A “research plan” (sometimes called a research statement) is one of the core documents in a faculty or postdoc-to-faculty job application. It is a distinct genre from a grant application’s aims page or a course research-proposal assignment: its audience is a hiring or search committee deciding whether to invest a tenure-track line in you, not a funding agency deciding whether to award a specific project. This guide covers what the document is, how it is structured, how it differs from CASRAI’s other research-plan-adjacent content, and a labeled illustrative template.
What Is a Research Plan in a Faculty Job Application?
In the context of academic hiring, a research plan is a narrative document — typically submitted alongside a cover letter, CV, teaching statement, and letters of reference — in which a candidate for a faculty position (or, less commonly, a research-track scientist position) describes the research program they intend to build. University career-development offices that publish guidance on faculty application materials, including UCSF’s Office of Career and Professional Development, the University of Pennsylvania’s Career Services, and MIT’s EECS Communication Lab, consistently describe it as covering three things: what the candidate has already done, what they are doing now, and — the part that carries the most weight for a hiring committee — what they propose to do next, as an independent investigator, over roughly the next five years.
Some institutions and disciplines label this document a “research statement” rather than a “research plan”; the terms are used largely interchangeably in faculty hiring, though “research plan” more often signals emphasis on the forward-looking program rather than a retrospective account. Always follow the exact document name and instructions given in a specific job posting — search committees do read literally, and a mismatched document title or missing required section is an easy, avoidable way to look like a form-letter applicant.
How This Differs From a Grant Proposal or an NIH Specific Aims Page
“Research plan” is also used inside specific grant mechanisms — for example, the multi-page Research Plan component of an NIH K-series career development award — which is a different document written for a funder’s review panel around a defined, budgeted project. It is easy to confuse the two because both use the same name and both describe future research. The table below summarizes the distinction.
| Dimension | Faculty job-application research plan | Grant application (e.g., NIH Specific Aims / Research Strategy) |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | A search/hiring committee across a department, evaluating fit and potential | A funding agency’s review panel, evaluating a specific project’s feasibility and significance |
| Time horizon | A multi-year vision for an independent research program (roughly 5 years, sometimes framed further) | A single budget period (commonly 1-5 years, mechanism-dependent) |
| Structure | Past research → current research → future direction(s), often 2-3 loosely bounded future projects | Formal numbered aims (typically 2-4), each an independent, falsifiable objective |
| Length | Commonly 2-5 pages, varies widely by field, institution, and posting instructions | Fixed page limits set by the funder (e.g., NIH’s Specific Aims page is a strict one page) |
| Funding detail | General — may gesture at target funding mechanisms without a budget | Tied to an actual budget, timeline, and (for renewals) preliminary data supporting feasibility |
For the grant-side document, see CASRAI’s NIH Specific Aims Page guide. For a general grant application’s proposal narrative, see Research Proposal in APA Format and Research Project Proposal Examples — both of those cover the funder-facing document, not the career-application one this page addresses.
Typical Structure
There is no single body that standardizes this document the way NIH standardizes a Specific Aims page — format expectations come from the hiring institution and vary by field. Across the guidance published by university career-development and postdoctoral offices, though, a consistent shape recurs:
1. Opening: Research Identity and Significance
A short opening paragraph states the overarching problem or question the candidate’s research addresses and why it matters to the field — the equivalent of a thesis statement for the whole document.
2. Past and Current Research
A summary of the candidate’s research trajectory to date: the questions that motivated the doctoral and (if applicable) postdoctoral work, the key findings, and — importantly for a hiring committee — what those findings establish about the candidate’s own contribution and capability, distinct from a supervisor’s lab program.
3. Future Research Program
The section search committees weigh most heavily. It typically lays out several (often two to four) proposed lines of investigation for the candidate’s independent lab or research group, distinguishing near-term projects (fundable, staffable, and completable relatively soon after hire) from a longer-term direction that gives the program room to grow. Committees are generally looking for a program with enough independent identity to be distinguishable from the candidate’s PhD/postdoc advisor’s work, and enough concrete detail to be evaluated as feasible — not just aspirational.
4. Fit and Resources
Many versions of this document close by connecting the proposed program to the hiring department or institution specifically — relevant core facilities, potential collaborators, student populations, or funding mechanisms the candidate would pursue there. A generic research plan that could be submitted unchanged to any department is a commonly cited weakness in the guidance these career offices publish.
