Research Ventures is an annual programme which aims to developing enterprising thinking in Scottish researchers. The slides from this year’s programme are below:
Research Ventures 2014 – Sara Shinton’s introductions to each day
Broadening ideas – the creative thinking session
I’ve been running workshops supporting new (and aspiring) principal investigators/research leaders for about ten years. Over that time the content of the workshops has developed and as some topics fade from relevance, others become more important.
The latest addition is resilience. There are two ways of looking at this – either that it’s a depressing indictment of academic life that we need explicity help to cope with the pressures, or a more positive view which is that it’s always been tough, but that the culture has shifted so it’s OK to talk about the pressure. Perhaps it’s one of the many wider benefits of the Athena Swan initiatives which are trying to create a more balanced and inclusive academic community.
Whatever the driver behind the increasing willingness to talk about challenges and dealing with them, it means that over the last 2 years or so I’ve been covering the topic with academic groups. This post explains how we look at resilience, links to some of the resources we’ve found and shares insights from some of the academics who thought about their own resilience tactics. We use the analogy of a bucket during the workshops. Resilience comes from a combination of eliminating or reducing holes from the bucket, whilst keeping the bucket topped up.
What puts the holes in your bucket?
We start with a discussion about what drains away resilience and causes stress. Most people recognise their own triggers easily, but sometimes it’s useful to refer back to discussions about individual preferences that we have earlier in the research leader programmes we run, using the Myers-Briggs theory. One of the resources that helps are the MBTI stress heads posters. If you don’t like MBTI it’s probably best to stay away from this site as it will make you cross (this is supposed to be a post about building resilience, not making people cross).
MBTI suggests that my stressors will include:
Image: WWW.CPPBLOGCENTRAL.COM
I largely agree with this. I find myself feeling drained when I have to deal with:
The point in the workshop when we talk about this is also a chance for people attending to vent a little of their frustration and realise that it isn’t just them. We sometime talk a little about Imposter Syndrome which gives me an excuse to point to Professor Dame Athene Donald’s blog post. Interestingly, she’s returned to this topic more than once. It’s not just you…
Common holes in buckets include:
Robertson Cooper – who have a resource on-line which allows you to create a free personal iResilience report (although I have to say, I didn’t find mine hugely useful) http://www.robertsoncooper.com/improve-your- resilience/i-resilience-free-report-preview
Psychology Foundation of Canada – which has produced a short, but informative Workplace Resiliency guide.
Once we’ve looked at the key features of the two models, we work in small groups to identify things that we already notice improve our resilience and what else we can do. It’s different for everyone, but these have come from academics and researchers during workshops.
The various models of resilience building have common themes. These seven are the ones that have resonated with me – you may have others.
More resources: (thanks to Janet Wilkinson of ThreeTimesThree Consulting for these suggestions)
Professor Derek Mowbray has written a series of guides to buiding resileinces as an indivdiual, manager and organisation. These resource builds on his research in the area and the personal guide is written in a questionnaire/workbook format that makes it easier to develop your own resilience strategy. http://www.mas.org.uk/publications/personal-resilience-guide.html
Confidence can come from understanding your strengths rather than focusing on what you perceive are weaknesses. The Strengthsfinder book is a useful tool for identifying areas in which you are performing well as a basis for improving performance. With the book is a code to complete an online questionnaire which results in a comprehensive report and action planning suggestions.
Resilience is often linked to a feeling of control which relates to time management. Our time management guide and our post on time management advice tailored for academics, may be useful if you feel over-committed or that you aren’t setting the right priorities.
I’ve run a small flurry of time management courses in the last week and used them to gather the collective wisdom of busy academics.
Here are my top ten tips for time management, illsutrated with their specific advice and reflections.
If you want to work on your own time management, there’s a time management guide in the academic section of the site which I hope will help.
Here’s more advice, this time from academics at Kent University, on “Balancing the Conflicting Demands of Academia” . There’s a lot to admire on the Research Fundermentals website, but if you’re here to improve your own time management, I probably shouldn’t distract you with shiny things. Even worse, would be to point out that the author, Phil Ward, is on Twitter.
