How to Find Research Topics in Red Ocean

I just had lunch with a friend who’s not in the research world. He asked me one simple question:

“AI already looks amazing. How do researchers still find topics in such a red ocean?”

That question inspired this article.

Find a Micro-Niche

A red ocean doesn’t mean there’s no space. It just means we need to look harder and position ourselves smarter. These are the steps I personally take, and I hope they’ll work for you too.

1. Understand the Landscape Deeper by Output

It all starts with deeper understanding. Reading is passive. We can boost our comprehension by producing output. That means actively processing what we've read — visually, verbally, or in writing. Choose the form that suits your personality. Some prefer talking through ideas; others prefer sketching them out. Either way, output forces clarity and reveals insights we might otherwise miss.

• Verbalize the main contributions. Try explaining each paper out loud. Grab a friend or colleague and walk them through the paper you just read.
• Write summaries as if you were the original author. This helps internalize the structure, motivation, and contribution logic.
• Visualize methods if that works better for you. Just pen and paper (or a tablet) will do.

2. Look for Limitations

None of the papers are perfect — not even a game-changer like Attention Is All You Need.

Study the "limitations" and "future work" sections carefully.

Jump to the conclusion or use Ctrl/Cmd+F to search for challenges that remain unsolved. A friend of mine recently took this exact approach and published 10 journal papers during his Ph.D!

Collect common bottlenecks that appear across papers.

This is a zoomed-out version of the above. Look at patterns across the literature. If a limitation appears again and again, it’s likely a real opportunity.

3. Identify Underexplored Combinations

Some ideas remain untouched simply because no one has connected the dots yet.

For example, during my Ph.D., I was in a wireless communication and networking lab (though my topic focused on applied security and privacy). In wireless communication, coding and modulation techniques — how to embed '0's and '1's efficiently in a signal — were already highly advanced, even in the 1960s.

Years later, the rise of the internet demanded higher throughput in fiber-optic networks. Instead of reinventing the wheel, researchers borrowed old ideas from wireless communications and applied them to optical networking — four decades apart, across domains.

Key takeaway: Study broadly. Look for places where mature ideas from one field can be transplanted into another.

4. Notice How Research Trends Are Evolving

This approach is more abstract, but just as powerful.

Trace the evolution of your topic — from early foundational work to the latest papers. Ask yourself: What assumptions should we get rid of?

Then imagine: What’s the natural next step? What’s still missing now that used to be unthinkable?

Sharpen your sense of direction with imagination and creativity. Spotting trends early is often the best way to claim your space in a red ocean.

Conclusion: How to Carve Space in a Crowded Field

• Start by outputting what we read, speak it, write it, sketch it. This turns passive reading into active understanding.
• Then, look for limitations — the small cracks even the best papers leave behind.
• Explore untried combinations, especially across disciplines. Ideas from one field often solve old problems in another.
• And finally, trace how research trends evolve. Spot the shifts early, and you’ll see tomorrow’s opportunities today.

If you have thoughts, experiences, or tips of your own, feel free to share them in the comments — I’d love to hear your perspective.