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Professor-Led Research Apprenticeship One professor. One researcher. Twelve weeks of direct interrogation.

A paid one-on-one research apprenticeship that teaches postgraduate researchers to diagnose a research problem, design a study, and defend it — by working alongside a named professor for twelve weeks.

Adaptive Learning & Personalisation From the Professor-Led Research Apprenticeship
08:25

A short film on the problem PRA answers.

What's inside

Five deliverables. One researcher.

Each artifact is a working output. Together they form the researcher's diagnostic and publication pipeline.

01

Researcher Diagnostic Report

A six-part honest map of where the research actually stands — positioning, problem, architecture, production, bottlenecks, roadmap.

02

Defensible Research Problem

A problem statement that has been pulled apart from the topic, evidenced, and defended — not just named.

03

Research Intelligence Map

What is known, what is contested, what is missing — and precisely where the researcher's contribution sits.

04

Publication-Ready Article

At least one article extracted from the research, architected for a real journal or platform, and reviewed to publication standard.

05

Personal Research Playbook

A written method the researcher can carry forward: how they diagnose, design, and defend research on their own.

How this came to exist

Nothing here is a guess.

Every innovation in the Lab has a provenance — a field, an article, a demand, a programme.

01 · Demand

A documented need in the field.

Postgraduate researchers working in isolation, without the sustained supervision that turns a topic into a defensible research problem.

02 · Origin article

Pain in a Field of One

The BSI Weekly piece that asked whether the Socratic approach could yield relief for the postgraduate researcher working alone.

03 · Programme

Professor-Led Research Apprenticeship

A 12-week, one-on-one apprenticeship that teaches research as a craft — session by session, artifact by artifact.

04 · Innovation

The PRA as an operating apprenticeship model.

A working, examinable model for one-on-one supervised research training — adoptable by any institution that wants to run a PRA of its own.

Related resources

Free tools that go with this.

Short downloadable frameworks and templates. No signup needed.

Framework

Researcher Diagnostic Report

The six-part structure used to assess where a researcher's work actually stands — positioning, problem, architecture, production, bottlenecks, roadmap.

Free Coming soon
Template

Research Brief Template

The one-page brief every PRA researcher completes in Week 1 to turn a topic into a defensible research question.

Free Coming soon
Guide

PRA Supervisor Handbook

The handbook a professor uses to run a PRA — session structure, feedback conventions, review standards, progression criteria.

Free Coming soon
Support this innovation

Help it go further.

Innovations in the Lab are prototypes and early builds. If you want to help this one go further — as a partner, a funder, or an investor — there is a path.

Partner

Bring the PRA into your own institution. Pilot it as a supervised research apprenticeship in your department or faculty, with your own professors as supervisors. Includes pilot deployment, supervisor training, and co-development of new research themes.

Start a partnership

Fund a cohort

Sponsor a cohort of researchers through the apprenticeship. Your support is named in apprenticeship materials and in the published outputs of the researchers you fund. Includes quarterly progress reviews with the team.

Fund a cohort

Invest

Take an equity or revenue-share position in PRA as a product for higher-education institutions. Includes early access to the operating model, the assessment framework, and a structured investment conversation.

Discuss investment

Build it. Use it. Or help it grow.All three paths start here.

Working prototypes that can be adopted, adapted, funded, or invested in. Whichever you need, the next step is the same.