This blog post contains the resources and links that I most commonly send on to academics and senior researchers who attend a training day I run on developing successful academic careers. The collection of links might seem a little eclectic as they stem from the discussions we have at these workshops, but I refer people to them so often that I thought a blog post was warranted.
I’ll try to update this page as I find new resources – it also takes a little pressure off the plans to write some more detailed guides to social media and collaboration to add to the existing guides to time management and building a research profile.
Most of my workshops raise awareness about the opportunities you need to create and take advantage of in order to progress your career. I am very conscious that most academics don’t sit around all day wishing they had more to do, so the first step we discuss is to reduce existing commitments.
These two blog posts explore strategies for saying no:
http://www.designsponge.com/2012/03/biz-ladies-saying-no.html (thanks to Dr Josie McLellan for this)
Not everyone on these workshops has secured a permanent academic position, so this is a good place to give a plug to the GLASGOW Fellowship guide which offers advice on preparing an application and the interview process.
Delegation is another key skill – workshop participants will get a guide to delegation, but in a rare example of not haemorrhaging intellectual property, I’m not going to post that here. Instead here are a range of links:
The rather terrifyingly named Asian Efficiency site has a very nice step-by-step guide to delegation for freelancers which translate well for academics
Libcom ( a site with infinite potential for distraction for any sandal wearing liberals) also has a gentle guide to delegation
Social media is a really hot topic in workshops now and it’s been interesting to see the gradual shift from dismissing it as the natural home of freaks and time wasters… to being curious and open-minded about the potential… to finding at least 30% of any workshop group actively engaged.
The following blog posts from academics might give additional insights into the value of social media to academics and researchers:
http://www.katherinelwheat.com/lifeafterthesis/uses-and-misuses-of-twitter/
http://deevybee.blogspot.nl/2011/06/gentle-introduction-to-twitter-for.html
http://thermaltoy.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/what-is-the-point-of-twitter/
http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2013/03/23/learning-the-foreign-language-of-twitter/
http://www.nature.com/spoton/2012/10/spoton-london-2012-tweeting-to-spread-the-word/
http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/why-i-use-twitter/
http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/why-should-an-academic-read-blogs/
This isn’t the only list of such articles – here is another list of science/social media related articles and resources, from the Social Networking for Scientists Wiki (more US based).
If you know of any others PLEASE let me know – I’ll try to keep updating this list.
If these convince you, the introductory guides I tend to suggest are:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/ (very basic)
http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers (still the best I’ve found although any publishes guide to social media will gradually become outdated – I see signs that ResearchGate is proving more popular than Academic.edu at present)
Most of our leadership programmes include MBTI – I know some people dislike this as a tool but I still find it very useful for demonstrating that differences between people are positive if you understand them. As a summary, I like the new MBTI heads which celebrate the 70th anniversary of the tool – rather fetching silhouettes with summaries of key words for each type (I know one academic who has hung his on his door as a warning…)
http://www.mbtiparty.com/#gift (either click on “don’t leave without your free gift” or scroll way down until you get to the Party Favors (sic) section) – enter your type and choose PDF or image. If you don’t like MBTI you will hate this page, so probably best not to go there…
Another challenge for new PIs is the process of growing a research group. For this I still recommend the HHMI online guide – Making the Right Moves – it’s aimed at bioscientists, but the advice is largely generic and although there are now some omissions (it’s over ten years old), it still contains great advice.
http://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement/downloads/moves2.pdf
Funding
Although I don’t cover funding on any of my research leadership courses (I’d rather encourage people to make contact with their own research funing support offices as these are full of excellent helpful people), I’ve recently come across a couple of resources that are frankly too good not to include here.
I was pointed to the first of these during a discussion with the director of a research support office, giving it a real seal of approval.
The Research Funding Toolkit was developed by research funding experts and academics (arguably these are also research funding experts, but hopefully you’ll understand the distinction) and includes a series of excellent presentations, checklists and a great blog.
