What is research?

General

Research is a systematic investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by drawing novel conclusions based on analyses of previous research/knowledge. Research attempts to answer intellectual and practical questions through application of systematic methods.

Basic vs applied research

Research is divided into two general categories:

1) Basic research is inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge.

2) Applied research is effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or developing new processes, products or techniques. Basic research is mostly carried out at universities such as University of Zurich or MIT (Massachussetts Intsitute of Technology) or CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) whereas applied research is mainly carried out at universities of applied sciences.

Primary vs secondary research: Primary research is concerned with collecting new data, mostly by the researchers themselves. Secondary research is concerned with investigating data collected by somebody else.

Research consists of:

• asking questions that nobody has asked before,
• doing the necessary work to find the answer,
• communicating the knowledge you have acquired to a larger audience.

Usually research follows a systematic procedure as presented in Fig 1 below.

How do we develop a research focus?

The problem might come from outside, for example from an industrial partner seeking a solution, or researchers have to find new research questions by themselves. As any kind of research builds on previous knowledge, the ‘state of the art’ in the field of inquiry has to be reviewed. During this review, researchers usually have to find a gap, something that has not been investigated before. The data collection process is the next step for which appropriate methods have to be chosen (e.g. measurement, tests, experiments, laboratory analyses, surveys, literature based research). One key feature of scientific methods is that the investigation must be replicable, which means somebody else using this particular method reaches the same results. Next, results are analysed and interpreted. This is followed by one or more conclusions and recommendations.

Writing up research

The final step, even though not shown in Fig 1, is the dissemination of research, often in form of a report or a scientific paper. This  is the subject of the next chapters of this book.