Where can I do a research paper or thesis without enrolling in a college or university?

Question

I am not seeking a masters or PhD degree, but I would like to do a research paper and have it peer reviewed academically? Is this possible? If so, where and how to do it?

Addendum: Thank you for all your comments and answers. These have clarified many aspects to this project. I have several research projects to pursue. The one where I would need the most specific direction would be the following.

Feasibility of using mosquitoes for large scale inoculation and/or medication of mammal (hopefully human) populations. We all know how effective these insects are as vectors for spreading disease. There is no reason I can think of why this ability cannot be exploited for said positive benefit.

I approached a local pharmaceutical firm about the research project but have not received any response. I don't think most pharmaceutical firms would be interested in this research unless they can figure out a way to eventually get compensated for the gratis mass distribution of their pharmaceuticals if the project goes beyond research and successfully applied. Although these and other challenges are significant, none are practically insurmountable and can be resolved. The potential benefit from eventual application of the project should make the research worthwhile. Indeed, part of the research would be the cost/benefit analysis from several perspectives.

I have searched on the Internet and have not found such a project. I have found some information on genetically engineering mosquitoes for faux mating to eliminate mosquito populations such as this one .

Genetic engineering should not be necessary for said project since we are utilizing the already natural modus operendi of this insect, but another aspect of the research would be the potential benefit of GE for said goal. one would be marking the mosquitos genetically to distinguish from the rest; making them glow maybe.

I hope spelling out the specifics of the research didn't compromise the scope of topic for this forum. If so, I welcome comments from moderators as to which SE site may be more appropriate. Thank you for your comments and answers. I look forward to reading more.

Answer 1

It's not impossible, but in this day and age it is extremely rare for individuals unaffiliated with research institutions (academic or commercial) to successfully publish scientific research papers on their own (without research-institute affiliated co-authors) in good journals (bogus journals publish almost anything for a fee).

The main reasons are that in order to pursue cutting edge research, one usually needs

1. access to all relevant publications;
2. regular exchange of ideas with other researchers;
3. access to hardware (for performing the research tasks).
4. a living and financial support for the research (including possible publication charges)

Points 1&2 are more fundamental, since if you don't know where the cutting edge of research in a particular field is (or don't know the relevant terminology), then you cannot contribute.

I should also note that there are quite a few unsuccessful manuscript submission from unaffiliated persons, but many are often not even considered for peer review by the journal editors for two possible reasons: (1) because the manuscript does not appear to meet the standards and (2) because the editor strongly suspect it doesn't, because of the author's affiliation. So there is another potential hurdle: editorial bias.

Answer 2

I'm not sure about a Thesis, since there you need to have the backing of an Academic Institution as far as I am aware.

But as far as a research paper is concerned, you could get the support you need from within any organisation which invests a decent amount of resources in Research and Development. Organisations such as Microsoft in IT publish papers under Microsoft's name.

I think it depends largely on your area and organisation.

Answer 3

I would like to do a thesis or research paper and have it peer reviewed academically? Is this possible? If so, where and how to do it?

Can you do the research all on your own?

If yes, go right ahead with writing a research paper on your own in your own home and send it to the editor of a scientific peer-reviewed journal you deem appropriate for the content. Follow the author guidelines and under affiliations just insert your own address. It's probably a good idea to follow the style of other scientific publications. If the editor and the reviewers deem your research paper good enough you'll get a peer-reviewed research paper. If it gets rejected, you can still submit it somewhere else. In principle, there is no difference between being a private person or coming from a prestigious science factory (although in practice there might be some difference).

A thesis is usually a requirement for an academic degree. Since you are not interested in academic degrees I advice you not to pursue a thesis (which would also likely require some studies before), but concentrate on research papers.

You cannot do the research all on your own?

Contact a suitable person, research group leader, ... state your interest in a collaboration and negotiate as a goal the writing of a research paper. If you can find someone, do your part and give your home address as affiliation when writing the paper.

It may be harder to write a research paper on your own than when being employed as a scientist but it is also not forbidden and the process of getting the paper peer-reviewed and published is exactly the same.

P.S. Some journals charge you for the publication of a research paper with them. If you do the research and publication on your own, you'll have to pay these fees. In you are in a collaboration, your partners from academia will likely pay these fees, so this might be the cheaper variant.

Answer 4

It can also depend (as others have said) on what governing bodies or institutions play a role in your field. In my field, a dominant accrediting body has strict guidelines and ethical bylaws covering field research. You have to submit your proposal and consent forms to a board before even getting their blessing to go ahead with the research (and part of being in compliance is being accredited aka a postgrad degree). If not you'll be automatically rejected. You could probably do a meta-study or survey without it in this field, but no hard research.

I like Trilarion's answer best though. Worst comes to worst you write a kickass paper and don't get published. That would only put you in the same boat as almost all degree and non-degree holders out there.

Answer 5

I am going to assume that you have access to a strong set of journals through an academic library and that you have more than sufficient resources to carry out the research. If that is the case, then yes you can do it on your own. Your greatest challenge is the challenge a person with a doctorate faces when doing research outside their discipline, which is reading and understanding the literature.

For my own work, I found myself at the edges of my discipline and in the edges of another discipline. In the end, I took graduate courses to do catch up. I needed to learn about Borel tribes, Greenian functions, analytic functions in the complex plane and the residue around a singularity or pole. Without professional guidance, I would have probably come to the wrong conclusions. There are little things in the literature that turn out to be big deal, but they are not prominent in the literature because everyone with a doctorate in the field knows about them.

As you move up the literature of a field you get further and further away from an undergraduate level of discussion. Because academic papers are judged, in part, on the observed writing level of the author, you may have a limited ability to avoid being "desk rejected."

Desk rejection is a journal editor's tool to prevent low-quality articles from reaching reviewers. It also prevents high-quality articles, that also would not be of interest to the journal's audience, from reaching reviewers. You cannot just send your papers to any journal, they have to match what the audience is looking for.

If I were you, I would go back to a professor I had in college and tell them what you are wanting to do. I would ask for some time to talk about what the research is, why you are motivated to do it, and what obstacles you are likely to encounter. The bulk of research is planning. The actual results and so forth take up very little time usually.

There are a couple of advantages to this. First, your research may already have been done. It may even have been done repeatedly. Second, you may find that there are known problems in the field that researchers spend a lot of time accounting for that you know nothing about.

Let's imagine your data normally suffers from heteroskedasticity, you cannot just run some computer program to correct for it because you will need to know which type of computer program to run for it. Heteroskedasticity is caused by different things. You may have a functional form for it, or you could have to use something like ARCH or GARCH.

If your type of data is known to suffer from heteroskedasticity and you do not address this in your paper then you are going to be desk rejected because you obviously don't know enough about your field for anyone to take the time to carefully look at the paper.

Yes, you can submit a paper for peer review, but you will be held to graduate level standards. If you decide to do this, go get help first. Even if this is research in history, get help. If your thesis is far away from the field because it already considered your idea and discarded it, then unless you have amazing new raw data, such discovering a treasure trove of new letters by Robert E. Lee, then you will also get desk rejected.

Sincerely, I wish you the best of luck and go get support from someone.