Resource Library

Advice Articles

Whatever stage of your research journey you're at, our advice articles are here to help you navigate your research journey with impact in mind, from picking the right question to building a career that makes a real difference.

Weighted Factor Models (WFM) for Careers

A practical guide to applying Weighted Factor Models for clearer, more value-aligned career decisions

Theory of Change for High Impact Research

Theory of Change for High-Impact Research shows how to design your thesis to lead to real-world change by clarifying who needs to act and how your work can influence them.

Testing your fit for a research career

A practical guide to evaluating whether a research career fits your goals, skills, and working style.

Finding an impactful research direction

A guide to choosing a research direction that maximizes the impact of your thesis and contributes to solving the world’s most pressing problems.

Looking after your mental health

We’ve collected some resources on how to take care of your mental health and manage common challenges.

Choosing the right PhD supervisor for you

A practical guide to finding and evaluating a PhD supervisor who aligns with your goals, working style, and long-term research impact.

Creating a Theory of Change

A theory of change is a step by step plan of how you’ll achieve impact with your research project. We think building a theory of change is one of the most important things you can do to increase the value of your research, but it often isn’t taught in universities.

Reasoning Transparency

Reasoning transparency as a research skill is your ability to make your research clear and explicit in its reasoning and conclusions

Navigating Your Undergrad or Masters Topic Choice

This guide to share the tools and frameworks we think will be most helpful to you if you're searching for a meaningful thesis topic.

Navigating Your PhD Topic Choice

We’ve compiled this guide to share the tools and frameworks we think will be most helpful to you if you’re searching for a meaningful thesis topic for your PhD.

Your research career can change the world

A guide to how impactful research can save lives, reduce suffering, and positively shape the future.

Research paths after undergraduate or masters

An overview of the different research career paths available after an undergraduate or master’s degree, and how to explore your fit for each option.

Choosing a research direction to suit you

A practical guide to choosing a thesis topic that aligns with your career goals, builds research skills, and maximizes real-world impact.

What to do with your finished thesis

Turn your finished thesis into impact, recognition, and new opportunities beyond graduation.

Discipline Introduction Articles

Our discipline introductions are here to help you explore how your field of study could have the most impact.

Engineering

Engineering uses science and technology to shape the physical world and address major global challenges.

Economics

Economics examines how incentives and resource allocation shape decisions, and how better models and policies can address major global challenges.

Biological Sciences

Biological Sciences examines how life functions—from cells to ecosystems—and how research can be directed toward solving major global challenges.

Philosophy

An introduction to how philosophical and ethical research can help clarify priorities, guide decision-making, and address global challenges.

History

An introduction to how historical research can inform decision-making, reduce global risks, and help shape a better future.

Sociology

An introduction to how sociological research can help understand social systems, influence behavior, and address major global challenges.

Law

An introduction to how legal research can help prevent large-scale harm, reduce suffering, and shape better societies.

Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

An introduction to how psychology and cognitive science research can help address global challenges and improve wellbeing.

Media, Communications, and Marketing

How can communications and marketing research help to solve the world’s most pressing problems?

Research Topic Articles

Our research topic articles are here to help you discover specific areas where more high-quality work is genuinely needed,
and where your research could make a real contribution.

Improving Climate Action

Understanding the impact of climate change and what we can do to mitigate risk.

Prioritisation Research

This article explores how prioritisation research helps determine where limited resources can do the most good, guiding decisions about which causes, strategies, and actions are most impactful.

The Impact of Social Movements

This article examines how social movements create change—and how studying both large and niche movements can help future efforts maximise positive impact while avoiding harm.

Preventing Pathogen Release

This article explores how lab accidents, dual-use research, and engineered pathogens increase the risk of human-caused pandemics—and how stronger biosafety and biosecurity can reduce these threats.

Great Power Coordination

This article examines why managing existential risks requires global coordination among major powers, with particular focus on US–China dynamics.

Progress Studies

This article introduces Progress Studies, a field focused on understanding the drivers of scientific, technological, economic, and social progress in order to accelerate positive change and human wellbeing.

Historical Persistence and Contingency

This article explores how durable social, political, and technological features can shape the long-term future—and when attempts to influence them today may have lasting or even locked-in effects.

Longtermism

This article introduces longtermism—the idea that shaping the long-term future and the lives of vast numbers of future beings may be one of the most important things we can do today.

Moral Circle Expansion

This article explores how and why humanity’s moral circle expands—and how understanding this process could help reduce suffering for overlooked present and future beings.

Improving Health and Wellbeing Metrics

This article explains why traditional health and cost-effectiveness metrics fall short and explores the wellbeing-adjusted life-year (WELLBY) as a more accurate way to measure impact and guide resource allocation.

