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This course is designed for MAIA students writing a research (“long”) thesis to fulfill their degree requirement at SAIS Europe. The goal of the course is to provide students with the tools of research design required to start and organized their thesis research and writing; to expose students to different disciplinary and methodological approaches to international affairs research, i.e. social scientific qualitative and quantitative, legal, historical, policy oriented etc. and help students to come up with their thesis research plan and core components of a successful thesis proposal, such as the research question and hypotheses. This course is not designed to provide in depth instruction in any particular methodology and approach. Rather, it aims to give students the basic tools and knowledge necessary to allow them to begin working on their thesis research. The course focuses on research design in international affairs research across disciplines and methodological approaches. The goal of the course is to teach students the core components of research design, expose them to different disciplinary and methodological approaches to international affairs research and guide them through the main stages of developing a fully-fledged MAIA thesis research proposal. This course is not aimed to provide in depth methodological training but to give students the conceptual tools and skills necessary to succeed in their thesis research and writing. By the end of the class the students will have completed their thesis proposal and have the tools necessary to start their research. The course is organized around the key steps required to design a successful research project: -Identifying and formulating a research question -Developing a theoretical framework -Choosing the most appropriate disciplinary approach to carrying out the research -Identifying the appropriate methods of collecting and analyzing data -Presenting and disseminating findings