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• A Research Guide
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40 Social Issues Research Paper Topics

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List of 40 Social Issues Topics for College Students

• Religious gatherings and rituals
• Country-wide strikes and protest
• LGBTQ+ prides
• Worldwide flashmobs
• Social stratification
• Gender discrimination and anti-harassment movements
• The issues of orphanage kids
• Pornography and AI sex dolls
• Sex work or paid rape?
• Virtual reality
• Information overload: the society is overstressed with the amount of data
• Demographic crisis
• Beauty standards
• Social isolation of people with HIV/AIDS
• The fight against animal testing
• Internet safety
• Humanitarian missions
• Fighting racism
• The rights of ethnic minorities and native people
• Internet safety and cybercrimes
• The necessity of the death penalty
• Fighting poverty in the world
• Access to the drinking water in third world countries
• Free education for everyone: shall it be implemented?
• National identity versus globalization
• Women rights and trans people rights
• Obesity as an obstacle in social life. Fatshaming
• Civil rights: shall they be expanded?
• Abuse and neglect in asylums, orphanages, and care homes
• Church and state: shall they remain separate?
• The problem of bigotry in modern society
• Immigration and resocialization of the immigrants
• Sustainable consumption on a worldwide scale
• School violence
• Legalizing drugs: basic rights to choose or a danger to society?
• Social isolation. The hikikomori phenomenon
• Bullying at schools and colleges
• Kids transitioning: shall it be allowed?
• Advertisements: are they becoming too powerful?
• The global impact of the third world countries

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The Biggest 15 Social Issues We Are Facing Today

No matter where we live, what communities we belong to or what we care about, we are affected by social issues. It’s the price of living in a society, and while challenges like poverty, climate change and discrimination can feel overwhelming, we have the power to take action. The first step is understanding what issues we’re up against. In this article, we’ll explore 15 of the biggest social issues facing the world today.

#1. The global housing crisis

Shelter is a human right, but hundreds of millions of people lack adequate, affordable housing. According to the World Bank, the housing crisis is global, and it could impact as many as 1.6 billion people by 2025. That number will only grow with time. By 2030, the world needs to build 96,000 new affordable homes per day to meet the needs of 3 billion people. What’s driving the global housing crisis? According to Albert Saiz in a paper for the MIT Center for Real Estate, economic factors like rising costs and income inequality are prevalent. Addressing these issues now is critical to protecting people in the future.

#2. Gender inequality

Societies have been working to improve gender inequality for centuries, but we still have a long way to go. Globally, women still make less money than men, have poorer health outcomes, have fewer opportunities and endure more gender–based violence. According to 2023 data, the global gender gap won’t close until 2154 . Even the most gender-equal country, which is Iceland , still has social issues to address. Some of the issues are recognized – women are still being subjected to physical and sexual violence – while there are gaps in data related to things like unpaid care, domestic work, gender and the environment, and so on.

#3. Climate crisis

The climate crisis is one of today’s most urgent social issues. Earth.org outlines a list of major climate events in 2023 , including severe droughts, wildfires, higher ocean surface temperatures and storms. That same year, the IPCC released a summary of its previous five reports, showing how human activity is causing severe damage to the planet, and, if trends continue, parts of the earth will become unlivable in just a few decades. The world can fight the climate crisis, but we have to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and turn to renewable energy sources.

#4. Overconsumption

Greenhouse gas emissions are a primary driver of climate change, but overconsumption is hurting the planet, too. Unfathomable amounts of food, clothing, plastic and other things are thrown into landfills and the ocean every day. However, it’s not a problem for everyone. According to research, just 20% of the world’s population is responsible for consuming 80% of the globe’s natural resources. The richest 500 million people release half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. To break it down even further, if every person in the world consumed resources at the rate as people in Canada and the United States did, we would need at least five earths .

#5. Global hunger

Global food insecurity is a serious problem. According to data, about 735 million people endured chronic hunger in 2022, and with issues like climate change, the lingering effects of the pandemic and conflict, it will be very challenging to end hunger by 2030. Children typically suffer the most. When kids don’t get enough to eat, they become more vulnerable to diseases like measles, malaria and diarrhea. According to the World Food Programme, “hotspots” for hunger include Burkina Faso, Mali, South Sudan and Palestine.

#6. Threats to LGBTQ+ rights

At the same time as LGBTQ+ rights have expanded, certain countries have pushed back. In the summer of 2023, the first Ugandan was charged with “aggravated homosexuality,” a crime punishable by death. In its 2023 review, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also found an increase in anti-LGBTQ sentiment , including more laws that restrict privacy and freedom of expression, and censorship of LGBTQ+ websites. Even in places like the United States, which is seen by many as a haven for the LGBTQ+ community, legislative threats are on the rise .

#7. Reproductive justice

Reproductive justice, which includes things like abortion access and maternal health, is a social issue affecting every corner of the world. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, most countries are expanding abortion rights, while just four – the United States, Poland, Nicaragua, and El Salvador – rolled back abortion rights . Globally, about 40% of women live in places with “restrictive” abortion laws. Related social issues include menstrual health, prenatal and maternal health, access to contraception and so on.

#8. Educational disparities

When people get a good education, they’re more likely to have higher incomes, better health, healthier children and other benefits. On a larger scale, education also helps countries achieve overall wealth and health. There’s been significant progress on closing the gender gap in education. According to a blog on the World Bank, boys and girls complete primary school at almost an equal rate . However, around 130 million girls are still being denied an education. Wealth also plays a role in educational disparities. In the United States, one study found that wealth affects a student’s chances of finishing college. On a global scale, wealth also impacts where a family lives and what school options are available, as well as tutoring opportunities, whether a student needs a job and much more.

#9. Health and healthcare

Health and the ability (or inability) to access good healthcare are major social issues. Unfortunately, healthcare systems around the world are struggling. COVID-19 continues to be a problem, but hospitals are also facing staff shortages and competition . Not everyone is affected equally. According to the World Health Organization, refugees and migrants experience worse health outcomes due to language barriers, cultural differences, discrimination and legal restrictions on what services they can access.

#10. Income inequality

Global income inequality fluctuates, but according to a 2023 Oxfam study , the world’s richest 1% took almost ⅔ of all the new wealth created since 2020. That gave them almost twice the amount of money held by the bottom 99%. Income inequality can cause serious problems , such as lower economic growth, worse social cohesion and political polarization. There are also ethical consequences to income inequality, which human rights and social justice advocates often discuss. Can society ever be truly good or free when only a handful of people hold all the wealth?

#11. Global unemployment (and underemployment)

High unemployment rates – and low-paying jobs – drive income inequality and poverty. In a 2023 report, the International Labour Organization found that the world is still experiencing slow employment growth . There was a slight recovery in 2021, but as the economy slows again, people are forced to take jobs that pay less, provide fewer hours and/or offer poor working conditions. South Africa, which is the most industrialized economy in Africa, also has one of the highest unemployment rates. According to Reuters, reasons include structural issues related to the shadows of colonialism and apartheid. To fight issues like poverty and gender inequality, countries need to address unemployment and low-paying jobs.

#12. Increased migration

People move all the time, but issues like war and climate change force people to leave their homes. Sometimes, they move within the borders of one country, but other times, they’re forced to take long, dangerous journeys to countries they’ve never visited. According to the Migration Policy Institute, “humanitarian migration” increased in 2023, while policies could impact elections in 2024. The social issues related to migration, such as the rights of migrants, affordable housing, health services and more, will all be relevant for the foreseeable future.

#13. Artificial intelligence

The presence of artificial intelligence has exploded in recent years, but the technology has several issues. Ethics is just one of them. According to a guide on UMA Libraries, AI has problems with gender and racial bias, plagiarism, generating fake news and supporting scams. It also takes a lot of energy to train and run AI programs, so as the use of AI increases, so will its carbon footprint . As the technology continues to develop, new regulations, legislation and guidelines will need to be created, as well.

#14. Debt bondage

Rates of labor trafficking have been increasing over the years. According to research, about ⅕ of those in forced labor trafficking are in debt bondage . Debt bondage is a very common type of trafficking where a person is forced to work off a loan. However, because the debt is often so high and they are paid so little, it’s impossible to escape the situation. Perpetrators also often have no intention of freeing the people they’re exploiting; debt bondage can even pass on to children. While bonded labor is technically illegal in some places, like India, it persists , especially in rural areas. Because trafficking is an illicit practice, it’s very difficult to get accurate numbers, but it’s most likely worse than what’s reported.

#15. Threats to journalism

By providing vital information to the public, journalists are essential to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, democracy and the protection of other human rights. In recent years, journalism has been under threat. According to the 2023 World Press Freedom Index , the environment for journalism was “bad” in seven out of 10 countries, while it was “satisfactory” in just three out of 10 countries. The reasons include a surge in fake news and propaganda. Journalists also face threats to their lives. UNESCO found that in 2023, there was a near doubling of deaths of journalists working in conflict zones. As conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine and other countries continue, the safety of journalism will remain a social issue.

300 Social Issues Research Topics to Impress Your Professor and Get A

Researching social issues holds immense importance in our quest for knowledge and progress. It allows us to delve deeper into the complexities of society, unraveling the underlying causes, impacts, and potential solutions. However, the significance of a good research topic must be considered, which sets the stage for a high-scoring and impactful research endeavor. If you have difficulty finding a good social issue research topic, check out these lists from the experts working with a professional  paper writing services  provider.

Table of Contents

Comprehensive list of Unique Social Issue Research Topics

Scroll down and go through our list of unique topics and pick one that sparks your interest. Here you go with the first one: 

Women’s Social Issues Research Topics 

It’s crucial to look into the various aspects of women’s social issues if we want to get a better understanding of gender inequality. Here are some ideas to help you dig deeper into this topic.

