GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING A PROPOSAL SEMINAR

1. What is the main idea of your research? Immediately after the title slide, the main idea must be presented in a simple language, so that everyone in the audience can understand what the research is about. Here you describe what the overall goal is and what you want to invent, discover or develop.
2. Next, you must give a good justification for your research. Why is this research important? Why do you need to invest your time and public funds for this research?
3. What is already known? You are not required to provide an extensive review of literature. However, you must tell briefly what is known in this field.
4. What is not known? After telling briefly what is already known, you have to emphasize what is not known. This should connect you with the specific objectives.
5. Hypotheses. You may present your hypotheses here or tie them together with specific objectives (below).
6. Specific objectives. Generally, there should be two or more specific objectives. Three is a good number.
7. Specific objective 1. Describe how you will accomplish this. Show flow charts if needed. Explain briefly important methods and experiments for this objective.
8. Specific objective 2. Describe in the same way as for objective 1.
9. Specific objective 3. Describe as for objectives 1 and 2.
10. Progress to date. Describe your results so far for each of the objectives. You may not have results for all objectives. You must present convincing results for at least one objective (see below).
11. If you have a lot of results, show only the most important results. Discuss with your supervisor about your most important results. Other results must be available for presentation, if someone asks.
12. Explain your results slowly. Make sure that you provide interpretations of your results. Mere presentation of the results will not be enough. You have to explain what these results mean and how they relate to the objectives.
13. Timetable for completion. Show a timetable for rest of the experiments.
14. Discussion with your supervisor. It is essential that you show your slides and discuss with your supervisor at least one week prior to your presentation. It is also important to make the presentation before your supervisor and your colleagues in the laboratory. Listen to their criticism and try to improve your presentation. Your research subject may be very complicated and many in the audience may not understand some details or certain slides. However, all scientists and MBBE graduate students who come to attend your presentation must be able to understand the main idea and the important points.