Institutional Partnerships for Graduate Research Excellence
Design2Defense is a practice-based research skills initiative that partners with universities and academic programs to deliver complementary, targeted, student-centered workshops. The initiative is designed to strengthen postgraduate and doctoral students’ capacity to design, execute, and communicate high-quality independent research.
Working alongside faculty and existing research methods training, Design2Defense provides structured, applied learning spaces where students actively work on their own research projects while building practical strategies they can immediately transfer to proposals, ethics applications, and thesis writing.
Approach
Design2Defense works alongside faculty and existing research training to provide targeted, practice-based support for postgraduate and doctoral researchers.
The approach is intentionally culturally responsive, student-centered, and scaffolded, guiding participants step by step as they develop core components such as literature reviews, conceptual frameworks, and positionality statements.
Each workshop is designed to help students apply key concepts directly to their ongoing thesis and dissertation work, ensuring that time spent in workshops translates into tangible progress on students’ research.
Developed in collaboration with faculty and academic programs, the workshops are designed to complement—not duplicate—supervision. The result is targeted, high-impact support that strengthens students’ capacity to produce rigorous, defensible, and ethically grounded research while easing supervisory load and helping programs better support their graduate researchers.
Core Focus Areas
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Developing Theoretical and conceptual frameworks
Reflexivity and Positionality in qualitative research
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Item description
Delivery Options
Multi-session series
Embedded course support
Doctoral masterclasses
Writing and framework clinics
Standalone workshops
In-person
Online
Hybrid
Formats can be customized for institutional needs.