• Prejudice against women in corporate culture
• Problems of pregnant women working in the corporate
• Harassment in educational institutes against women
• What strategies can governments adopt to ensure equal rights for women?
• Raising awareness of the problems of pregnant women
• How to develop a respectful attitude towards women and gender minorities in companies?
• Ill-treatment of women in the government sector
• Writing on essay topics related to problems with Syrian female immigrants
• The Role of Women in economic life and the World of Work
• Women’s political and electoral training
• Women in old homes: Research and Interviews for Problems and Concerns
• Toxic Masculinity in the Workplace: what can women do?
• Developing a workplace culture for fair treatment of every gender
• Role of Government in solving problems related to Women
• The economy of the United States: Income inequality in the U.S.
• Building a world where women have equal opportunities and fair treatment
• Essay Topics Related to Problems of Women in New York
• Financial problems for single mothers
• Women dealing with social issues in New Mexico
• Condition of Mexican immigrant women in the United States
• Women’s health: Key performance indicators, problems and obstacles
• Securing Women’s Rights with the Help of international law
• Education of women: The rights and responsibilities
• Better living conditions for older women
• A research study of the problems of pregnant women in California
• Health and welfare of older people, especially women
• Improving the quality of life for single mothers with better opportunities

Children’s Social Issues Research Topics 

It’s important to tackle the social issues that affect kids to create a better, more nurturing future for the next generation. Here are some interesting topics on this subject to get started with  writing your research paper . 

• School Bullying and social networks
• Problems and issues with children with a single parent
• A research study on the problems of children in foster homes
• How can we make foster care better and safer for children?
• Delinquency trends in children among marginalized communities
• modernity and technology at the cost of the destruction of childhood
• Issues that children from Mexican households in America have to face
• What are the advantages of multiculturalism in kindergarten?
• Problems of Assault and Molestation of Children
• Why Are Young People Committing Crimes These Days?
• Cyberbullying and Toxicity on social media
• Violence among children and young people
• Rehabilitation of juvenile offenders and improving their lives
• Illness and disability among kids living in developing countries
• The lack of tolerance among the teenagers
• Child labor in developing countries
• Psychology of kindergarten education
• School is a chance for every kid to learn tolerance and harmony
• Children facing with lack of empathy and bullying on social media
• The use of new technologies in education and adaptability in children
• Problems of immigrant children
• Child development and behavior

Social Issues Research Topics About Labor Rights

It’s essential to look into the social issues surrounding workers’ rights and fight for their well-being. Labor rights are the foundation of having fair and decent working conditions. Here are some topics if you want to research such subjects.

• The legal responsibility of entrepreneurs
• Workplace accident management
• Increased flexibility via remote working options
• Mental health problems caused by workers after the COVID pandemic
• The principle of equality today is related to labor rights
• Change wages or salaries
• Labor problems caused by the Covid pandemic
• Employees having to deal with additional work pressures
• Role of labor unions in social justice for Laborers
• Mental health problems in the Workplace
• What can we do to offer ideas for improvements in labor laws
• The desire to maintain a healthy work-life balance
• Hate speech and domestic violence against marginalized groups in large companies
• Academic paper for immigration disruptions in Canada and USA
• The employer’s right to manage employees and the abuse of it
• Role of human resources in identifying and solving problems of labor
• The job of the government and schools is to offer their members better career prospects
• Problems and issues related to a minimum period of employment
• The technology skills gap leads to problems with the laborers
• Improving the well-being of the company for its members
• Change wages or salaries impact and consequences
• How the global pandemic and Working from home changed the World
• Recruiting methods from passive to active: how to prepare
• Global labor shortages: problems and consequences
• What are the reasons for the labor shortage?
• Writing assignment about laborers dealing with the effects of long Covid
• Why is it essential for companies to take a public stand for social issues
• Mental health problems for workers in the field
• Relevant examples of social issues related to labor and employment
• How to empower workers against social injustice?

Social Issues Research Topics for the Environment

It’s important to dig into how social issues and the environment are connected when we’re trying to handle big problems like climate change, running out of resources, etc. Here are some  research topics  to think about.

• Health risks associated with the general environment and their perception and representation
• Climate change knowledge and expertise on health risks
• Health inequalities resulting from environmental and social factors
• What Role can environmental law play in protecting the environment at sea?
• Deforestation and chronic pollution are destroying biodiversity
• Importance of green energy conversion
• The Law of the Environment and sustainable development
• The Management of Pollution in Environmental Law
• Toward a better understanding of atmospheric pollution
• Utilizing environmental technologies and learning about them
• Waste and material resources of the World
• The destruction of ozone affects the environment and health
• Nature’s resources are being destroyed. What can we do as researchers to prevent this?
• Is it still imperative to preserve the environment during wartime?
• Combating armed conflict while preserving the environment
• The tourism industry and pollution management
• Environmental factors that affect cancer risk
• Cost-benefit analysis of the action based on legal or socioeconomic criteria
• Analyzing how different environmental factors contribute to the risk
• Investigating a variety of environmental issues and sectors
• Regions and specific areas of environmental perception
• The effects of climate change and global warming
• Factors contributing to a healthy environment
• The relationship between human rights and environmental law
• In environmental law, pollution management is a constant
• Worldwide implementation of sustainable development
• How consumption trends and international news can help the environmental cause

Social Issues Research Topics Related to Covid Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how we live and has spotlighted all kinds of social issues that need to be looked into and solved. So, if you would like to research social issues related to the recent pandemic, check out this list for current social issues for research paper:

• Social panic caused after the COVID-19 breakdown
• Problems and social issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
• COVID-19 and financial problems on the rise
• Impact of COVID-19 on the people with middle class
• Police Procedure and criminal justice during the COVID-19
• The aftermath of COVID-19 has resulted in a social dilemma and economic disruption
• An influential aspect of the pandemic is mental health
• The Impact of social and territorial inequalities on health
• The ethical issues raised by the pandemic
• Writing research papers on social media’s Role during COVID-19
• Children and adolescents’ mental condition during the pandemic
• Problems in healthcare and Management of chronic diseases
• Disruption in modern society by the COVID-19
• How our social media accounts helped us during the darkest hours of covid
• Ensuring the delivery of criminal justice during covid
• Impact of COVID-19 on family life
• Role of the Pandemic in the Promotion of remote education
• Avoiding social media addiction during the quarantine

Social Issue Topics Related to American Society

Checking out the social problems in the U.S. gives us a great understanding of how complicated, varied and hard they can be for people and different communities. Here is another list of topics on social issues. 

• Environment perception in specific areas and regions
• Climate change and global warming effects
• The factors that contribute to a healthy environment
• Cancer risk factors in the environment
• Workplace toxic masculinity: what can women do?
• The global labor shortage: problems and consequences
• Why does the U.S. have a shortage of labor?
• Workers dealing with the effects of Covid
• Problems related to mental issues among field workers
• Law and human rights concerning the environment
• Management of pollution is a constant concern in environmental law
• Impacts and consequences of changes in wages or salaries
• How to prepare for passive to active recruitment
• The problem of child labor in developing countries
• Kindergarten Education and Psychology
• Tolerance and harmony can be learned in school by every child
• Lack of empathy and bullying on social media among children
• Technology in Education and Children’s Adaptability
• Legal or socioeconomic cost-benefit analysis of the action
• A major social issue in the modern age is poverty
• Government’s Role in solving social problems
• Sustainable Development of the World
• Trafficking in drugs and Mexican cartels
• A culture of fair treatment for all genders in the Workplace
• Nature’s resources are being depleted.
• Management of pollution in the tourism industry
• How can we use social media to improve society and resolve social problems?
• A lack of respect for marginalized communities in the professional environment can be seen in several ways.
• Understanding social issues and the problems associated with them
• Materials and waste from around the World and the Impact they have on the environment
• The depletion of ozone is detrimental to the environment and human health
• Insights into the political and electoral training of women
• Taking a closer look at Women’s Problems and Concerns in old homes: Research and Interviews
• Issues and problems related to the minimum period of employment and the minimum wage
• The technological skills gap is causing labor shortages shortly
• Enhancing the well-being of the members of the company as a whole

Interesting Social Injustice Topics for College Students

As college students, exploring and engaging with interesting social issues topics expands our intellectual horizons and empowers us to become agents of change in our communities and beyond. Particularly when you include social problems examples. Here is another list of interesting topics.

