2.5 Research Feasability

 When Thinking About a Topic, Think About These Questions:

• WHAT KINDS OF LITERATURE and other material – both primary and secondary sources – needs to be evaluated to understand the pre-existing research/knowledge on the subject? Can you access this literature in physical and geographic terms? Read it in linguistic terms? Understand it given its complexity and the level of required knowledge?
• HOW MUCH LITERATURE and material needs to be evaluated to understand the pre-existing research/knowledge on the subject? Can you process the amount in the given time frame?
• To what extent will it be necessary to obtain OTHER TYPES OF INFORMATION OR DATA besides published literature, in particular via empirical research? Can you conduct the empirical and other research in a scientific manner given constraints of funding and time? 
• To what extent is the topic of CURRENT INTEREST? While current topics usually find more readers, they are often being researched simultaneously by others. Is there a real risk that other researchers will complete and publish their work before you, requiring you to retool the work and, in a worst case scenario, making your work obsolete? 
• To what extent is the TOPIC IN FLUX? Is there a significant risk that real life events will overtake the research and change the situation in a way that the problem is either solved or becomes irrelevant? 
• To what extent are you really INTERESTED in the topic? All writing projects eventually exhaust the initial enthusiasm of the researcher and require stamina to complete. A high level of initial interest can be essential to success. 
• To what extent is the topic suitable for SECONDARY AND TERTIARY USES identified in Module 1, for example publication, (public) grant-funded research, (private) contract-funded research, stepping-stone towards getting a particular (type of) job, stepping-stone towards further post-graduate studies, etc.?
• Can the topic be formulated with sufficient SPECIFICITY AND CLARITY to answer these questions in a meaningful way? For example a topic like “Comparison of banking regulation in the US and EU” would necessarily require the evaluation of HUGE amounts of literature and data and raise a myriad of questions, making it far too broad for anything less than a multi-annual project undertaken by a sizeable research team on both continents. 

Appraise the impact of the Seven Characteristics of Good Research on several topics you may be interested in. For your own benefit, write down the answers to the questions above about two or three potential topics. The next assignment, where you have to submit a draft or tentative topic, builds on this exercise!