both public and private, on defense contracting (and understand how much this data is public, and how it is counted — e.g., in annual contract amounts, etc.). 3. Develop a chronology of the major defense contract-related events in Silicon Valley. 4. Develop a list of the major defense contractors in SV, ideally broken down by technology/product. 5. If possible, create a data table (and chart) of total defense contract amounts in SV by year (and thus a simple measure of “defense contract dependence” over time). 6. If possible, identify some possible interview subjects (either in the industry, trade group, academic or journalist or non-profit) to ask questions about SV’s continued role in defense contracting and the impact on the direction of SV’s development. |
| your initial hypothesis/expected results (that is, what do you expect to find? Note: you certainly don't need to make an accurate prediction, but it can be useful to put it down on paper what you are either expecting -- or hoping -- to find, or not find.) | I am not sure what I will find, though I expect to find a relative decline in SV’s defense contracts over much of the late 20th century (either because defense contracts eventually were more widely distributed across the country or because the commercial market for SV technologies grew rapidly and thus the percent of revenues from defense contracting declined). That said, I might also expect a surprisingly large amount of defense contracts that still go to SV. If so, do we therefore underestimate the ongoing role of military technology as part of SV? If true, do we not fully appreciate the ongoing role of defense spending in Silicon Valley because (a) it still is a rather small percent of total SV revenue (as compared to commercial markets) or (b) because unless you are involved in defense contracting, most people are much more conscious of SV's commercial market side? |
an initial list of source materials (i.e., a bibliography, including journal articles, newspaper articles, books, web pages, government documents, etc.) Note: this provides the opportunity to:
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selected publications (scholarly, journalistic and business/trade texts on Silicon Valley firms and defense contracting) include:
other sources include:
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| Briefly list any concerns you may have about doing this project (e.g., the scale and scope, finding materials, language issues -- e.g., researching an international city where most materials are not in a language you know). | There are potentially lots of concerns: • some important data might not be publicly available. (e.g., proprietary) • Is defense contract data listed by individual establishment/plant or firm-wide? (The latter would be a challenge if a tech firm has locations both in and outside SV, and so it would be hard to determine what share is spent in SV). • How easily can one differentiate between defense versus commercial markets (and thus buyers) of SV products? Will I be able to get a precise breakdown of defense vs. commercial revenues? • In my research question (above), I am interested in both finding out the size of defense contracts to Silicon Valley and also the contemporary impact of defense contracting on the development trajectory of Silicon Valley and its technologies. The former is a quantitative question (as long as I can get the data). But the latter is a more interpretive, analytical if not institutional question. How much will I be able to say about this question? • I may be asking too huge a question for one semester! I may need to scale back my project: e.g., look at one aspect of this question, or one firm or technology, etc. Or I may be better able to answer the historical question about past defense contracting in SV (e.g., up through, say, 1990 or 2010) but not be able to take this analysis up to the present day. [editor’s note: that’s fine to be historical] |
Note: this was for an in-class presentation (with no written final product).
Elements of your presentation proposal (note, some of these sections might be quite short, others more detailed). Please aim to be concise and avoid repetition across sections. |
example (hypothetical -- but based on some previous research I did) -- NOTE: my answers below might be shorter or longer than what you find need to describe your proposed case study. |
| title | Berlin: is the former center of European electronic high tech sectors reemerging (after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989) as a thriving tech center? |
| names of student in the group | Max Reinhardt, Lotte Lenya |
| a precise description of the case study (e.g., the geography and/or the technology and/or tech sector); if useful, also describe the relevant time period (e.g., contemporary, or what historical period, etc.) | Location: the city of Berlin, and where useful, include the surrounding suburbs. Two time periods: to provide historical context, we briefly examine the dominant role that Berlin played as a center of both electricity technology and communications technology from the mid 1800s to the 1930s; we then examine the post-1989 era when the wall is removed, the German capital returns to Berlin and the city begins a new era of urban revitalization and growth. |
| central question(s) that guide your project case study | To what extent is Berlin expanding its role as a thriving high tech sector? If so, in what sectors? What are the forces/factors (locational, governmental/policy, cultural, economic, etc.) that serve as either locational advantages or obstacles to the city's high tech sectors? |
| context of project (that is, put your specific case study and question in a larger context of course readings, outside readings, scholarly or public debates/controversies; etc.) | Berlin was known as Elektropolis for nearly a century (ca. 1850s-1930s), and dominated the electricity and electronics sectors in Germany and Europe. This dominance was accelerated by the city's considerable advantages as the capital of the Prussian and then (starting in 1871) the newly unified German nation, including the tight interactions between the national government, the military and tech firms (such as Siemens and AEG). With the defeat of the German Nazi Empire in 1945 and the Allied-occupied division of both Germany and Berlin, much of the city's high tech sector was either destroyed or relocated to other cities in Germany and beyond. With the end of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall (1989), and the return of the capital to Berlin (in 1999), the city and national government have embarked on a concerted effort to attract both public and private investment to the city, emphasizing the city as a center of technology and the knowledge economy. |
| proposed structure/content of your presentation. e.g., how might you organize it? What do you anticipate to be the central elements and key themes? | Our tentative sequence of topics: 1. brief introduction to the case, the question (1 minute); 2. Context/history (Berlin's old role as a tech center before WWII; Berlin's subsequent loss of this role during the cold war; the transition after 1989) (3 minutes); 3. What happened after 1989 (the fall of the wall and unification), including public and private investments in the city (5 minute); 4. answer the question: has Berlin once again become a dynamic, important European tech center? (5 minutes) 5. implications/interpretations (2 minutes) |
| your methods (e.g., analysis of the literature, field work; observation; making maps and graphics, writing text; interviews, either in person or remote; etc.) That is, describe, in simple terms, how you will prepare for your presentation? | We will search for both historical and contemporary literature on the city (both scholarly and journalistic). We will also look for useful photographs and tables/graphs/maps to illustrate our presentation (and be diligent about documenting our sources). We may also look for a short video (or a brief excerpt from a longer video) to animate the presentation (this might include a current promotional video aiming to attract tech firms or tech workers to Berlin). We will also look at government literature, web pages, etc. used to both document the tech sector and employment trends, and also examine the web sites used to attract and promote the city as a tech center. If useful, we might arrange one or several interviews with relevant people/experts in Berlin (given the distance, done remotely). Our student group will meet periodically to develop a clear structure for the presentation, and assign tasks to each member. We will use google docs etc. to share materials. |
| an initial, brief list of source materials (i.e., a bibliography, including journal articles, newspaper articles, books, web pages, government documents, etc.) For the proposal, this understandably will be a rather short and partial list. (e.g., 3-6 sources). You will no doubt find and use many more sources between the proposal and your presentation. |
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| Briefly list any concerns you may have about doing this project (e.g., the scale and scope, finding materials, language issues -- e.g., researching an international city where most materials are not in a language you know). | This is a potentially huge topic, so our main concern is to keep it focused and within the 16 minute presentation time slot. For example, how do we tell the long and complex history of Berlin as a tech city in a short period of time? Also: how do we define "tech city" and high tech firms? What sectors should we include (e.g., computers, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, etc.). Do the Germans have a distinctively different definition of "high tech" compared to the US? |
Note: here is an old but helpful essay (from the SSRC) with advice on writing proposals:
Pzreworski, Adam, and Frank Salomon, On the Art of Writing Proposals (Social Science Research Council, 1995 rev., 1988).