The Faculty of Business and Management (FBM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) held a research seminar with the theme of “Enhancing Research Idea Using Pitching Framework” on 18th August 2021 via Zoom and Facebook live platforms.
It was organized by the Research and Innovation (RENOVA) Unit of FBM-UiTM. The seminar targeted at creating awareness among the faculty’s community on the presence of this framework and holds onto the understanding that high quality research outputs can be produced by the academics and post-graduate students if their research ideas are established in a more novelty-driven way.
Emeritus Prof. Dr. Robert W. Faff, a distinguished Finance Professor of Bond University, Australia was invited as a speaker. He is the founder of this research planning tool called “Pitching Research Framework” which nowadays has received worldwide attention in the research environment.
He has published various articles promoting the use of this new tool in the research area, which aims to challenge novice researchers to effectively communicate their research ideas, provides a simple and succinct research planning framework in the form of a 2-page pitching template. The logic is to deliver essential, brief information across a broad range of essential dimensions that any academic expert or research collaborator would need, to make a reliable evaluation of the quality of a research idea and proposal.
Applying the pitching template that promotes communication of research ideas with a total allocation of 1,000 words ± 20%, academics and post-graduate students are able to identify and evaluate the novelty of their research in a simple form. Thus, the application of this framework would assist them in producing more novelty-driven research outputs.
In his speech, Prof. Dr Robert Faff, emphasized that two biggest obstacles impeding any research project are the start and the endpoint of the project. As pitching a research framework is all about establishing a sound start, the identification of whether researchers have identified a worthwhile research topic will indicate the novelty of the research topic and the potential of the research outputs for publication in highly ranked international academic journals.
He added, a research idea, which will be itemized in the pitching template, will avoid the academics and post-graduate students from wasting precious time and resources on ideas that may merely be a replication element or “flimsy” addition to the existing literature.
Expressing her gratitude on the presence of Emeritus Prof. Dr. Robert Faff as a speaker in the seminar, Prof. Dr Noryati Ahmad, the Dean of FBM-UiTM, agreed on the suitability of this framework in research supervision activities.
She added this framework may reduce the time consumed in understanding students’ research idea at the early supervision phase which eventually help the students having a good grasp of their research direction.
The seminar yields insightful guidance for communicating research ideas and establishing a novelty-driven research topic.