The next resource came indirectly through twitter. One of the most generous and honest academics that I follow is Dr Nadine Muller of Liverpool John Moores University. She writes regularly about the highs and challenges of academic life and her “The New Academic” blog is packed with advice and insights from Nadine and guest writers.
The post on writing grant applications gives a fantastic starting point for any first time applicant and in the comments stream is a link from Neon Anonymous to their post entitled “All-the-things-ive-learned-while-i-should-have-been-working-on-my-thesis”
In this post is a link to “The Professor Is In” Blog and Dr Karen’s Foolproof Grant Template. Although written by an American academic for her funding opportunities, to me it appears to travel across the Atlantic very well.
I’ve also recently found rather old but still very effective guide to funding:
The final links are to help people reflect their research culture online – the website of Prof Roberto Cipolla at Cambridge is a good example of explaining a model of supervision. As far as I can see he hasn’t updated this page for about 18 years (I’ve been linking to it since 1999)– but there’s no evidence he needs to!
http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~cipolla/phdguide.htm
The second has been updated recently – the Barton Group at Dundee University. I think that the embedding of Geoff Barton’s twitter feed is really effective here as it ensures that the site looks current with minimal effort. The feed conveys his enthusiasm and humour. Also worth noting is the excellent guide to the UK academic system which demonstrates his commitment to supporting international students. Photos of the group and their successes complete a picture of a strong group, where successes are celebrated, international researchers are welcomed and where a comprehensive picture of the work in the group can be seen. (Having met Geoff and some of his group recently, I felt the page reflected the positive group culture really well.)
Here endeth the brain dump, but please let me know which sites and resources I could add.
This blog post is principally written for the PhD students who attended the SULSA Young Scientists’ Event in May 2013. However, the links and themes will be relevant to any researcher interested in developing their networking, collaborative and communication skills. This is the first post which will focus on networking.
I’ve previously blogged on the approach I take to networking (this includes my thoughts on starting conversations), but at the event we discussed the benefits and challenges for research students. I think this is an essential first step for the reluctant networker – working out what the benefits could be. Three stand out from my PhD
It probably helped hugely that I had to go to conferences on my own – if you go with your group try to spend as much time as possible away from them!
The SULSA students came up with a lot of positive reasons to develop networking skills – hopefully there’s something here to convince you to overcome your reticence and find ways to network more effectively.
Networking benefits research –
Networking benefits you and your career
As a platform for longer-term enhancement
A final note for this post – networking shouldn’t just be about asking people for help, so this isn’t intended to give you a checklist to take to any conference, ruthlessly rejecting people who don’t offer anything useful! Rather, this post is to help to get motivated to engage and start looking for opportunities.
Two links to blog posts that might help you take this thinking further:
6 secrets to better networking at conferences
And a final link from my friend Paul Spencer about the Matthew Effect. To quote this article, “a term coined by Robert Merton to describe how, among other things, eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is similar; it also means that credit will usually be given to researchers who are already famous”. Networking as a young researcher begins to build your visibility and reputation.
The workshop is usually run for PhD students who are in the first 6-9 months of their PhDs (or part-time equivalent) so we’ve based this post on that audience. By this time, you’ve hopefully had time to settle in, done some initial research or conducted a review of your research area. At this point you should know enough about your project to be in a position to start planning (even in loose terms) the next stages of your project.
The basic process is the same for researchers and principal investigators who are starting to manage more complex project. In these workshops there are other more sophisticated tools we will have mentioned and we will have spent longer on the “tuning in” stage of the project. For most projects, these steps will give you a good start and enable you to use project management software more effectively.
Once you are ‘tuned in’ to your new environment, it is important to understand the wider context and aims of your research work. As a PhD researcher you should also be clear on your own personal motivations for conducting research.
You should be able to summarise your project simply:
Context – a brief explanation of the area of your research
Aim – your project and its intended outcome
Methodology – how will your research project meet its aims?
