"building upon existing research" is correct and can be used in written English.
You can use it when you want to express that you are using existing research or findings as a starting point or foundation for your own work. For example, "The team is building upon existing research to identify new treatments for cancer."
Tools to assist with outbreak investigations can be developed relatively easily building upon existing databases in the hospital.
Some findings build upon existing research while other findings bring forth novel insight.
As an undergraduate, most of my study was based upon existing research, whereas the PhD is very much an exploration of the unknown.
Thus, efforts to develop performance measures based upon existing research should focus mainly on areas with good quality evidence.
The doctoral research of MRM (Author 1) explored how women understand, experience, and manage the outcomes of male circumcision, building upon an existing research agenda investigating the acceptability and feasibility of male circumcision for HIV prevention in PNG (33, 35– 35).
Building on previously published reviews, 44– 46 we synthesize existing research on smoking cessation intervention studies with HIV+ individuals.
Ms. Stocker is reevaluating the existing research on the club building; some conflicts between documents, and some peculiarities of the building, lead her to suspect that it may, in part, date from the fire of 1835, instead of 1854.
By building on existing infrastructure and providing supplemental resources to existing research, the Department of Medicine clinical trial unit has evolved into an effective mechanism for conducting research.
NSF's Joan Ferrini-Mundy, head of the agency's education directorate, said the program, if funded, would build upon existing NSF research activities.
Existing research has focused upon the influence of patient or individual factors such as physical health, depression etc.