An Illustrative Research Plan Outline
The outline below is a generic, illustrative composite written to show structure only — it is not drawn from, or attributed to, any real candidate, application, or institution. Use only its shape, not its scientific content, and always follow your target department’s own instructions over this general template.
[Opening — 1 paragraph]: States the field-level question the candidate’s work addresses and previews the trajectory from past work to the proposed future program.
Past and current research [roughly 1-2 pages]: Summarizes the doctoral project’s central question, approach, and key finding(s); summarizes postdoctoral or current work and what new capability or direction it added; states explicitly what the candidate personally led or originated.
Future direction 1 [near-term, roughly 1 page]: A project scoped to be fundable and staffable within the first two to three years of an appointment, with a stated approach and expected contribution.
Future direction 2 [longer-term, roughly 0.5-1 page]: A second, related but distinct line that shows the research program has room to grow beyond the first project, framed at a level of detail appropriate to a 5-year horizon rather than a fully worked-out aim.
Fit paragraph [short, closing]: Names specific resources, potential collaborators, or facilities at the target institution and connects them to the proposed work.
Common Weaknesses Search Committees Report
- Too generic to distinguish from the advisor’s program. If a committee cannot tell what the candidate would do independently versus what they did as part of someone else’s lab, the plan reads as insufficiently independent.
- No near-term, fundable project. An ambitious long-term vision with nothing concrete enough to start on day one, staff with a first graduate student, or take to a funding agency within the first year or two, raises feasibility concerns.
- Not tailored to the institution. A plan that reads as identical across every application a candidate submits, with no reference to the specific department’s resources, colleagues, or student population, is a frequently cited weakness in the guidance these career offices publish.
- Too much overlap with the cover letter or teaching statement. The research plan should not simply restate the cover letter at greater length; it is expected to go deeper into the actual research program.
- Wrong length or missing sections relative to what the posting asked for. Some searches specify a page limit or ask for research and teaching content combined into one statement; always match the posting’s own instructions over any general template, including this one.
How Career Stage Changes the Emphasis
A postdoctoral researcher applying for a first tenure-track position typically needs to work hardest on establishing independent research identity — separating “what I did” from “what my advisor’s lab does” — since that is the main open question a committee has about an early-career candidate. A candidate already running an independent lab (e.g., applying for a lateral move, or from a research-track or non-tenure-track position) can lean more on demonstrated independent output and typically spends comparatively more of the document on the future-program section, since independence itself is no longer the open question. Candidates applying for career-development or K-series funding alongside a faculty search may also be drafting a separate, more detailed Research Plan for that award — see CASRAI’s coverage of NRSA mechanisms and NIH Fellowships: F30, F31, F32, and F33 for how that funder-facing document differs from the job-application one covered on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a research plan for a faculty job application?
A narrative document, typically 2-5 pages, submitted as part of an academic job application, describing a candidate’s past and current research and — most importantly to hiring committees — the independent research program they propose to build over roughly the next five years.
Is a research plan the same as a research statement?
In faculty hiring, the two terms are largely used interchangeably; some institutions prefer one label or the other, or ask for research and teaching content combined into a single statement. Always follow the exact terminology and instructions in the specific job posting.
How long should a faculty job-application research plan be?
There is no field-wide standard length — 2 to 5 pages is common, but this varies substantially by discipline and institution, and some postings set an explicit page limit. Follow the posting’s instructions over any general guideline.
How is this different from an NIH Specific Aims page?
A Specific Aims page is a strictly one-page, funder-facing document describing a single budgeted project for an NIH review panel. A faculty job-application research plan is a longer, committee-facing document describing an entire future research program, not one funded project, and it has no NIH-imposed format rules — see CASRAI’s NIH Specific Aims Page guide for the funder-facing version.
Do I need a separate teaching statement as well?
Most tenure-track searches request a teaching statement (or teaching philosophy) as a separate document from the research plan, though some ask for them combined, and requirements vary by institution type — always check the specific posting.
Related CASRAI Resources
See CASRAI’s NIH Specific Aims Page and How to Write a Grant Proposal guides for the funder-facing counterparts to this document, Research Proposal in APA Format and Research Project Proposal Examples for course/thesis-style proposal writing, and Diversity Statements for Researchers for another job-application-specific document search committees evaluate. For the broader scholarly-writing landscape, see the Scholarly Writing pillar page.
