Do you remember the day you defended your dissertation? That dazzling moment when committee members finally called you Doctor and you thought to yourself, “I’ve actually done it!” Fast forward to your first faculty meeting as an assistant professor, where your new colleagues casually ask about your research program and suddenly your facial expression changes from confident lion out for a delicious gazelle brunch to deer caught in the headlights of a freight train.
Yeah, I’ve been there. Many of us arrive at our first faculty position as accomplished researchers in a narrow field. We’re experts at executing our supervisor’s vision or publishing on whatever caught our interest during grad school. When I started my tenure-track job, I had a folder full of 99 ideas and no clue how they connected.
Like many assistant professors, I came from a PhD program where success meant publishing one good paper at a time. What mattered was getting it done, getting it out, and moving on. But when I hit the tenure track, that wasn’t good enough anymore. Here, I needed a coherent, fundable, multi-year research program that could support multiple graduate students. It was a whole different game.
Tenure committees, funding agencies, and even graduate students aren’t just evaluating individual projects. They’re looking for a coherent program of research that:
- Demonstrates sustained intellectual contribution to your field
- Shows clear progression and builds toward something meaningful
- Provides structured opportunities for student training
- Appeals to external funders
- Distinguishes you from your PhD supervisor’s research
- Makes your work recognizable and associated with you
In other words, a research program is your academic brand. Without one, you’re just publishing random papers. That shift hit me hard. It’s like going from being really good at playing the lead guitar (think: Slash of Guns N’ Roses) to telling the band how to record their songs (like the famous Butch Vig, look him up, music lovers). So if you’re feeling that pressure too, here’s the truth: You cannot build an academic career one unconnected hit paper at a time. You need a story. A through-line. A program that grows with you. Here’s how to make one:
1. Create a research vision (without sounding like a beauty pageant contestant)
The foundation of your research program is a clear vision that excites you enough to sustain 5–10 years of work. You need to ask yourself: What do I want to be known for? And, no, sorry, this is not about wanting world peace, but about articulating a specific intellectual contribution you want to make within your field.
And it’s much more than just branding but a real direction. Think beyond the specific problem your dissertation tackled. Ask:
- What’s the bigger problem behind the work I’ve already done? What big, meaningful question drives your curiosity? What problem keeps you up at night?
- What do I believe needs to change in my field? Here you want to get specific about your niche. Instead of saying “I study human-computer interaction,” try something like “I research the emotional impact of virtual reality technology on adult learners.”
- What’s a 10-year goal I’d love to keep working toward? Force yourself to articulate your big-picture goals concisely.
This becomes your research vision. It’s not a topic. It’s not a simple result. It’s a destination for your research journey. Write it out in one page. No buzzwords. No jargon. Just get clear on the most desirable outcome of your research. I spent weeks refining my research vision statement until it felt both ambitious enough to matter and focused enough to be achievable. This became my pointer for evaluating every potential project that came my way.
Example: “I want to make AI-generated feedback more human, starting with education and extending to healthcare and civic tech.”
That’s not a project. That’s a proper path.
2. Build a strategic research pipeline
Vision is long-term. Projects are how you get there. Every student in your lab needs a clear, scoped goal. Every paper should connect back to your vision. This makes your research program look coherent. Think of your research program like a sequential series rather than random episodes (compare it to Netflix shows, more like “You” less like “Black Mirror”). Each project should advance the overall narrative. (Ideally, you want it to feel like one of the better seasons of “Game of Thrones,” build that research world of yours, Khaleesi.) A research program isn’t just a collection of related projects but a thoughtfully designed arc where each project builds on or complements the others.
Most successful research programs include three types of projects:
- Safe Bet: Publishable. Feasible. Grad-student friendly. Doable, publishable work that builds directly on existing knowledge. For example: Let an MA student run a pilot study replicating known results in a new population (1–2 years).
- Middle Ground: Ambitious, but tractable with a team. Projects that stretch into new territory while maintaining reasonable risk. For example: Let a PhD student develop a tool or method from scratch (2–5 years).
- High Risk: Moonshot. If it works, it changes everything. High-risk, high-reward work that could be transformative (but might also fail). Propose a new paradigm yourself; test edge use cases with your postdocs (4–8 years).
Now stagger them.
For example, Stanford HCI professor Michael S. Bernstein structured his research program quite smart. His safe project extended his dissertation work on crowd-powered systems, his middle-ground project applied those insights to collaborative writing platforms, and his moonshots explored dense image annotations in computer vision systems that could transform how people work together online.
For each project, explicitly articulate how it:
- Builds on previous work (yours or others’)
- Addresses a specific aspect of your research vision
- Feeds into future projects
- Provides training opportunities for students
So draft your research pipeline like a good trilogy (like back in the day when Star Wars was still good entertainment).
- Phase 1: Foundations (collect early data, publish proofs of concept)
- Phase 2: Expansion (scale methods, secure funding, build collaborations)
- Phase 3: Integration (develop a framework, produce a capstone paper or tool)
Draw it. Literally. Flowchart it. I’ve found creating this visual map incredibly helpful (Venn diagrams or concept maps work, too). This means literally drawing the connections between projects to identify gaps or overlaps. Put it in your grants. Bring it to your annual review. It’s a story. You’re the author.
3. Align student projects without exploiting their labour
Graduate students shouldn’t just be your paid research assistants. But they should be developing as independent scholars within your research framework. Your research program needs to guide students while respecting their academic autonomy. Think of yourself as a research navigator rather than a dictator. You’re showing students possible paths within your program while letting them chart their own course within the boundaries.