• Developing better relationships with public institutions to solve problems
• The Role of social work in the Management of health problems
• Corporations discriminate against marginalized communities in the U.S.
• Sociology of the popular classes
• The reasons for the low human development index in African countries
• Social issues caused by class differences
• Drugs and anarchist behaviors
• Religious Differences and biased approaches to employment strategies
• Mexican cartels and the problem of drug trafficking
• Poverty is one of the most significant social issues in the Modern World
• Role of the Government in solving social issues
• How can we use social media to improve society and solve social issues?
• Prejudice against marginalized communities in the professional environment
• Understanding the problems related to social issues
• Role of problem-solving and understanding the root cause of social issues
• Major social issues in developing countries
• Role of Education in ending violence in Society
• Class Differences and the Impact on the human development index
• Differences in health facilities for different classes
• Social Norms and the Role of the Community
• Causes and solutions to human trafficking on the Mexican borders
• Human development index in India
• How to solve the poverty problem?
• What is the problem of social media bullying, and how to avoid it?
• How does financial illiteracy lead to a lack of development in developing countries?
• Impact of Terrorism on Society
• How to solve the terrorism problem?
• Mafia problems in the USA and how to deal with them
• Biased treatment of marginalized communities in the government sector
• The increasing problem of drug addiction
• Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Emerging social issues
• Role of social media in increasing social issues

Police and Social Justice Research Papers Topics

Let’s unveil a curated collection of current social issues for a research paper. Here’s the list:

• Children’s safety and protection: The security job is of the utmost importance
• School bullying is a serious issue that needs to be addressed
• A few heartrending social issues examples 
• Using the Internet to disseminate terrorist content: a serious issue related to Cybersecurity
• Digital Platform Security Certification – A Guide to Cybersecurity Certifications
• The protection of minors in alcohol-serving establishments
• Concerns regarding cyber security in the United States
• An analysis of the spatial pattern of terrorism in the USA over the past two decades
• New York crime analysis, a look at the crime situation in the City
• Security technologies face several obstacles when it comes to their implementation
• Having the versatility to specialize and the specialization to be versatile in security matters
• Investigative requisitions from the judicial police
• Relationships between the police and the public: The need for improvement
• Conflict Management and Prevention in Communities
• The principle of secularism in sports must be respected
• Stopping the illicit trade in tobacco products
• Towns with small populations and cybersecurity
• Taking care of historical monuments
• Providing support to victims of aggression
• An analysis of the roadside check system in developing countries
• The challenges of reception at a police station for public security
• A system for protecting housing from illegal encroachment
• Anti-abuse and anti-fraud measures
• A diversity of expectations and feedback from the inhabitants
• Taking public security work seriously in terms of its relational dimension
• The issue of external assistance in the area of internal security
• Putting social networks to the test in terms of police ethics

As you have reached the conclusion paragraph of the blog post, you must have picked a topic or two to work for your social issue research paper. Most of the lists have focused on social issues today as they could be very interesting for the readers. Plus, there are a plethora of good topics for you to count on. Just remember that a good research subject must be able to answer, what is a social problem, what is a social issue, and more. Still if you are struggling with picking up a good topic, feel free to count on the expertise of  our writers .

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1.4 Doing Research on Social Problems

Learning objectives.

• List the major advantages and disadvantages of surveys, observational studies, and experiments.
• Explain why scholars who study social problems often rely on existing data.

Sound research is an essential tool for understanding the sources, dynamics, and consequences of social problems and possible solutions to them. This section briefly describes the major ways in which sociologists gather information about social problems. Table 1.2 “Major Sociological Research Methods” summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Table 1.2 Major Sociological Research Methods

The survey is the most common method by which sociologists gather their data. The Gallup poll is perhaps the most well-known example of a survey and, like all surveys, gathers its data with the help of a questionnaire that is given to a group of respondents . The Gallup poll is an example of a survey conducted by a private organization, but sociologists do their own surveys, as does the government and many organizations in addition to Gallup. Many surveys are administered to respondents who are randomly chosen and thus constitute a random sample . In a random sample, everyone in the population (whether it be the whole US population or just the population of a state or city, all the college students in a state or city or all the students at just one college, etc.) has the same chance of being included in the survey. The beauty of a random sample is that it allows us to generalize the results of the sample to the population from which the sample comes. This means that we can be fairly sure of the behavior and attitudes of the whole US population by knowing the behavior and attitudes of just four hundred people randomly chosen from that population.

Some surveys are face-to-face surveys, in which interviewers meet with respondents to ask them questions. This type of survey can yield much information, because interviewers typically will spend at least an hour asking their questions, and a high response rate (the percentage of all people in the sample who agree to be interviewed), which is important to be able to generalize the survey’s results to the entire population. On the downside, this type of survey can be very expensive and time consuming to conduct.

Surveys are very useful for gathering various kinds of information relevant to social problems. Advances in technology have made telephone surveys involving random-digit dialing perhaps the most popular way of conducting a survey.

plantronicsgermany – Encore520 call center man standing – CC BY-ND 2.0.

Because of these drawbacks, sociologists and other researchers have turned to telephone surveys. Most Gallup polls are conducted over the telephone. Computers do random-digit dialing, which results in a random sample of all telephone numbers being selected. Although the response rate and the number of questions asked are both lower than in face-to-face surveys (people can just hang up the phone at the outset or let their answering machine take the call), the ease and low expense of telephone surveys are making them increasingly popular. Surveys done over the Internet are also becoming more popular, as they can reach many people at very low expense. A major problem with web surveys is that their results cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population because not everyone has access to the Internet.

Surveys are used in the study of social problems to gather information about the behavior and attitudes of people regarding one or more problems. For example, many surveys ask people about their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs or about their experiences of being unemployed or in poor health. Many of the chapters in this book will present evidence gathered by surveys carried out by sociologists and other social scientists, various governmental agencies, and private research and public interest firms.

Experiments

Experiments are the primary form of research in the natural and physical sciences, but in the social sciences they are for the most part found only in psychology. Some sociologists still use experiments, however, and they remain a powerful tool of social research.

The major advantage of experiments, whether they are done in the natural and physical sciences or in the social sciences, is that the researcher can be fairly sure of a cause-and-effect relationship because of the way the experiment is set up. Although many different experimental designs exist, the typical experiment consists of an experimental group and a control group , with subjects randomly assigned to either group. The researcher does something to the experimental group that is not done to the control group. If the two groups differ later in some variable, then it is safe to say that the condition to which the experimental group was subjected was responsible for the difference that resulted.

Most experiments take place in the laboratory, which for psychologists may be a room with a one-way mirror, but some experiments occur in the field, or in a natural setting ( field experiments ). In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early 1980s, sociologists were involved in a much-discussed field experiment sponsored by the federal government. The researchers wanted to see whether arresting men for domestic violence made it less likely that they would commit such violence again. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had police do one of the following after arriving at the scene of a domestic dispute: They either arrested the suspect, separated him from his wife or partner for several hours, or warned him to stop but did not arrest or separate him. The researchers then determined the percentage of men in each group who committed repeated domestic violence during the next six months and found that those who were arrested had the lowest rate of recidivism, or repeat offending (Sherman & Berk, 1984). This finding led many jurisdictions across the United States to adopt a policy of mandatory arrest for domestic violence suspects. However, replications of the Minneapolis experiment in other cities found that arrest sometimes reduced recidivism for domestic violence but also sometimes increased it, depending on which city was being studied and on certain characteristics of the suspects, including whether they were employed at the time of their arrest (Sherman, 1992).

As the Minneapolis study suggests, perhaps the most important problem with experiments is that their results are not generalizable beyond the specific subjects studied. The subjects in most psychology experiments, for example, are college students, who obviously are not typical of average Americans: They are younger, more educated, and more likely to be middle class. Despite this problem, experiments in psychology and other social sciences have given us very valuable insights into the sources of attitudes and behavior. Scholars of social problems are increasingly using field experiments to study the effectiveness of various policies and programs aimed at addressing social problems. We will examine the results of several such experiments in the chapters ahead.

Observational Studies

Observational research, also called field research , is a staple of sociology. Sociologists have long gone into the field to observe people and social settings, and the result has been many rich descriptions and analyses of behavior in juvenile gangs, bars, urban street corners, and even whole communities.

Observational studies consist of both participant observation and nonparticipant observation . Their names describe how they differ. In participant observation, the researcher is part of the group that she or he is studying, spends time with the group, and might even live with people in the group. Several classical social problems studies of this type exist, many of them involving people in urban neighborhoods (Liebow, 1967; Liebow, 1993; Whyte, 1943). In nonparticipant observation, the researcher observes a group of people but does not otherwise interact with them. If you went to your local shopping mall to observe, say, whether people walking with children looked happier than people without children, you would be engaging in nonparticipant observation.

Similar to experiments, observational studies cannot automatically be generalized to other settings or members of the population. But in many ways they provide a richer account of people’s lives than surveys do, and they remain an important method of research on social problems.

Existing Data

Sometimes sociologists do not gather their own data but instead analyze existing data that someone else has gathered. The US Census Bureau, for example, gathers data on all kinds of areas relevant to the lives of Americans, and many sociologists analyze census data on such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and illness. Sociologists interested in crime and the criminal justice system may analyze data from court records, while medical sociologists often analyze data from patient records at hospitals. Analysis of existing data such as these is called secondary data analysis . Its advantage to sociologists is that someone else has already spent the time and money to gather the data. A disadvantage is that the data set being analyzed may not contain data on all the topics in which a sociologist may be interested or may contain data on topics that are not measured in ways the sociologist might prefer.

The Scientific Method and Objectivity

This section began by stressing the need for sound research in the study of social problems. But what are the elements of sound research? At a minimum, such research should follow the rules of the scientific method . As you probably learned in high school and/or college science classes, these rules—formulating hypotheses, gathering and testing data, drawing conclusions, and so forth—help guarantee that research yields the most accurate and reliable conclusions possible.

An overriding principle of the scientific method is that research should be conducted as objectively as possible. Researchers are often passionate about their work, but they must take care not to let the findings they expect and even hope to uncover affect how they do their research. This in turn means that they must not conduct their research in a manner that helps achieve the results they expect to find. Such bias can happen unconsciously, and the scientific method helps reduce the potential for this bias as much as possible.

This potential is arguably greater in the social sciences than in the natural and physical sciences. The political views of chemists and physicists typically do not affect how an experiment is performed and how the outcome of the experiment is interpreted. In contrast, researchers in the social sciences, and perhaps particularly in sociology, often have strong feelings about the topics they are studying. Their social and political beliefs may thus influence how they perform their research on these topics and how they interpret the results of this research. Following the scientific method helps reduce this possible influence.

Key Takeaways

• The major types of research on social problems include surveys, experiments, observational studies, and the use of existing data.
• Surveys are the most common method, and the results of surveys of random samples may be generalized to the populations from which the samples come.
• Observation studies and existing data are also common methods in social problems research. Observation studies enable the gathering of rich, detailed information, but their results cannot necessarily be generalized beyond the people studied.
• Research on social problems should follow the scientific method to yield the most accurate and objective conclusions possible.

