PHD Discussions Logo

Ask, Learn and Accelerate in your PhD Research

Question Icon Post Your Answer

Question Icon

2 years ago in Scholarly Contribution By Amol

My work is highly applied and solves a practical industry problem. How do I frame this as a "scholarly contribution" for an academic journal, rather than just a technical report?

I’ve developed a new process that improves efficiency in a manufacturing setting, and industry partners are thrilled. However, journal reviewers keep saying it lacks "theoretical contribution" or "broader implications." How can I reframe my very practical work to meet academic standards without inventing a theory?

All Answers (1 Answers In All)

By Shubham Dhingra Answered 3 weeks ago

This is a common but surmountable hurdle. From my experience in engineering and applied sciences, the key is to abstract upwards. Don't just present the solution; present the novel principle or generalizable method behind it. Your contribution isn't the specific widget, but the new approach to system optimization or failure analysis you developed. Structure your paper to foreground the research question (a known industry problem) and your research process (how you systematically investigated it). Then, explicitly state your contribution as a new framework, heuristic, or validated protocol that can be applied to a class of similar problems. This moves it from a report to a transferable scholarly advance with clear utility for both practitioners and future researchers.

Your Answer