‘What are the 3 most important challenges or risks you may be facing in your project? How will you address or mitigate these risks and challenges?
There are several challenges to the provisional research project I’ve chosen, namely: 1) The complexity of the interdisciplinary content, 2) The reliability of sources included, 3) Balancing depth and breadth.
Firstly, the provisional topic could span several disciplines – including history, philosophy, management and sociology to name a few – which may prove challenging in integrating these different disciplines into a cohesive narrative. Mitigating this challenge could be done through developing a clear conceptual framework/ model, in an abductive manner – regularly revisiting and refining the framework/ model’s components and inter-relationships throughout the research – which could serve as the backbone of the project by clearly defining the relationships between the different components from the outset, helping to ensure that the narrative flows logically.
The wide variety of sources, from different disciplines, could require a robust selection process as the availability and reliability of such sources would be crucial for the project’s underpinning. The selection process could entail diversifying the included sources – from peer-reviewed academic articles, historical texts, philosophical works, contemporary literature to reputable online sources – and only selecting sources which pass a certain set of developed criteria to filter out low quality work for example.
Lastly, the provisional topic would cover a wide range of topics, from historical perspectives to contemporary issues which could pose a risk of spreading the analysis too thin, compromising the depth of the exploration. There are a couple ways to mitigate this challenge, such as, clearly defining the scope of the project and setting specific objectives for each section; prioritising key themes and concepts that align with the overarching research question; regularly evaluating my progress against the objectives, which could help ensure that each aspect receives sufficient attention.