For Your Review

• Have you ever been a respondent or subject in any type of sociological or psychological research project? If so, how did it feel to be studied?
• Which type of social problems research method sounds most interesting to you? Why?

Liebow, E. (1967). Tally’s corner . Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Liebow, E. (1993). Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women . New York, NY: Free Press.

Sherman, L. W., & Berk, R. A. (1984). The specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic assault. American Sociological Review, 49 , 261–272.

Sherman, L. W. (1992). Policing domestic violence: Experiments and dilemmas . New York, NY: Free Press.

Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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2.1G: Preparing the Research Report

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Sociological research publications generally include a literature review, an overview of the methodology followed, the results and an analysis of those results, and conclusions.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the main components of a sociological research paper
• Like any research paper, a sociological research report typically consists of a literature review, an overview of the methods used in data collection, and analysis, findings, and conclusions.
• A literature review is a creative way of organizing what has been written about a topic by scholars and researchers.
• The methods section is necessary to demonstrate how the study was conducted, including the population, sample frame, sample method, sample size, data collection method, and data processing and analysis.
• In the findings and conclusion sections, the researcher reviews all significant findings, notes and discusses all shortcomings, and suggests future research.
• methodology : A collection of methods, practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in some field.
• quantitative : Of a measurement based on some quantity or number rather than on some quality.
• literature review : A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic.

Like any research paper, sociological research is presented with a literature review, an overview of the methods used in data collection, and analysis, findings, and conclusions. Quantitative research papers are usually highly formulaic, with a clear introduction (including presentation of the problem and literature review); sampling and methods; results; discussion and conclusion. In striving to be as objective as possible in order to reduce biased interpretations of results, sociological esearch papers follow the scientific method. Research reports may be published as books or journal articles, given directly to a client, or presented at professional meetings.

A literature review is a creative way of organizing what has been written about a topic by scholars and researchers. You will find literature reviews at the beginning of many essays, research reports, or theses. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what you have learned through a careful reading of a set of articles related to your research question.

A strong literature review has the following properties:

• It is organized around issues, themes, factors, or variables that are related directly to your thesis or research question.
• It shows the path of prior research and how the current project is linked.
• It provides a good synthesis of what is, and is not, known.
• It indicates the theoretical framework with which you are working.
• It identifies areas of controversy and debate, or limitations in the literature sharing different perspectives.
• It places the formation of research questions in their historical context.
• It identifies the list of the authors that are engaged in similar work.

The methodssection is necessary to demonstrate how the study was conducted, and that the data is valid for study. Without assurance that the research is based on sound methods, readers cannot countenance any conclusions the researcher proposes. In the methodology section, be sure to include: the population, sample frame, sample method, sample size, data collection method, and data processing and analysis. This is also a section in which to clearly present information in table and graph form.

In the findings and conclusion sections, the researcher reviews all significant findings, notes and discusses all shortcomings, and suggests future research. The conclusion section is the only section where opinions can be expressed and persuasive writing is tolerated.

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Original research article, outlining the orientation toward socially relevant issues in competitive r&d funding instruments.

• IRCrES - Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth, CNR - National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy

While project-based funding in public R&D investments has grown in importance in all European countries over the last two decades, there is widespread concern among decision-makers about the actual orientation of project funding instruments to promote societal well-being. The capability of public R&D investment to improve the quality of citizens' lives implies the pursuit of “relevant” social objectives related to existing or emerging problems affecting individuals’ lives and society. Particularly, when referring to project-funded research, the question of “relevance” in research objectives recalls the never-ending debate over how to translate policymakers’ request for producing value from public investments in research activities into “usable results”. The manuscript explores, using recent data collected at European level on public R&D funding, the portfolio of research project funding policy instruments of various public research funding organizations (RFOs) in order to shed light on how and to what extent it is oriented to address socially relevant issues. The authors examine the characterization of the single project funding instruments, which are intended to incorporate the motivations and targeted goals of public action, and the RFOs that manage them. They specifically assume that the actual orientation of funding instruments, beyond the declared objectives, is influenced by some features related to their implementation operated by the RFOs, such as the importance given to specific evaluation criteria and the composition of the evaluation panels in the selection process of the funding beneficiaries.

Introduction

One of the most important and recurring policy issues is the capability of public R&D investments to produce positive effects on science and society by addressing social problems and emerging challenges and providing solutions for improving the quality of citizens’ lives. Research priorities for European society’s needs, identified through foresight activities, shape the EU Framework Programmes (e.g., Horizon 2020), thus influencing funding allocation processes ( Burgelman et al., 2014 ). Using the funding lever to steer the scholars’ research agendas toward addressing social issues through the development of targeted project funding instruments represents a viable policy option.

Between the two main types of public research funding schemes that the literature distinguishes – institutional funding and project-based funding (see Lepori et al., 2007 ; van Steen, 2012 ; Lepori, 2017 ) –, the latter is intended to be used for research oriented toward producing useful results rather than for curiosity-driven research. Resources distributed in a competitive way, addressing targeted research objectives, should improve the government’s ability to control the content of research activities developed by researchers, as well as the likelihood of R&D investment of producing effects on society ( Braun, 2006 ). Since the 1980s, the push toward project funding allocations grew up, on the one hand to promote more selective methods of distribution in order to counter the stagnation of public spending on research, and on the other to promote the efficient use of public resources ( Lepori et al., 2007 ). In response to new demands and opportunities, many countries have embarked on funding reforms, strengthening their strategic-planning capacity and paying closer attention to the social and economic environment, as well as the evolving patterns of relationships among stakeholders. This trend was reinforced in the 1990s. Government funding has been increased for mission-oriented and contract-based research, which is expected to be more reliant on output and performance criteria. Competitive mechanisms for allocation of public R&D funding have become more frequent in Research Funding Organizations (RFOs) portfolios, raising concerns about the equity of funding distribution based on performance ( Hicks, 2012 ).

Having project funding instruments with objectives targeted toward topics of social relevance addresses the broader issue of relevance in science. On the one hand, defining a strategic orientation for research to societal challenges, with societal merit or impact included as a criterion for the decision of funding, responds to the society demand for expected value of research combined with a long-term view of socio-economic returns on research investments ( Rip, 2003 ); on the other hand, setting priorities for scientific work is contested by scholars who believe that autonomy and freedom to choose the research questions to address are unavoidable characteristics of any scientific endeavor. Thus, tensions between the societal relevance of scientific work and research autonomy are at the core of several science policy studies ( Demeritt, 2000 ; Scott, 2007 ; Gläser, 2016 ), affecting also the government capability to effectively steer the research system. Literature pointed out that the never-ending debate over how to combine the policy makers’ request of doing relevant research (producing usable results, not necessarily impact), and the need of scholars to maintain their autonomy and freedom of research, is still going on. The aforementioned preoccupation is also reflected in the proposal selection process; empirical evidence demonstrated the conservative nature of peer review, which frequently constrains the implementation of funding instruments oriented toward addressing topics of social relevance, because “relevance” generates resistance in the academic community ( Scott, 2007 ). Thus, in project funding allocation, the capability of RFOs to properly manage the assessment of proposals to overcome the so-called relevance gap proved to be scarce; some authors provide suggestions in this regard ( Nightingale and Scott, 2007 ), highlighting the importance of limiting academics’ monopoly on research funding panels and incorporating explicit relevance criteria into the peer review process, providing also reviewers with guidance on how to treat them.

Recent studies focused on how funding instruments could enhance the implementation of specific research approaches in order to foster societal transformations ( Schneider et al., 2019 ) and emphasized the role of the funders in shaping scientific research toward a societal impact by “targeting” thematic orientation and foreseeing process of “enforcement” intended to ensure that researchers meet the targets ( Aagaard et al., 2021 ). The purpose of this paper is not to delve into the efficiency or effectiveness of research systems in relation to promoting topics related to solving problems affecting citizens and society. Instead, the manuscript explores the portfolio of research project funding policy instruments of various European public RFOs, in order to shed light on what extent and how it is oriented toward socially relevant topics. To this aim, the authors use a new set of data that provides detailed information on several features characterizing the R&D governmental programmes mainly devoted to academic research. The authors analyze the characterization of the single project funding instruments, which are intended to incorporate the motivations and the targeted objectives of the public action. In this paper, they specifically assume that specific instrument features, related to their actual implementation – such as those related to the process for selecting beneficiaries, thus evaluation criteria and their importance, and the composition of evaluation panels – can have a role on characterizing the actual orientation of the single instruments.

Materials and Methods

The analysis of the research funding orientation focuses on two main units of analysis: funding instruments and the RFOs that manage them.

Instruments are institutions that enable a policy to be operative, organizing the relationships between public power and targeted groups ( Lascoumes and Les Gales, 2007 ). They demonstrate the actual characteristics of the policy design ( Bleiklie, 2001 ) incorporating the motivations and the targeted objectives of the public action. They are the basic units of any governance mode ( Capano et al., 2020 ), and widely used both in research policy studies and innovation studies to deepen the characteristics of policy mixes ( Flanagan et al., 2011 ; Kern et al., 2019 ), and to understand the mission orientation of public funding.

