Our research indicates that the key concern of students as they begin their thesis process is choosing a topic. One reason for this is that novice researchers tend to put a limitation on how they generate ideas. They are inclined to look internally, rather than externally, searching in their own brain for subjects and areas to focus on.
An alternative option is to draw on the collective brains of others. This technique is known as ‘intellectual pinching’! It involves taking a structured approach to noticing the main, external opportunities and threats that an individual, team, organisation, sector or country, faces. It is best to rely on an established internet browser tool, such as Google Analytics, to ascertain these key contextual issues. Search using broad phrases like ‘business trends in X sector 2022’. Your collated insights can then be converted into a realistic research topic.
Here are two examples of ‘intellectual pinching’ our expert team of leading academics have used when guiding research students in recent months.
Yvonne is in the final year of her BSc in Agricultural Economics degree at a UK university. She is planning to complete her thesis over the summer months. Her initial idea was that she would like to base her research on one of the major external changes affecting managers in the agribusinesses in Scotland. Working with her, using a structured and systematic search on Microsoft Edge, our results directed us to the websites of some the world’s largest consulting firms. We found numerous reports on the environmental challenges that such firms predict will impact organisations over the next decade. Yvonne used one such report from Deloitte about food security to identify a topic related to her studies. The report suggested that the world’s food systems should be inclusive, sustainable, efficient and nutritious. Yvonne felt that in a post-Covid, post-Brexit, trading environment, most Scotland-based agribusiness managers would need to pay more attention to these four policy goals. She is now exploring the extant literature on the topic. Her core research question is to examine the preparedness of the agribusinesses in Scotland to produce nutritious cheese-based food, enabling the consumption of a diverse range of healthy and safe snacks.
A postgraduate, part-time student, Peter, works as a technician at a large, coal-fired power station in Indiana, USA. He is studying for an MBA, which he hopes will give him the opportunity to be promoted into a management position. When helping Peter to search for relevant industry research, we retrieved leading-edge studies about the energy industry. We found that hydro-cracking – the splitting of water (H2O) into hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) to provide energy – was being mentioned increasingly in trend reports. Reading around the topic, Peter found that historically hydrogen cracking has been technically feasible, but uncommercial. The main reason for this is that hydrogen cracking currently involves using processes that require more energy to be put in than is taken out. Recent scientific breakthroughs with new solar heat collecting materials, however, have the potential to reverse this. Using new materials could mean that less energy goes into hydrogen cracking than comes out. Over the next decade, it is likely that power companies will be able to use these new materials on large-scale solar panels to produce cheaper, cleaner energy. Peter is now investigating the feasibility of basing his consultancy project on whether his employer could retrofit the existing oil-fired power station to make use of this novel source of energy production as it comes on stream.
With thesis or dissertation research, you do not always have to think of an original idea yourself. As Isaac Newton said, ‘if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. His statement is often used to symbolise scientific progress. Just as the space race gave us innovative products, such as wireless headsets and insulin pumps, your research can build on the groundwork laid done by others. You could, for instance, explore how best to market an existing product or service to a new customer base in an emerging market, or examine the feasibility of implementing an established policy from Head Office to a regional office. So, if you are still stuck for an idea for your thesis or dissertation, remember to use intellectual pinching to generate a topic.
Alternatively, you could buy our downloadable Developing Your Research Proposal Toolbook for immediate use. This informative handbook contains useful activities and practical checklists that help build your skills to develop a realistic, and feasible, research proposal.