Thread by @raulpacheco

*Somebody* asked me about writing a Research Statement. I want to assume you mean to use this for an academic position. Having chaired several tenure-track searches (and participated in some as a candidate, myself!) I think I can offer two pieces of advice.

One way to write your research statement is to follow a similar model to the blog post I wrote here raulpacheco.org/2019/04/prepar…

DO NOTE: In this post, I wrote about writing a Research Statement and crafting a Research Trajectory. This was not by chance. There's a logic to this.

Personally, I think that when departments and universities hire you, they want to see how you develop your work through time. In that sense, the Research Statement that you arrive with (at the time of application) is STATIC. You present a SNAPSHOT of what you've done so far.

In my personal view (please don't take my suggestions as dogma or guidelines!), I think that there is value in developing both a Research Statement and a Research Trajectory (this one is worth considering in both ex-ante and ex-post modes)

A Research Trajectory can do ...

... one of two things:

1) it can present a narrative in timeline form of how your thinking has evolved.

2) it can present your Research Plan for the next 5-6 years (pandemics and life will obviously derail that plan!)

So what I have done with my own Research Statements is...

... to present how my research interests have evolved through time.

Many people didn't know why I was invited to participate in a global workshop on the future of environmental policy. Well, at the beginning of my career, I *was* a specialist in environmental policy instruments

It's taken me *only* 20 years, but I finally returned to the field of environmental regulation and policy instruments tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Having a cohesive Research Statement that reads a bit more like a Research Trajectory allows me to explain how my thinking has evolved.

Now, my own thinking about the importance, value, structure and content of the Research Plan, Research Trajectory, Research Pipeline and Research Statement has evolved (most recent iteration can be found here raulpacheco.org/2020/04/what-a…)

What must be clear from my blog is that...

... I look at how *other* scholars do things, I analyze their approaches, and then I adapt and develop my own strategy. That's what I've done for my own Research Statement (which you can read here, titled "Research Interests" raulpacheco.org/my-research-2/…)

I haven't had time ...

... to observe and read many Research Statements (or research narratives, as you may want to call them), but I recently came across @paullagunes' revamped website, and I really, really liked how he narrates his work paullagunes.com/research/

Paul explains his projects through time

And how his work contributes to theoretical debates and the empirical literature.

If people want to learn more about how to craft a Research Statement, I think one strategy would be to poke around and read the "Research" pages of various scholars' websites to find patterns...

Ah, I said I had two pieces of advice. But in reality, I think it's just that one: for me, a research statement of a candidate tells me what they've done, if/where it is published or under review, and how those pieces of work fit a coherent, cohesive narrative of their research.

As someone with interdisciplinary training who continues to do interdisciplinary work, I often struggle when people want to categorize me (am I a geographer, a political scientist, a public administration scholar, a sociologist?).

Truth be told, the way I have made peace...

... with this challenge of being interdisciplinary when being in disciplinary departments (who say they want interdisciplinarity but judge you by their disciplinary norms) is to show how my work speaks to the debates of their discipline.

Also, my work (though it crossess...

.... through different disciplines and methods, is centred around ONE key question that has puzzled me my entire life: what drives agents to cooperate and collaborate?

Studying collaborative behaviour has led me to write on environmental activism and transnational coalitions.

It had been a relatively long time since I last had published something about environmental non-governmental organizations' influence on domestic politics, but recently published an article in @Env_Pol on this topic tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

And yes, I study cooperation and collaboration, but often times there are factors that preclude these and lead to disputes, which is why I ALSO study protests, activist mobilization and conflict: mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/7…

Studying water conflict has led me to study this resource.

... particularly water governance in urban contexts and more specifically, water insecurity and bottled water mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/4…

I link to my own work to show you how, despite the apparently disparate strands of research I have, everything makes sense and coalesces around

... the study of cooperation and conflict for the governance of orthodox and unorthodox commons (or common pool resources).

Anyhow, just my two cents in hopes this thread may help those crafting their research statements.

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