RFOs are the agents which design and manage the R&D funding instruments. They retain control over the process of selection of beneficiaries of the R&D funding and are in charge of transferring resources for research activities. These entities have distinct missions, goals, and internal governance, implying varying levels of political influence and organizational autonomy ( Lepori and Reale, 2019 ). One common trait is how to manage policymakers’ quest for relevant research, as well as the need to include “social relevance” in the objectives of the instruments and in the selection criteria, due to resistance from the scientific community in both basic and applied research ( Braun, 2006 ). It was also noted that the differentiation of RFOs in the national context can lead to either a further broadening of objectives and strategies or a narrowing of goals and priorities ( Whitley et al., 2018 ), which could lead to either greater flexibility of evaluation criteria or a stronger standardization of evaluation approaches. The latter outcome may be more likely if significant reductions in public R&D institutional funding are combined with an increasing reliance of the public science system on project funding allocations.

Background Assumptions

Beyond the officially declared objectives, there is a gap between the policy formulation of the instrument, in which the original goal of the policymakers is described, and the implementation of the instrument, in which the “shaped goal” is put into action. ( Reale and Seeber, 2013 ). The actual implementation of the instrument may direct its orientation toward unexpected directions.

Following Nightingale and Scott (2007) , in this paper the authors assume that – beyond the declared orientation – the actual capability of project funding instruments to address issues of social relevance is primarily related to how the aims and objectives are put into actions by the managing RFOs through the decisions on the criteria used in the selection processes and on the composition of the evaluation panel in charge of selecting the funding beneficiaries.

As a result, they establish the two empirical prepositions on which their approach is based:

a. the more heterogeneous and flexible are the criteria driving the ex-ante assessment of the proposals, the greater is the possibility to use the funding instrument to address purposes other than those established by their formal objectives, because the importance of the criteria in the selection process is neither high nor low.

b. the more the composition of the evaluation panel includes mix of academics and external non-academic expert, the more panelists can have room in the implementation of the selection criteria on topics of social relevance of funding instruments.

Both of the aforementioned effects are influenced by tensions in the relationships between RFOs managing project funding and the government; RFOs struggle to maintain their space of maneuver and possibility to pursue their own objectives independent the government steering. As a result, key elements for understanding project funding portfolios beyond the formal objectives must also refer to the instruments’ implementation features.

Data Sources

Investigating project funding instruments is a difficult task due to a lack of systematic and robust data that can support strong assumptions. Attempts have been made to follow the implementation of project funding by RFOs, as well as the types and modes of allocation ( Lepori et al., 2007 ; Potì and Reale, 2007 ), but data constraints did not allow for a deeper understanding of the instruments’ portfolio characteristics using measurable items. The authors attempt to fill this gap in this paper by utilizing data derived from a large-scale study on public research funding supported by the EU Commission – PREF, refined and deepened with official documents extracted from the EFIL database, one of the H2020-RISIS2 project’s facilities.

PREF is a dataset derived from a large-scale study on public research funding supported by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. By combining quantitative data and descriptors concerning allocation modes and criteria, as well as information on the flow of public funding and the RFOs managing funding, the project created a systematic methodological framework for analyzing public research funding systems in UE, associated, and accession countries ( Lepori, 2017 ; Reale, 2017 ). Data collection followed the GBARD data collection rules ( OECD, 2002 , chapter 8) and covered the entire period from 2000 to 2014. Methodologically, the capability to measure project funding allocation proved to be reliable enough to allow further investigation ( Lepori et al., 2018 ); furthermore, analyses performed on the dataset show that, aside from differences between European countries and between agencies within countries, project funding increased over time, both in absolute value and as a percentage of total government funding ( Reale, 2017 ). Thus, data are suitable to be used for addressing the question whether the implementation of government R&D funding through project-based allocation is appropriate for addressing social problems and innovation.

For the purpose of the paper, the authors chose 146 competitive R&D funding instruments from 11 Western European countries – Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and United Kingdom ( Table 1 ), and considered data from the most recent available years, 2013–2014, since the data are completer and more reliable. The sample reflects the diversity of Western European countries and addresses the need for complete and robust data for the exploratory tests.

TABLE 1 . Total instruments included in the analysis by country.

EFIL – European dataset of public R&D funding instruments is one of the new datasets included in the H2020-RISIS2 project. Its goal is to provide users with the ability to investigate public R&D funding in Europe at the level of funding instruments and RFOs. The database is still being built, and the data on funding instruments includes a parallel collection of official textual documents related to the instruments (calls, applicant guidelines, evaluation reports), in order to allow for the development of text analyses. The use of text analyses is expected to result in the detection of keywords in order to delve deeper into aspects of policy development and R&D funding orientation.

Descriptors

A set of descriptors has been extracted to characterize the different ways in which social relevance can be implemented. In this regard, it is necessary to refer to the policy objective of the instruments as well as other elements such as: the presence of agencies with the specific mission of sustaining social relevant research, the presence of social relevance in the evaluation criteria of knowledge-oriented instruments, and the preference for expert-dominated selection panels.

Thus, the descriptors used in this study refer to:

i. RFO classification based on definitions derived from the literature in the field ( Lepori, 2017 ), which allow them to be described in terms of autonomy and specialization.

The dataset distinguishes among RFOs that are functionally part of the public administration (research/science ministry; sectoral ministries); those that have a large degree of independence in managing their activities (innovation agencies; research councils; sectoral RFOs; higher education agencies); public research organizations whose primary mission is to perform R&D activities, but also can carry out some funding agency activities.

ii. Descriptors of funding instruments in each RFO (formal orientation of the project funding instrument; composition of the decision-making bodies entitled to carry out the selection process, allocation criteria for the projects evaluation).

Concerning the formal orientation of project funding instruments toward specific research objectives, the authors distinguished three broad groups of funding instruments ( Lepori, 2017 ): (i) “economic innovation instruments,” i.e., instruments oriented toward pre-competitive development and the creation of market value, that cover the domain 06 of NABS classification 1 (Industrial production and technology) and can be related to research on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs); (ii) instruments devoted to the general advancement of knowledge, i.e., instruments financing the curiosity-driven research, which broadly correspond to schemes without an explicit topic in the NABS classification (NABS12); (iii) “policy instruments,” i.e., instruments focused on research on existing or emerging problems in society which cover multiple domains, broadly corresponding to the NABS categories 01-05 (Exploration and exploitation of the Earth, Environment, Exploration and exploitation of space, Transport, telecommunication and other infrastructures, Energy), 07-11 (Health, Agriculture, Education, Culture, recreation, religion and mass media, Political and social systems, structures and processes) and 14 (Defense) 2 . This last category should include research on socially relevant topics, such as the one involving the Societal Grand Challenges (SGCs).

The descriptor on the composition of the decision-making bodies entitled to implement the selection process distinguished either composed by academics, experts, or with mixed composition.

Finally, each funding instrument has been characterized in terms of relative importance of the criteria considered by the panels for the projects’ assessment. The instruments received three different scores from national experts recruited by the PREF project, which scaled the importance of the evaluation criteria used for project funding assignment, specifically “academic quality”, “topicality to instruments subject”, and “potential for economic innovation and public/private cooperation.” Each criterion’s importance has been rated using the following scale: 5 = very important; 4 = important; 3 = moderately important; 2 = of little importance; 1 = unimportant. As a result of the assignment of the scores, cases of both the presence of one or two overriding criteria and the equal relevance of all three have emerged. It’s worth noting that the authors considered the method used to decompose the instruments in the PREF dataset, which is based on granularity to the point that scores are often assigned to aggregations of a small number of sub-schemes with similar characteristics but probably slightly different evaluation criteria. To overcome the latter constraint, the authors chose homogeneous project funding instruments relevant to national research activities, excluding instruments labeled as “transnational research” because they cover schemes with different orientations and evaluation criteria.

Official Documentation

Exploration of the orientation of the research funding instruments based either in part or mostly on descriptors derived primarily from expert opinion may yield skewed results. In fact, this method reflects the broader issue of the experts’ production of scores, which are likely disputable measures for which different experts may disagree on single scoring assignments ( Aksnes et al., 2017 ).

For this reason, the authors developed an original method to determine whether the global level of orientation in terms of the importance of assessment criteria would have been consistent with the features revealed by a text analysis of 46 selected calls for proposals from five countries chosen for the study – France (12 calls out of 14 instruments), Italy (4 out of 8), Sweden (6 out of 6), Switzerland (7 out of 7), United Kingdom (17 out of 62) – extracted from the official documentation archive linked to the EFIL database. Countries were chosen based on their size, the presence of various types of RFOs, funding instruments with varying degrees of orientation, and the quality of the data collected. The most recent available calls for proposals have been analyzed for each national instrument, particularly the sections describing the general overview of the instrument, the objectives and the criteria and rules of assessment. In case of non-availability of the calls, webpages containing the instrument’s description and information on how the proposals are assessed have been used. The majority of the documents were in English, with only a small percentage of them having been translated from the original language to English in order to perform the text analysis.

Taking into account the instruments’ granularity in the dataset used, only the “generic” calls related to the schemes, containing the general guidelines for project assessment (usually matching with distinctive evaluation rules by the funding agency), were taken into account, and specific calls were used only in the rare cases where a generic one was not available, i.e., for a few French instruments.

The study used an exploratory approach, articulated in three stages, to describe the orientation of project funding instruments in the selected countries.

More specifically, the authors performed: i) descriptive analyses on the single characteristics of the instruments (formal orientation of the instrument by RFO classification; composition of the decision-making body by formal orientation of the instrument; importance of assessment criteria by orientation of the instrument); ii) Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to investigate the pattern of relationships between the categorical variables used to classify the instruments and types of RFOs. Indeed, MCA allows extrapolating patterns across a set of variables described by single components. These components are considered latent unobserved variables that indicate the maximum variance of a set of other variables.

Finally, in order to control the reliability of MCA, in which experts’ scores were also used, the authors used official documentation from the archive associated to the EFIL database, to perform a text analysis, which yielded the most frequently occurring words in the instruments’ calls for proposals, indicating the prevalence of one or more relevant elements concerning the instruments’ objectives and the rules and criteria for evaluating proposals.

