Policy for research proposal submission (apart from the Faculty of Social Sciences)

Research proposals for the PhD are to be submitted within one year from the time of admission to the PhD program. The proposal must include a cover page specifying the title of the proposal in Hebrew and in English, a survey of the literature including current knowledge on the subject, sections that specify the significance of the study and its objectives, a description of the research methods, the planned research, a table of contents, and a full bibliography.

If the student intends to submit the dissertation as a collection of articles, the proposal is to include for each of the planned articles, the topic, theoretical or research background, research hypotheses and the key claims and innovations expected. The theme common to all the articles should also be explained. A request to submit the dissertation as a collection of articles may also be submitted after approval of the research proposal. In any event, prior to submission of the dissertation, the ‘Request for submission of dissertation as a collection of articles’ is to be submitted.

The research proposal not including bibliography and cover page should be no more than 30 pages. Departments are entitled to require a shorter research proposal than that specified above.
In the combined track, research proposals may exceed 30 pages.

The proposal shall be submitted by the student to the Departmental Committee after it has been signed by the advisor(s).

Proposal review shall be conducted by the department; upon completion the proposal shall be forwarded to the School of Graduate Studies, along with the comments of the reviewers, and responses of the student and advisor(s). The “Submission of PhD research proposal” form, signed by the student, advisor(s) and Departmental Committee chair, is to be attached.

If the research topic requires approval of an ethics committee or the committee on animal experiments, such approval must be obtained from the department or the faculty before submitting the research proposal for review.

The research proposal approved by the School of Graduate Studies is binding upon the student.

Any change to the research topic after the proposal has been approved, such as broadening or narrowing its scope, requires approval by the School of Graduate Studies. Such a request must be submitted using the miscellaneous requests form, signed by the advisor and the department.

The Faculty of Social Sciences has additional technical guidelines for research proposal submissions. These instructions can be found here.