/research-proposal

name: research-proposal
description: >
  Generate academic research proposals for PhD applications.
  Use when user asks to "write a research proposal", "create PhD proposal",
  "generate research plan", "撰写研究计划", "写博士申请", "doctoral proposal",
  or mentions specific research topics for PhD application. Supports STEM,
  humanities, and social sciences with field-specific adaptations.
  Follows Nature Reviews-style academic writing conventions.
  Supports both English and Chinese output based on user preference.
metadata:
  author: user
  version: "1.0.0"
allowed-tools:
  - WebSearch
  - Read
  - Write
  - Edit
  - AskUserQuestion
  - Task
  - Glob
  - Grep
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_metadata
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_get_notes
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_search_notes
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search
  - mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search

<!-- ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ 本文件为开源 Skill 原始文档，收录仅供学习与研究参考 ║ ║ CoPaper.AI 收集整理 | https://copaper.ai ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

来源仓库: https://github.com/luwill/research-skills 项目名称: research-skills 开源协议: MIT License 收录日期: 2026-04-02

声明: 本文件版权归原作者所有。此处收录旨在为社会科学实证研究者 提供 AI Agent Skills 的集中参考。如有侵权，请联系删除。 -->

Research Proposal Generator

Generate high-quality academic research proposals for PhD applications following Nature Reviews-style academic writing conventions.

Overview

This skill guides the generation of research proposals through a structured 5-phase workflow:

1. **Requirements Gathering** - Collect research topic, domain, language preferences 2. **Literature Collection** - Gather relevant literature from multiple sources 3. **Outline Generation** - Create structured outline for user approval 4. **Content Writing** - Generate full proposal based on approved outline 5. **Output & Review** - Deliver Markdown file with quality checklist

**Target Output**: 2,000-4,000 words (default ~3,000 words) for PhD applications.

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Phase 1: Requirements Gathering

Use `AskUserQuestion` to collect the following information:

Required Information

1. **Research Topic/Direction**

• What is the core research question or area?
• Any specific problems to address?

2. **Academic Domain**

• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
• Humanities (History, Philosophy, Literature, Languages)
• Social Sciences (Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science)

3. **Output Language**

• English
• 中文 (Chinese)

4. **Target Word Count**

• Default: 3,000 words
• Range: 2,000-4,000 words (humanities may extend to 10,000)

Optional Information

5. **Target Institution(s)**

• University/research group names
• Specific faculty members of interest

6. **Existing Materials**

• User's prior research or publications
• Relevant literature already collected in Zotero

Example Questions

Questions to ask the user:

1. "What is your research topic or direction? Please describe the core question or problem you want to investigate."

2. "Which academic domain does your research belong to?"
   - STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
   - Humanities (History, Philosophy, Literature)
   - Social Sciences (Sociology, Psychology, Economics)

3. "What language should the proposal be written in?"
   - English
   - 中文 (Chinese)

4. "Do you have a target word count? (Default: ~3,000 words)"

5. "Are you applying to specific institutions or working with particular faculty?"

6. "Have you uploaded relevant literature to your Zotero library that I should reference?"

---

Phase 2: Literature Collection

Literature Sources Strategy

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Literature Sources                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  General Info    →  WebSearch (trends, news, reviews)   │
│  Open Access     →  arXiv, PubMed (preprints, OA papers)│
│  Closed Access   →  Zotero MCP (user's uploaded papers) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Using WebSearch

Search for:

• Recent review articles and meta-analyses
• Research trends and emerging topics
• News about breakthroughs in the field
• Methodological advances

Example searches:

"{topic} systematic review 2024 2025"
"{topic} research trends future directions"
"{topic} methodology recent advances"

Using Zotero MCP

**IMPORTANT**: Remind users to upload relevant closed-access literature to Zotero before starting.

Search User's Library

# Search by topic keywords
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items
Parameters: query = "{research topic keywords}"

# Advanced search with filters
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search
Parameters: conditions based on author, title, year, tags

# Semantic search for related papers
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search
Parameters: query = "{research question}"

Retrieve Paper Content

# Get full text content
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext
Parameters: item_key = "{item key from search}"

# Get user's annotations and highlights
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations
Parameters: item_key = "{item key}"

# Get user's notes
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_get_notes
Parameters: item_key = "{item key}"

Literature Organization

Organize collected literature into categories: 1. **Background/Context** - Foundational papers establishing the field 2. **Current State** - Recent advances and state-of-the-art 3. **Research Gap** - Papers identifying limitations or open questions 4. **Methodology** - Papers with relevant methods to adopt/adapt 5. **Related Work** - Adjacent research areas for comparison

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Phase 3: Outline Generation

Proposal Structure by Domain

Read the reference file for