Descriptive Statistics

Funding instruments are classified into three broad categories: (i) instruments aimed at economic innovation and the creation of market value; (ii) instruments devoted to the general advancement of knowledge; and (iii) policy-oriented instruments that cover multiple domains and are intended to address topics that are closely related to existing or emerging problems in society. Only 26 (12%) of the 146 instruments examined are policy oriented. The vast majority (69%) are formally devoted to the general advancement of knowledge, thus mainly curiosity-driven research. Figure 1 illustrates the thematic orientation of project funding instruments implemented by various types of national RFOs in various countries, as outlined in formal documents. Data show that different types of RFO have varying degrees of “specialization” in terms of the instruments they manage: Innovation Agencies with economic innovation-oriented instruments, Research Councils with non-oriented instruments, Sectoral RFOs with a mix of policy-oriented and non-oriented instruments. Half of the total policy-oriented instruments is managed by Sectoral RFOs.

FIGURE 1 . Formal orientation of funding instrument by RFO classification (a.v. of single funding instruments).

Figure 2 describes the composition of the decision-making bodies in charge of assessing the project proposals submitted by thematic orientation of the funding instrument. “Academic” means a panel completely or largely composed by academics; “Experts” means a panel mainly composed by persons outside the academia with a professional expertise on the topics of the call; “Mixed” signals a mixed composition of the panel balancing academics and experts. It is clear that the mixed composition predominates for all thematic orientations of the funding instruments (69% of policy-oriented and 63% of non-oriented and economic innovation-oriented instruments), while panels involving only experts are present in few cases, above all for instruments oriented to economic innovation.

FIGURE 2 . Type of decision-making body by formal orientation of the instrument. (a.v. of single funding instruments).

The following two tables show the importance of allocation criteria in terms of the funding instruments’ orientation. Table 2 shows the percentage of instruments by thematic orientation for which the importance of the assessment criteria (academic quality; topicality; economic innovation) was rated higher than three (“important” or “very important”) by the PREF project experts. Table 3 shows the percentage of instruments in which importance of the assessment criteria was rated less than three (“of little importance” or “unimportant”). While instruments devoted to economic innovation and non-oriented ones, on the one hand, emphasize the importance of assessment criteria relating to “economic innovation” and “academic quality,” respectively; on the other hand, instruments oriented toward policy issues show the more heterogeneous situation when it comes to higher values, as the percentage of instruments scoring high criteria referring to academic quality is close to the percentage of the instruments scoring high criteria for topicality. Furthermore, when compared to other instruments, policy-oriented instruments have fewer low evaluation scores for topicality, and 23% of them have low assessment criteria for economic innovation.

TABLE 2 . Importance of assessment criteria (score >3) by formal orientation of the instrument. Note: NL instruments and 1 DE instrument have some missing data on assessment criteria.

TABLE 3 . Importance of assessment criteria (score <3) by formal orientation of the instrument. Note: NL instruments and 1 DE instrument have some missing data on assessment criteria.

Multiple Correspondence Analysis

The MCA was carried out in order to determine what the most appropriate components are for characterizing project funding instrument portfolios in terms of orientation, taking into account all of the descriptors examined in the preceding paragraph.

MCA has a standard configuration, with the main axis (factor 1) explaining the majority of the data and thus representing the most significant component ( Figure 3 ). Factors are bipolar, which means that each one has two opposing groups of modalities that define each factor and allow it to be characterised.

FIGURE 3 . MCA coordinate plot.

In the first factor (47 percent of inertia), that can be named “Generic vs. Thematic Orientation,” there is a presence of instruments that are not oriented toward specific goals on one side (managed by research councils, first and foremost, and characterized by panels whose composition is dominated by academics); on the other side, instruments with thematic orientation that characterized the other types of agencies, with the innovation agency and panels composed of non-academic experts having special relevance. Policy orientation is positioned on the horizontal line, indicating that it is little discriminating. It is clear that policy orientation and mixed decision making body have no significant.

The second factor (20 percent of inertia), that can be named “Main Allocation Criteria”, refers to the importance of the allocation criteria used for instrument evaluation, distinguishing instruments with high ratings on one side from instruments with low ratings on the other. Low values rating the importance of “innovation” and “topicality” are associated with the National Sector Ministry, whereas low levels of academic quality are associated with oriented instruments. High academic quality criteria scores are close to instruments with a generic orientation; policy orientation and mixed panel composition have no significant contribution to the two dimensions.

In summary, the first dimension explains the importance of oriented instruments vs. non-oriented ones, with research councils being the most important type of RFO associated with the latter. The second component allows to understand that non-oriented research is associated with low levels of importance for topicality and innovation criteria, whereas innovation-oriented instruments are associated with low levels of importance for academic criteria. Since policy instruments are not associated with low or high ratings of importance of any criteria, thus different combinations might produce an implementation of R&D funding allocation far from the general objective that the instruments are supposed to address.

Text Analysis

Through a text analysis, a procedure used for extracting meaningful information from corpuses of text, 46 selected calls for proposals from the sample of 146 instruments were analyzed to check the reliability of the MCA. Aside from controlling for MCA robustness, word cloud models are extremely useful for analyzing policy instruments with various orientations and managed by various agencies, revealing the instruments “shaped” objectives.

The word corpus was standardised to allow comparison between different types of instrument orientation, and only words above the 95th percentile, were considered for the study. The authors used word clouds to identify the most frequent words within the selected calls, which were grouped by formal orientation; the larger the word size, the more frequent the word is in the document ( Figure 4 ).

FIGURE 4 . Word Clouds of funding instruments by formal orientation of the instrument.

The most frequently used words in the calls for proposals of instruments with an innovation orientation are “research”, “project”, “reference,” “innovation,” “capacity,” and ”development.” “Research,” “scientific,” “quality,” and “impact” are among the most frequently used words in instruments devoted to the general advancement of knowledge. Finally, for policy-oriented instruments, the most frequently used words are “quality,” “scientific,” “research,” “evaluation,” and “impact”, all of which appear in large font size, indicating a higher frequency. In both of the latter two cases, the word heterogeneity is greater than in the former, and it is possible to notice a high recurrence of words like “quality,” “impact” and “evaluation.”

The findings do not contradict the evidence of MCA: while the differences between instruments are very clear when we look at the words related to the formal orientation of the instruments, the differences are not as clear when we look at the wording used for the evaluation criteria, with the exception of innovation-oriented schemes.

Figure 5 examines instruments’ calls for proposals with no orientation and with policy orientation managed by research councils and sectoral RFOs. The other RFOs were not tested because they manage a very small number of instruments with the mentioned orientations.

FIGURE 5 . Word Clouds of funding instruments with no orientation and with a policy orientation by Research Council and Sectoral RFO.

The analysis confirms a high degree of wording heterogeneity, with significant overlap of recurrent words between the instruments managed by the two types of RFOs. However, sectoral RFOs have some recurring words with a higher importance (frequency) than research councils; moreover, there are words of instruments managed by sectoral RFOs that do not emerge in instruments managed by research councils (“stakeholders”, “perspectives”) or that are significantly more important in the former than in the latter (“impact”, “quality”, “relevance”, “experience”).

Taken together, MCA results and the text analysis suggest the reliability of the experts’ assessments with their scoring assignments. Text analysis also served to highlight the heterogeneity of the wording used in the drafting of the research instruments’ calls for proposals, which allows for an effective room for maneuver for the RFOs on policy implementation. The textual analysis contributed to a better understanding of the flexibility related to the actual orientation of the instruments and resulted in additional specifications, adding value to the MCA results. Further investigations could be carried out with the help of ontology analyses.

Since the 2000s, project-based funding in public R&D investment has grown in all European countries ( Lepori et al., 2007 ; Reale, 2017 ). The rationale behind this trend – which is occurring at different rate and pace across all the European countries – was that improving competitive allocation mechanisms would allow for better research performance and more efficient use of funding resources by selecting the best research groups, promoting some subjects or research themes, supporting structural changes in knowledge production modes, and improving cooperation and competition among research groups ( Geuna, 2001 ; Braun, 2006 ). Scholars have made several attempts over the years to control assumptions about the positive ( Aghion et al., 2010 ; Wang et al., 2018 ) and negative effects of competitive funding on the performance of R&D systems ( Laudel, 2006 ; Heinze, 2008 ; Reale and Zinilli, 2017 ). Other lines of investigation revealed the presence of tensions between competitive funding and research practices of scholars’ communities ( Gläser and Laudel, 2016 ), which are further exacerbated by the reduction of the level of public resources allocated for R&D, resulting in unintended consequences such as the use of competitive funding for different tasks and the contamination of institutional funding with objectives designed for project funding ( Gläser, 2016 ; Franssen et al., 2018 ) or to favor senior researchers and males at the expense of young researchers and females ( Wang et al., 2018 ).

Aside from the issue of R&D system competition, project funding allocation can be investigated in the context of the relevance and value of public investment in research policy, especially at a time when policymakers are concerned about the low prominence of research activities oriented toward socially relevant objectives to answer societal questions. In this regard, EU policy recently emphasizes the so-called mission-oriented approach to improving the directionality of public R&I policies in order to promote innovation and well-being ( Mazzuccato, 2018 ).

This paper addressed the problem of the orientation of government R&D project funding instruments toward topics of social relevance that are supposed to contribute to the societal well-being. The manuscript proposed an exploratory methodology that goes beyond simply analyzing policy instrument orientation as it emerges from formal objectives, and it also considers the characteristics of the instruments that emerge during their actual implementation, particularly in the beneficiary selection process, resulting in the modulation of the importance of the evaluation criteria and the composition of the evaluation panel.