The key is here balance:
- Scaffold projects appropriately. Match project complexity to student experience level and capabilities. For example, new Master’s students typically need well-defined projects with clear milestones and regular check-ins, while senior PhD candidates can handle more open-ended research questions and greater autonomy. I would assign pilot studies or replication work to beginning students, then gradually increase complexity as they develop research skills and confidence.
- Create contained contributions. Design projects that students can realistically complete in their program timeframe. For Master’s students, aim for projects that take 2–3 years. Let them focus on well-defined research questions with clear milestones. For PhD students, plan for 4–6 year projects that allow for deeper exploration while guaranteeing they graduate on time. I would break larger projects into manageable phases with clear publication goals along the way.
- Build connection points. Show how their work connects to the bigger program, but also allow space for their scholarly identity. I’d want them to see the direct connections between their research and the program’s overarching goals. For example, a student studying AI feedback systems might explore a specific aspect that particularly interests them, like cultural adaptation or accessibility, while still contributing to the program’s broader goals.
One of my most successful strategies has been creating research themes, where students work on complementary aspects of a larger question (could also be streams). This creates natural collaboration and peer mentoring while advancing my overall program.
4. Make your research program fundable (but don’t sell your soul)
Now that you’ve got the structure down — make it rain, baby. 🤑 Here, I’d start by identifying what part of your arc appeals to which funder. Use tools like Pivot-RP or GrantForward or get help from your local research office. Don’t just chase any call here. Match them to your vision. A research program without funding is just a wish list. But chasing grants without a coherent vision leads to intellectual whiplash.
Start with small, pilot grants. Build credibility. Then scale. Always target funders that align with your vision rather than completely reshaping your work.
Here’s a good rhythm:
- Year 1: Internal funding + student RAships. Create a funding plan showing how early projects generate preliminary data for larger grants.
- Year 2–3: National or discipline-specific small grants. Develop relationships with program officers who can provide guidance. Prepare for rejection and use feedback to improve
- Year 4–5: Big government, federal, or foundation grants (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR, NSF, NIH, Horizon, etc.)
Always have one grant under review, one in prep, one that just got submitted. Rotate like clockwork. I’ve found that the most successful grant strategies don’t try to fund the entire research program at once. Instead, they slice the program into fundable chunks while showing how each piece contributes to the larger vision. Mixing and matching funding lets you leverage your grants against one another to maximize the funding you get.
5. Build an adaptable program (because it never works out as planned anyways)
Here’s the part we don’t talk about enough. Things never work out as planned anyways. Something about the journey being the destination if you know what I mean. No research program ever unfolds exactly as planned. The sooner you accept this, the happier you’ll be. (It’s the reason why we love watching movies like “The Hangover” because sh*t hitting the fan is something everyone can relate to.)
So plan your research program with flexibility:
- Allow new directions. Yes. But cap them. One a year max.
- Build in contingencies. What if the data don’t work? What if the method fails?
- Keep a “back-pocket project.” Something quick, publishable, and satisfying. For morale.
And most important, review the whole thing once a year. Update your CV. Tweak your plan. Get feedback as your research program evolves.
My original five-year plan was slightly disrupted when:
- A key paper really hit the Zeitgeist and enabled opportunities that I hadn’t really had before
- Early key students dropped out of my program
- A funding opportunity emerged that wasn’t on my radar
- A superstar student joined my team with interests that slightly shifted my focus
Rather than seeing these as failures of planning, I learned to treat my research program as a living document. Simply a framework that guides decisions rather than dictates them.
My adaptive approach:
- Review or revise your plan annually
- Maintain your core vision while being flexible about pathways
- Limit new directions to 1–2 per year
- Document changes and their rationale for your tenure narrative
One secret senior faculty won’t tell you
After years of observing successful academics, I’ve noticed something they rarely share. Great research programs often come together like a growing a vegetable garden. You don’t always see the fruits of your labour until you’ve sown many seeds, started many little plants and let it all grow organically. You need the right amount of sun and rain, too. And that’s okay.
I used to think I needed a perfect plan from day one. But the best academics I know tell stories about how their work found its direction over time. They kept doing good work and connecting the dots as they went.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan. But make your plan flexible. Leave room for happy accidents and new ideas. Some of the best discoveries in science came from researchers following their curiosity down unexpected paths. Think of Alexander Fleming finding penicillin (a penicillium mold spore likely drifted into his lab from the air and grew under the right temperature conditions while he was on vacation). Some of the greatest discoveries aren’t in original research plans.
How to get started?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed after just starting your tenure-track job, start here:
- Draft your research vision in one page
- Identify three potential projects (safe, middle, moonshot)
- Map connections between these projects
- Schedule a coffee with a recently tenured colleague to discuss their research program evolution or book a coaching call with me.
- Block time on your calendar each week specifically for program development
This isn’t all about getting tenure. Not really. It’s about becoming the kind of researcher who doesn’t chase trends but defines them. It’s about mentoring your students with purpose (not randomness). Going from publishing papers to leading a research program starts when you stop asking, “What’s next?” Your research program is about building a body of work that reflects your intellectual contribution to the world. Make it count.
P.S.: Curious to explore how we can tackle your research struggles together? I've got three suggestions that could be a great fit: A seven-day email course that teaches you the basics of research methods. Or the recordings of our AI research tools webinar and PhD student fast track webinar.
