Professor Robert Faff, Director of Research and a Finance expert at The University of Queensland Business School, has developed a new tool designed to sharpen the preparation of research project proposals.
The tool, which is in the format of a two-page pitching template, aims to succinctly deliver all the key information needed by the ‘pitchee’ in an easily consumable form.
The template recognises that ‘pitchees’ are very time poor, so is designed in a way that the pitch can be both delivered and critiqued in the space of a 30 minute meeting.
Professor Faff, who has conducted workshops with researchers around the world, said that the template is also intended for use past the initial proposal stage of a research project; there is considerable value in rethinking a project at regular intervals to keep it on track and to trim it for practical realism.
“The notion of pitching a project anew can benefit the project in many ways, such as the retention of focus, recalibrating the scope, and refining the methodology to match the type and amount of data that turns out to be available,” he said.
This new way of pitching research is taking Professor Faff all over Australia, and the world.
“Now that I have established a solid academic foundation for the template tool, I am forging on with great energy and enthusiasm to push it to the limit. I will do this, both in terms of discipline area and geographic reach.
“On the former the online library already exceeds 30 different discipline areas and is growing fast! On the latter, beyond Australia, countries in which I have already presented “pitching” talks include: New Zealand, Slovenia, Belgium, Scotland, Romania, Italy, Norway and Germany – and soon China, Mexico, and Argentina – to name a few. So, look out for the ‘pitch doctor’!” he said.
If you are interested in reading Professor Faff’s paper it can be downloaded from SSRN at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2462059