The investigation revealed that funding instruments aimed at socially relevant issues are not widespread in the European countries under analysis. The importance of project funding orientation toward general advancement of knowledge, i.e., curiosity-driven research, remains strong. Based on the evidence from this study, it is not excluded in principle that instruments with some generic orientation or no orientation can address research activities that include topics of social relevance, with the effect depending on the design of the evaluation criteria and the panel composition.

As to the RFOs portfolio, we observed that Research Councils have primarily instruments with no thematic orientation toward socially relevant issues, but the evaluation criteria are flexible enough to allow for an implementation that may even score high the capability of the proposals to address objectives dealing with relevant policy problems. On the contrary, non-academic selection criteria are very important in funding instruments managed by sectoral RFOs, but the calls for proposals are characterized by a high degree of wording heterogeneity. In this regard, innovation agencies are those whose implementation is generally consistent with the formal orientation of the funding instruments. A preliminary explanation could be that RFOs with general missions – research councils first, implement project funding instruments based on “their core business” ( Braun, 2006 ), attempting to maintain their independence from government steering. Instead, agencies with a specific mission, such as the innovation agencies, are characterized by instruments in which research is expected to address problems that are specifically devoted to creating added value and impact on the economy and society, and evaluation procedures are more focused on selecting projects that are oriented toward those objectives. One significant implication is that differences in project funding instruments between countries are related to the establishment of specialized agencies for managing instruments addressing socially relevant topics or to entrusting research councils with the task of managing such schemes.

Summing up, the evidence from the tests performed does not contradict the paper's empirical prepositions (see par. 2.1). The literature shows that research funding arrangements have been largely analyzed in terms of consequences on beneficiaries and to a lesser extent as to the consequences they produce on research practices. In this paper the authors instead focus on a relatively unexplored issue concerning decision-makers' design and implementation of project funding instruments. This different perspective has a specific value contributing to single out problems that may arise at the decision-making level, such as phenomena related to legal traditions and path dependency that may affect the way in which policy goals are shaped, as well as authority relationships between actors involved in the selection process.

Limitations, Future Research, and Implications

Mapping the characteristics of the RFO portfolios with indicators addressing the importance given to the evaluation criteria, as well as the panel composition, can show the level to which project funding actual implementation can improve competition within the R&D system addressing socially relevant issues. The findings are preliminary attempts to understand how public policies are implemented across European countries using descriptors related to the design and implementation of project funding instruments; additional work is required to refine the descriptors and build indicators on both funding instruments and the position of RFOs as actors implementing R&D policies.

The MCA results suggest that policy-oriented instruments require more in-depth analysis to deepen implementation using evaluation criteria as evidence, as well as additional checks whether there are any biases affecting the scoring of evaluation criteria produced by experts and used in the analysis.

The method developed for this study may help in shedding light on the characteristics of national R&D funding systems, as well as the roles that project funding plays in European RFO portfolios. This perspective has the specific value of recognizing correlated problems that may arise at the decision-making level, which may affect how policy goals are shaped and achieved.

Further studies could be enriched by bibliometric analyses on the results and outputs of funding instruments, which could provide an additional element to address the research topic.

Finally, some implications of our findings can be outlined as to their consequences for different levels of analysis of project funding instruments. As to the micro level, analyses based solely on formal objectives of the programs are incapable of revealing their actual orientation toward socially relevant issues. On the contrary, combining indicators on different features (e.g., policy objectives, evaluation criteria in knowledge-oriented instruments, mission of the agencies and experts involved in the evaluation panels) is important for depicting them and comparing instruments across countries.

As to the meso level of analysis, the findings of this investigation confirm the importance of RFOs as key decision-makers for project funding implementation; additionally, data provide further evidence that there are various ways in which RFOs delineate their “space of political and scientific interests” in research funding, balancing the demand for relevance of research and the improvement of control from policymakers ( Braun, 2006 ). One mean is to retain the political control over the availability of funding resources and the freedom of choice in the selection processes.

At macro policy level, the policy implementation of the funding instrument may differ from the original political goal because of technical gap in the design of the policy instruments and political gap in the presentation of the desired objectives. Instruments are flexible means that are shaped by policymakers’ goals and priorities, but when implemented, they are “far from being fully controlled by policy makers” ( Reale and Seeber, 2013 , 142). Therefore, understanding the extent to which R&D governmental programmes are actually oriented toward socially relevant goals, needs a comprehensive analysis, including also how the instruments are put into actions through the selection of the beneficiaries.

Data Availability Statement

The data supporting the conclusions of this article are available from the corresponding author on request. EFIL data will be publicly available for research purposes soon.

Author Contributions

The authors have distributed their research work as follows: Conceptualization and theoretical background by ER; Methodology by AS, AZ, and ER; Data curation by AS; Analyses by AS and AZ; Results discussion by ER, with support from AS and AZ. The content of the manuscript has been approved by all the authors.

The work was supported by European Commission, Joint Research Center, through the PREF contract (contract number 154321), and Horizon 2020-RISIS2 project (grant agreement number 824091).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This article is a revised version of the paper “Topics of social relevance in research project funding instruments: evidence from European countries,” which was presented for the 23rd International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators (STI 2018) held at Leiden, The Netherlands on September 12–14, 2018.

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2 Although also research aimed at technological innovation may also be aimed at solving societal problems, the descriptor distinguishes between the instruments primarily devoted to the pre-competitive development, the curiosity-driven research and the remainder of oriented research. In this regard, the reference to the NABS classification is made explicit to ensure that there are no thematic overlaps.

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Keywords: project funding, policy instruments, evaluation, social relevance, competitive funding

Citation: Spinello AO, Reale E and Zinilli A (2021) Outlining the Orientation Toward Socially Relevant Issues in Competitive R&D Funding Instruments. Front. Res. Metr. Anal. 6:712839. doi: 10.3389/frma.2021.712839

Received: 21 May 2021; Accepted: 24 June 2021; Published: 13 July 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Spinello, Reale and Zinilli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Andrea Orazio Spinello, [email protected]

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A research problem is a definite or clear expression [statement] about an area of concern, a condition to be improved upon, a difficulty to be eliminated, or a troubling question that exists in scholarly literature, in theory, or within existing practice that points to a need for meaningful understanding and deliberate investigation. A research problem does not state how to do something, offer a vague or broad proposition, or present a value question. In the social and behavioral sciences, studies are most often framed around examining a problem that needs to be understood and resolved in order to improve society and the human condition.

Bryman, Alan. “The Research Question in Social Research: What is its Role?” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10 (2007): 5-20; Guba, Egon G., and Yvonna S. Lincoln. “Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research . Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, editors. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 105-117; Pardede, Parlindungan. “Identifying and Formulating the Research Problem." Research in ELT: Module 4 (October 2018): 1-13; Li, Yanmei, and Sumei Zhang. "Identifying the Research Problem." In Applied Research Methods in Urban and Regional Planning . (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2022), pp. 13-21.

Importance of...

The purpose of a problem statement is to:

• Introduce the reader to the importance of the topic being studied . The reader is oriented to the significance of the study.
• Anchors the research questions, hypotheses, or assumptions to follow . It offers a concise statement about the purpose of your paper.
• Place the topic into a particular context that defines the parameters of what is to be investigated.
• Provide the framework for reporting the results and indicates what is probably necessary to conduct the study and explain how the findings will present this information.

In the social sciences, the research problem establishes the means by which you must answer the "So What?" question. This declarative question refers to a research problem surviving the relevancy test [the quality of a measurement procedure that provides repeatability and accuracy]. Note that answering the "So What?" question requires a commitment on your part to not only show that you have reviewed the literature, but that you have thoroughly considered the significance of the research problem and its implications applied to creating new knowledge and understanding or informing practice.

To survive the "So What" question, problem statements should possess the following attributes:

• Clarity and precision [a well-written statement does not make sweeping generalizations and irresponsible pronouncements; it also does include unspecific determinates like "very" or "giant"],
• Demonstrate a researchable topic or issue [i.e., feasibility of conducting the study is based upon access to information that can be effectively acquired, gathered, interpreted, synthesized, and understood],
• Identification of what would be studied, while avoiding the use of value-laden words and terms,
• Identification of an overarching question or small set of questions accompanied by key factors or variables,
• Identification of key concepts and terms,
• Articulation of the study's conceptual boundaries or parameters or limitations,
• Some generalizability in regards to applicability and bringing results into general use,
• Conveyance of the study's importance, benefits, and justification [i.e., regardless of the type of research, it is important to demonstrate that the research is not trivial],
• Does not have unnecessary jargon or overly complex sentence constructions; and,
• Conveyance of more than the mere gathering of descriptive data providing only a snapshot of the issue or phenomenon under investigation.

Bryman, Alan. “The Research Question in Social Research: What is its Role?” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10 (2007): 5-20; Brown, Perry J., Allen Dyer, and Ross S. Whaley. "Recreation Research—So What?" Journal of Leisure Research 5 (1973): 16-24; Castellanos, Susie. Critical Writing and Thinking. The Writing Center. Dean of the College. Brown University; Ellis, Timothy J. and Yair Levy Nova. "Framework of Problem-Based Research: A Guide for Novice Researchers on the Development of a Research-Worthy Problem." Informing Science: the International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline 11 (2008); Thesis and Purpose Statements. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Thesis Statements. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Selwyn, Neil. "‘So What?’…A Question that Every Journal Article Needs to Answer." Learning, Media, and Technology 39 (2014): 1-5; Shoket, Mohd. "Research Problem: Identification and Formulation." International Journal of Research 1 (May 2014): 512-518.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Types and Content

There are four general conceptualizations of a research problem in the social sciences:

• Casuist Research Problem -- this type of problem relates to the determination of right and wrong in questions of conduct or conscience by analyzing moral dilemmas through the application of general rules and the careful distinction of special cases.
• Difference Research Problem -- typically asks the question, “Is there a difference between two or more groups or treatments?” This type of problem statement is used when the researcher compares or contrasts two or more phenomena. This a common approach to defining a problem in the clinical social sciences or behavioral sciences.
• Descriptive Research Problem -- typically asks the question, "what is...?" with the underlying purpose to describe the significance of a situation, state, or existence of a specific phenomenon. This problem is often associated with revealing hidden or understudied issues.
• Relational Research Problem -- suggests a relationship of some sort between two or more variables to be investigated. The underlying purpose is to investigate specific qualities or characteristics that may be connected in some way.