Moral Weight Research

This article explores how to assess the moral weight of different species in order to better prioritise efforts to reduce suffering and improve wellbeing across beings with moral value.

Forecasting the Long-term Future

This article explores why improving long-term forecasting is crucial for better decision-making and reducing future catastrophic and existential risks.

Preventing Great Power Conflict

This article examines the risks of great power conflict and why modern warfare could have catastrophic—and potentially existential—consequences for humanity’s future.

Wildlife Fertility Control Research

This article explores how wildlife fertility control could reduce resource competition and improve the average welfare of wild animals, an area that has been largely overlooked in animal welfare research.

Improving the Measurement of Animal Welfare

This article examines why improving wild animal welfare could have enormous impact and how measuring biological ageing may offer a promising way to assess and compare animals’ quality of life.

Detection and Identification of Dangerous Pathogens

This article explores how biosurveillance and metagenomic monitoring can enable earlier detection of emerging pathogens and help prevent future pandemics.

Global Priorities Research

This article introduces global priorities research, an interdisciplinary field focused on identifying the most important problems and the most effective ways to improve the world using limited resources.

Improving Pandemic Governance

This article examines the devastating impacts of past pandemics and explores how better technology, governance, and preparedness can reduce the risks and consequences of future biological threats.

Improving Institutional Decision-making

This article explores how improving both decision quality and value alignment in institutions can lead to better outcomes on issues like poverty, conflict, and global risk.

Governance of Artificial Intelligence

As AI becomes more powerful, AI governance research is critical to ensure its development aligns with human values and avoids serious global risks.

Most Important Historical Trends

This article explores how analysing long-term historical trends can help anticipate major future events and guide strategies to improve human wellbeing and reduce global risks.

Civilisation Collapses

This article examines the drivers and potential impacts of societal collapse, and how research can help assess its risks and inform strategies to prevent or mitigate it.

Charitable Donations Decision-making Research

This article examines why donors overlook differences in charitable effectiveness and how research could help improve where donations go.

Reducing Risks from Malevolent Actors

Reducing Risks from Malevolent Actors examines how harmful personality traits affect who gains power and how to prevent large-scale harm.

Preventing S-risks

Preventing S-Risks examines how emerging technologies and institutions could lead to large-scale future suffering—and how to reduce those risks.

Philosophy

An introduction to how philosophical and ethical research can help clarify priorities, guide decision-making, and address global challenges.

History

An introduction to how historical research can inform decision-making, reduce global risks, and help shape a better future.

Sociology

An introduction to how sociological research can help understand social systems, influence behavior, and address major global challenges.

Law

An introduction to how legal research can help prevent large-scale harm, reduce suffering, and shape better societies.

Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

An introduction to how psychology and cognitive science research can help address global challenges and improve wellbeing.

Media, Communications, and Marketing

How can communications and marketing research help to solve the world’s most pressing problems?

Impact Stories

Everyone's journey to impact looks different.
Our Impact Stories highlight brilliant students from the Effective Thesis community who've used their
time as a student to build towards real-world impact - for the world and for their own path.
We hope their stories will inspire you as you craft your own unique pathway to impact!

Juliane Walther

Bachelor of Science in Economics & Politics (Social Sciences),Minerva University

Antilia Virginie

DPhil in Economics,University of Oxford

Leland Pereira and Cho Luangprasert

Master's in Public Administration in International Development, Harvard University

Otto Tutzauer Hellström

MSc Engineering Physics, Lund University

Renske Therese van Vroonhoven

Philosophy, University of Cambridge

Research Question Generator and Database

You can use our Research Question Generator is here to help you quickly explore and generate potential research questions across different areas.
You can also browse our curated Research Question Database, compiled from expert interviews and external research agendas across key cause areas, to find inspiration for your own high-impact thesis!

High-Impact Research Question Generator (Prototype)

This is an early prototype of an AI-assisted research question generator, developed using Claude. It’s designed to help you quickly generate, refine, and explore potential research questions across different areas. Answers may take 1-2mins to generate. We recommend using it as a creative starting point and refining questions further based on your own judgement and context.
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Note: The generated research questions will be stored in our database, so please avoid including any identifying information if you have privacy concerns.
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Effective Thesis Research Question Database

This is a prototype of a curated database of research questions to help you explore ideas and gain inspiration for your own thesis or projects. It has been compiled from previous Effective Thesis research question databases, external research agendas across key cause areas, and AI-assisted synthesis using Claude. We’d love your feedback below as we continue improving it!

You can select your relevant disciplines in the toggle to filter questions, and questions are grouped by Cause Areas.
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We would love to hear your feedback if this was useful!

Your feedback will help us understand how much to invest in this, and also help improve these tools for other students hoping to make an impact through their work!
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Resource Library

If you're interested in developing a high-impact thesis, we would love to support you!