Confirmation of candidature

https://intranet.ecu.edu.au/research/for-research-students/research-journey/confirmation-of-candidature

To have your candidature confirmed you must:

• prepare your research proposal;
• present your research to reviewers, peers and academics (in a proposal seminar);
• amend the proposal document based on the reviewers’ comments;
• complete a risk assessment (submitted through RiskWare) of your project;
• develop a learning plan using MyPLAN (applies only to commencing doctoral students from 2014);
• run your research proposal through Turnitin, a plagiarism detection tool;
• complete the Graduate Research Induction Program;
• apply to have your research proposal approved by the School; and
• have your research ethics approved through REMS.

Review and approval of your proposal

The research proposal review is about having your research plan reviewed by academics familiar with your area of research and receiving feedback on the proposed design and methodology. Reviewers have a formal responsibility for providing reports and recommendations on your research proposal.
The steps for having your proposal reviewed and receiving confirmation of candidature include:

1. When the research proposal has been prepared, your supervisor must nominate two reviewers using the Nomination of Reviewers Master by Research or Doctoral Research Proposals form; the form must be approved by your school’s Associate Dean Research;
2. The Associate Dean Research can approve the nominated reviewers executively;
3. Your supervisor will make arrangements for your proposal seminar and organise for copies of your proposal to be sent to the reviewers. Where possible, the reviewers should attend your proposal seminar;
4. Your school will organise a venue and time for the seminar and send details to the Graduate Research School for promotion of the seminar;
5. After the seminar you should, in collaboration with your supervisor, consider the reviewers’ reports and feedback from the seminar. You should then revise your research proposal to incorporate necessary changes prior to submission;
6. Your application for proposal acceptance, and additional documentation (refer to the document checklist below) will need to be submitted to your School (through your Coordinator Research Student Support) for provisional approval by the Associate Dean Research. Your Coordinator Research Student Support for your school will then submit your proposal to Research Assessments who will advise the outcome of your application once all conditions (including Ethics) have been met;
7. Once your research proposal has been amended to reflect reviewers’ feedback, you can submit your ethics application. For more information see the Ethics webpage.
8. Once ethics approval has been granted, the Ethics Office will advise Research Assessments of this;

When your research proposal has been approved and your project has received ethics clearance, you’ll receive written confirmation from Research Assessments that your candidature is confirmed. It is only then that you are able to proceed with data collection.

Document checklist

To have your research proposal approved, you must submit the following documentation to the Associate Dean Research, via your school:

• Application for Research Proposal Acceptance document
• Revised research proposal;
• Responses to reviewers’ comments as an outline of changes made or defence of the reviewers’ recommendations;
• Reviewer reports;
• The Proposal Reviewer Confidentiality Agreement for use in situations where the research proposal contains confidential information belonging to a government agency or third party, or is the research is being undertaken under an IP agreement;
• Riskware Health and Safety Risk Assessment documentation and record reference number;
• Graduate Research Induction Program (GRIP) completion statement;
• ORCID ID number; and
• Evidence of Epigeum Integrity Program completion confirmation.

In addition to the above documents you will be asked to confirm that you have undertaken the following processes, although you do not have to provide the documentation with your Application for Proposal Acceptance:

• Turnitin confirmation;
• Candidate/Supervisor Panel Agreement;
• a learning plan, using MyPLAN (applies only to commencing doctoral students from 2014);
• preparation of an Application to Undertake Research Involving Human or Animal Subjects through the REMS portal
• HDR Risk Assessment form - Excel File, 118.9 KB

In addition to the above documents you will be asked to confirm that you have undertaken the following processes, although you do not have to provide the documentation with your Application for Proposal Acceptance:

• Turnitin confirmation;
• Candidate/Supervisor Panel Agreement;
• a learning plan, using MyPLAN (applies only to commencing doctoral students from 2014);
• preparation of an Application to Undertake Research Involving Human or Animal Subjects.

  Additional support

  Your supervisor should be your main source of support during your research journey; however, if you need additional support you may wish to seek advice from research support staff, visit the SOAR centre or attend a research training workshop.
  GRIP Module 5: Confirmation of candidature also provides some useful advice and resources on this topic. See the Accessing GRIP webpage for login instructions.