A problem statement in the social sciences should contain :

• A lead-in that helps ensure the reader will maintain interest over the study,
• A declaration of originality [e.g., mentioning a knowledge void or a lack of clarity about a topic that will be revealed in the literature review of prior research],
• An indication of the central focus of the study [establishing the boundaries of analysis], and
• An explanation of the study's significance or the benefits to be derived from investigating the research problem.

NOTE :   A statement describing the research problem of your paper should not be viewed as a thesis statement that you may be familiar with from high school. Given the content listed above, a description of the research problem is usually a short paragraph in length.

II.  Sources of Problems for Investigation

The identification of a problem to study can be challenging, not because there's a lack of issues that could be investigated, but due to the challenge of formulating an academically relevant and researchable problem which is unique and does not simply duplicate the work of others. To facilitate how you might select a problem from which to build a research study, consider these sources of inspiration:

Deductions from Theory This relates to deductions made from social philosophy or generalizations embodied in life and in society that the researcher is familiar with. These deductions from human behavior are then placed within an empirical frame of reference through research. From a theory, the researcher can formulate a research problem or hypothesis stating the expected findings in certain empirical situations. The research asks the question: “What relationship between variables will be observed if theory aptly summarizes the state of affairs?” One can then design and carry out a systematic investigation to assess whether empirical data confirm or reject the hypothesis, and hence, the theory.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives Identifying a problem that forms the basis for a research study can come from academic movements and scholarship originating in disciplines outside of your primary area of study. This can be an intellectually stimulating exercise. A review of pertinent literature should include examining research from related disciplines that can reveal new avenues of exploration and analysis. An interdisciplinary approach to selecting a research problem offers an opportunity to construct a more comprehensive understanding of a very complex issue that any single discipline may be able to provide.

Interviewing Practitioners The identification of research problems about particular topics can arise from formal interviews or informal discussions with practitioners who provide insight into new directions for future research and how to make research findings more relevant to practice. Discussions with experts in the field, such as, teachers, social workers, health care providers, lawyers, business leaders, etc., offers the chance to identify practical, “real world” problems that may be understudied or ignored within academic circles. This approach also provides some practical knowledge which may help in the process of designing and conducting your study.

Personal Experience Don't undervalue your everyday experiences or encounters as worthwhile problems for investigation. Think critically about your own experiences and/or frustrations with an issue facing society or related to your community, your neighborhood, your family, or your personal life. This can be derived, for example, from deliberate observations of certain relationships for which there is no clear explanation or witnessing an event that appears harmful to a person or group or that is out of the ordinary.

Relevant Literature The selection of a research problem can be derived from a thorough review of pertinent research associated with your overall area of interest. This may reveal where gaps exist in understanding a topic or where an issue has been understudied. Research may be conducted to: 1) fill such gaps in knowledge; 2) evaluate if the methodologies employed in prior studies can be adapted to solve other problems; or, 3) determine if a similar study could be conducted in a different subject area or applied in a different context or to different study sample [i.e., different setting or different group of people]. Also, authors frequently conclude their studies by noting implications for further research; read the conclusion of pertinent studies because statements about further research can be a valuable source for identifying new problems to investigate. The fact that a researcher has identified a topic worthy of further exploration validates the fact it is worth pursuing.

III.  What Makes a Good Research Statement?

A good problem statement begins by introducing the broad area in which your research is centered, gradually leading the reader to the more specific issues you are investigating. The statement need not be lengthy, but a good research problem should incorporate the following features:

1.  Compelling Topic The problem chosen should be one that motivates you to address it but simple curiosity is not a good enough reason to pursue a research study because this does not indicate significance. The problem that you choose to explore must be important to you, but it must also be viewed as important by your readers and to a the larger academic and/or social community that could be impacted by the results of your study. 2.  Supports Multiple Perspectives The problem must be phrased in a way that avoids dichotomies and instead supports the generation and exploration of multiple perspectives. A general rule of thumb in the social sciences is that a good research problem is one that would generate a variety of viewpoints from a composite audience made up of reasonable people. 3.  Researchability This isn't a real word but it represents an important aspect of creating a good research statement. It seems a bit obvious, but you don't want to find yourself in the midst of investigating a complex research project and realize that you don't have enough prior research to draw from for your analysis. There's nothing inherently wrong with original research, but you must choose research problems that can be supported, in some way, by the resources available to you. If you are not sure if something is researchable, don't assume that it isn't if you don't find information right away--seek help from a librarian !

NOTE:   Do not confuse a research problem with a research topic. A topic is something to read and obtain information about, whereas a problem is something to be solved or framed as a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution, or explained as a source of perplexity, distress, or vexation. In short, a research topic is something to be understood; a research problem is something that needs to be investigated.

IV.  Asking Analytical Questions about the Research Problem

Research problems in the social and behavioral sciences are often analyzed around critical questions that must be investigated. These questions can be explicitly listed in the introduction [i.e., "This study addresses three research questions about women's psychological recovery from domestic abuse in multi-generational home settings..."], or, the questions are implied in the text as specific areas of study related to the research problem. Explicitly listing your research questions at the end of your introduction can help in designing a clear roadmap of what you plan to address in your study, whereas, implicitly integrating them into the text of the introduction allows you to create a more compelling narrative around the key issues under investigation. Either approach is appropriate.

The number of questions you attempt to address should be based on the complexity of the problem you are investigating and what areas of inquiry you find most critical to study. Practical considerations, such as, the length of the paper you are writing or the availability of resources to analyze the issue can also factor in how many questions to ask. In general, however, there should be no more than four research questions underpinning a single research problem.

Given this, well-developed analytical questions can focus on any of the following:

• Highlights a genuine dilemma, area of ambiguity, or point of confusion about a topic open to interpretation by your readers;
• Yields an answer that is unexpected and not obvious rather than inevitable and self-evident;
• Provokes meaningful thought or discussion;
• Raises the visibility of the key ideas or concepts that may be understudied or hidden;
• Suggests the need for complex analysis or argument rather than a basic description or summary; and,
• Offers a specific path of inquiry that avoids eliciting generalizations about the problem.

NOTE:   Questions of how and why concerning a research problem often require more analysis than questions about who, what, where, and when. You should still ask yourself these latter questions, however. Thinking introspectively about the who, what, where, and when of a research problem can help ensure that you have thoroughly considered all aspects of the problem under investigation and helps define the scope of the study in relation to the problem.

V.  Mistakes to Avoid

Beware of circular reasoning! Do not state the research problem as simply the absence of the thing you are suggesting. For example, if you propose the following, "The problem in this community is that there is no hospital," this only leads to a research problem where:

• The need is for a hospital
• The objective is to create a hospital
• The method is to plan for building a hospital, and
• The evaluation is to measure if there is a hospital or not.

This is an example of a research problem that fails the "So What?" test . In this example, the problem does not reveal the relevance of why you are investigating the fact there is no hospital in the community [e.g., perhaps there's a hospital in the community ten miles away]; it does not elucidate the significance of why one should study the fact there is no hospital in the community [e.g., that hospital in the community ten miles away has no emergency room]; the research problem does not offer an intellectual pathway towards adding new knowledge or clarifying prior knowledge [e.g., the county in which there is no hospital already conducted a study about the need for a hospital, but it was conducted ten years ago]; and, the problem does not offer meaningful outcomes that lead to recommendations that can be generalized for other situations or that could suggest areas for further research [e.g., the challenges of building a new hospital serves as a case study for other communities].

Alvesson, Mats and Jörgen Sandberg. “Generating Research Questions Through Problematization.” Academy of Management Review 36 (April 2011): 247-271 ; Choosing and Refining Topics. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; D'Souza, Victor S. "Use of Induction and Deduction in Research in Social Sciences: An Illustration." Journal of the Indian Law Institute 24 (1982): 655-661; Ellis, Timothy J. and Yair Levy Nova. "Framework of Problem-Based Research: A Guide for Novice Researchers on the Development of a Research-Worthy Problem." Informing Science: the International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline 11 (2008); How to Write a Research Question. The Writing Center. George Mason University; Invention: Developing a Thesis Statement. The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College; Problem Statements PowerPoint Presentation. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Procter, Margaret. Using Thesis Statements. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Shoket, Mohd. "Research Problem: Identification and Formulation." International Journal of Research 1 (May 2014): 512-518; Trochim, William M.K. Problem Formulation. Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006; Thesis and Purpose Statements. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Thesis Statements. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Pardede, Parlindungan. “Identifying and Formulating the Research Problem." Research in ELT: Module 4 (October 2018): 1-13; Walk, Kerry. Asking an Analytical Question. [Class handout or worksheet]. Princeton University; White, Patrick. Developing Research Questions: A Guide for Social Scientists . New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2009; Li, Yanmei, and Sumei Zhang. "Identifying the Research Problem." In Applied Research Methods in Urban and Regional Planning . (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2022), pp. 13-21.

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