From Chaos to Focus: How to develop your own research plan in academia

'From chaos to focus’ (Fc2F) targets Early Career Researchers including PhD students and postdoctoral fellows who want to make their research ideas more tangible and focused on the subject(s) that really make(s) their heart tick.

The point of departure for the workshop is the chaos in your head about all the fun subjects you would like to work on. Using interactive exercises we will progress from this chaos to your personal storyboard and a draft strategic plan that will assist you in advancing to the next stage, writing your personal project proposal. If you do not know yet whether you want to continue in academia, the assignments in the workshop are still useful, as in a career outside academia you will likely be exposed to similar decision making moments while you have your head full of ideas.

Being able to incorporate your rough ideas into a project focus can effectively result in a concrete plan when you know whom to turn to for support. Finally, making your future proposal more convincing relates to knowing who is going to judge the project, what these judges (people or organizations) are looking for, and how they arrive at their judgement, i.e., knowing their benchmarks.

In between the two workshops, you are expected to work on two assignments that are related to writing your own grant proposal in the future, and can also be applied to proposal writing in a non-academic career setting.

From Chaos to Focus is part 2 of a three-part series on grant writing for PhD students and Postdocs:

• Part 1: Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing
• Part 3: Rubicon Grant Writing

(All courses can be taken separately as well.)

Format

The course consists of two 4-hour sessions and two assignments in between. The investment is approximately 18 hours (including assignments between the 2 workshops).

Learning goals

• Learn about your professional strengths as a junior researcher, and personal and professional features that can be/should be strengthened to further a scientific career.
• Learn how to use the ‘project story board’ to identify which subjects of your research could best be pursued, and on what considerations such a decision is based.
• Learn to ask for help from more experienced scientists to shape your own project proposal, and apply this to further focus your proposal.
• Learn about the importance of the structure of a project proposal to convince reviewers to support your application.

Keywords

Creativity, ideas, focus, choices, mentor, grant proposal structure.

Practical information

• Unfortunately this course (that starts on 21 September 2026 and has the second session on 22 October) is already full
• The course takes place onsite in Groningen
• Details on the location(s) will be shared by email one week in advance