If you’re deep in the throes of doctoral work, you’ve probably had that moment where someone asks you about your “contribution to knowledge” and you freeze up like a deer in headlights. You might have solid claims emerging from your research, but somehow articulating your actual contribution feels impossibly abstract.

Claims and contributions are related but they’re not the same thing, and understanding the difference is important.

Claims

Research claims are the interpretive statements you make based on your findings. They’re your arguments about what your data generation and analysis reveal about the phenomena you’re studying. When you move from “here’s what I found in my interviews with doctoral students” to “this suggests that traditional models of academic socialisation need rethinking,” you’re making a claim.  (See last post)

Claims live in the space between your results and the broader conversations in your field. They represent your interpretation of what your findings mean, how they should be understood, and what implications they might have. Think of claims as your research making specific arguments about your topic/the world based on the evidence you’ve generated.

The tricky thing about claims is that they exist at different levels of abstraction and scope. You might have empirical claims that stay close to your data, theoretical claims that engage with broader conceptual frameworks, or methodological claims about how research should be conducted. Each type of claim serves a different purpose in building your overall argument.

For doctoral researchers, claims often feel like the main event. Claims are the big statements you want to make about your topic. And they are important. But claims alone don’t constitute a contribution to knowledge. For this reason, claims are often spelled out in a thesis discussion chapter or discussion section of results chapters, while contributions are stated and explored in the conclusion.

Contributions – where your work fits

Contributions are about how your research changes or advances the ongoing conversation in your field. While claims are statements about what you’ve discovered or argued, contributions are about what your work adds to what we collectively know or how we think about particular issues. Contributions answer the So What question about why anyone should care about your research beyond its immediate results.

And this is where research is both intellectually interesting and also nerve-wracking. A contribution isn’t just about making novel claims, though novelty can certainly be part of it. Contributions can take many different forms, and recognising these different forms can help you articulate the value of your own work more effectively.

Sometimes contributions involve challenging existing assumptions or theoretical frameworks. Your doctoral research might generate claims that call into question how your field has been thinking about a particular phenomenon. Maybe previous research assumed that doctoral students’ struggles were primarily individual psychological issues, but your work suggests they’re fundamentally structural problems embedded in institutional practices. That’s a contribution that could shift how the field approaches these issues.

Other times contributions involve filling gaps in existing knowledge. Perhaps there’s been lots of research on doctoral experiences in humanities fields but very little in the STEM disciplines. Your claims about how humanities doctoral students navigate their programs might contribute by extending our understanding to understudied populations or contexts.

Contributions can also be methodological, offering new ways of investigating questions or analysing data that could be useful for other researchers. Maybe you developed a novel approach to studying academic mentorship that combines digital ethnography with narrative analysis. Even if your specific claims about mentorship aren’t earth-shattering, your methodological contribution could influence how other researchers approach similar questions.

The claims-contribution relationship

Here’s where things get nuanced. Your claims don’t automatically become contributions just by existing. The transformation from claim to contribution happens through the work of situating your research within broader scholarly conversations. It requires understanding not just what you’re arguing, but how your arguments relate to what others have said and where the field is heading.

This is why literature reviews aren’t just academic busywork, they are essential for understanding how your claims function as contributions. You need to know the conversation well enough to see where your research fits, what it adds, and how it might change things. Sometimes what feels like a modest claim to you might actually be a significant contribution because it addresses a crucial debate or challenges a widespread assumption.

The reverse can also be true. You might have claims that feel groundbreaking to you but that don’t really contribute much because they’re or addressing questions the field has already debated over and over. This isn’t a judgment about the quality of your research, but rather about how it connects to ongoing scholarly conversations.

For doctoral researchers, the relationship between claims and contributions often becomes clearer over time. Early in your study, you might be focused primarily on developing solid claims. As you progress, you start to see more clearly how those claims function within the broader landscape of knowledge in your field.

The contributions challenge 

One of the trickiest aspects of doctoral work is learning to articulate contributions clearly and confidently. It requires intellectual assertivenss that can feel presumptuous when you’re still learning the field. How do you claim that your work contributes to knowledge when you’re acutely aware of how much you still don’t know?

Part of the challenge is that contributions often become fully visible only in retrospect. The full impact of your research might not be apparent until other scholars build on your work, cite your findings, or use your methodological innovations. But you still need to be able to nominate potential contributions for vivas, job applications, and grant proposals.

This is where thinking carefully about different types of contributions can be helpful. You don’t need to solve all the major problems in your field to make a meaningful contribution. Contributing to knowledge can involve adding nuance to existing theories, documenting previously unstudied phenomena, developing new methodological approaches, or even asking better questions that future research can address.

The key is being honest and realistic about what your research actually accomplishes while also being confident about its value. Learning the balance between humility and assertiveness is one of the trickier practices that doctoral experience is meant to support.

Implications for doctoral researchers

Understanding the claims-contributions distinction can make several aspects of doctoral work more manageable. When you’re writing your literature review, you’re not just summarising what others have done. You’re mapping the intellectual territory to identify where your potential contributions might fit. When you’re developing your research questions, you’re not just asking what you want to know, you’re asking what the field needs to know that your research might be able to address.

This distinction also helps with scope creep. If you’re clear about the specific contribution you’re trying to make, it becomes easier to stay focused on the claims that support that contribution rather than trying to address every interesting question that emerges from your data.

It’s also useful for thinking about publication strategies. Different claims from your research might contribute to different conversations, which might mean targeting different journals or conferences. Understanding how your various claims function as contributions can help you think strategically about how to share your work most effectively.

Perhaps most importantly, thinking about contributions helps you see your doctoral research as part of a longer scholarly trajectory rather than as an isolated project. The claims you make in your dissertation are important, but they’re also stepping stones toward the broader contributions you’ll make throughout your academic career whether in or out of a university. Some of your doctoral claims might make immediate contributions to knowledge. Others might be more like intellectual investments that will pay off when you combine them with future research or when the field develops in directions that make your work more relevant. Understanding this longer timeline can take some pressure off feeling like your dissertation needs to revolutionise your entire field.

The relationship between claims and contributions reflects the fundamentally collaborative and cumulative nature of knowledge building. Your research doesn’t exist in isolation. Your research is part of an ongoing conversation that extends both backward to previous scholarship and forwards to future work that will build on what you’re doing now. Your claims matter, and they can make real contributions to how we understand the world. But they’re also part of a much larger intellectual project that extends far beyond any single study or researcher. That’s both reassuring and inspiring.