Reflection point – in the workshop, you will have been asked to discuss this with a partner. Were you able to describe your project comfortably? Are there any aspects your supervisor can clarify? Being fluent with the core attributes of your project will help you to set priorities and plan your research. You should keep asking yourself “how is what I am doing today taking me closer to the ultimate goal of my thesis?”
At the start of a project you should also be as clear as possible on your responsibilities and the responsibilities of others – have you discussed your respective roles? Are you aware of all the stakeholders of your project? The workshop considers two key roles:
What should a PhD student take responsibility for?
What should a supervisor take responsibility for?
Reflection point – most workshops on PhD planning and management will also look at the role of the supervisor. As part of this it is common to discuss potential problems. Don’t let this demoralise you – problems are usually small and can be solved by being honest and open. Keep good research records and good meeting records (see below) so you can demonstrate your commitment to the project and be able to measure and monitor your progress. If you aren’t sure about the respective roles of you and your supervisor, check your institutional Code of Practice and consider discussing the Griffith questionnaire with your supervisor. [http://www.griffith.edu.au/higher-degrees-research/current-research-students/…]
Advice on avoiding/overcoming problems in professional relationships
· Keep things in perspective – your supervisor is human and may have good / bad days or be affected by other pressures; remember they share your long term goal (PhD success) and their eligibility for future funding may be damaged if your research fails
· Any criticism is directed at your actions, not you (even if it feels personal at the time)
· Be organized – organise FORMAL meetings if useful informal ones are not happening; prepare for meetings with your own ideas and points for discussion
· Be honest – report mistakes (before your supervisor hears on the grapevine) and raise difficulties whilst they are SMALL so you can discuss solutions. Remember that your doctorate is a period of training and no-one expects instant perfection
· Be professional – during your working life you are unlikely to always ‘get on’ with colleagues so learn how to cope now
· Ask for feedback – then accept criticism as a way to improve and not an insult
· Show your enthusiasm – many supervisors are disappointed and disillusioned by apparent apathy from students; if possible don’t wait to be told what to do or read
· Meet deadlines – if you want to be treated with respect, you must respect your supervisor’s time and instructions
Much of your supervision will take place in meetings, so learning to manage and organise these early on will help you to maximise the value of your supervisor’s time. Effective meeting can also help to maintain positive, professional relationships.
Try to come to meetings with ideas and some anticipation of the potential debate. Prepare yourself by gathering all information together, decide on questions / opinions. For formal meetings it may be appropriate to draft an agenda stating the meeting’s objectives and listing topics to be covered and circulate to all attendees (and other interested parties) in advance. Similarly, distribute any outcomes or decisions to arise.
Finally, evaluate the meeting against any expectations you had in advance. If the outcome was very different analyse what happened to avoid problems in the future.
SMART Objectives
Specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-bound objectives as targets and deadlines help a great deal with motivation, planning and assessing progress.
There are many sites which explain the acronym and give advice on how to set effective objectives.
Perspectives from a PhD student at Manchester University on SMART goals http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/researchexchange/entry/keeping_em_goals/
The doctoral planner from Vitae includes advice on objective setting
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Planning%20your%20doctorate_wallplaner.pdf
More generic advice (i.e. not aimed at PhDs) from Mindtools http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html
Reflection point Take the time to record your own SMART objectives for the next six months of your research. Make sure you evaluate progress against them regularly, perhaps using the futureme website. http://www.futureme.org
Project Planning
Projects are about delivering specific pieces of work – these can range from short reports on a specific topic to multimillion-pound research projects. The techniques that are used in industry to manage projects are just as applicable to your research. This session therefore aims to introduce the main project management tools and techniques, but with the activities being focussed on your individual projects.
In the workshop we look at mind maps, drill downs, Gantt charts and risk analysis.
Mind maps – are great for the exploratory stage of a project. Good for capturing all the ideas and issues around the central topic. Mind mapping software and apps are now commonplace so ask in your institution for details of which you can get free access to, or which are recommended. Your library or information services unit should be able to help with this.
Some quick links
Mindtools again http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm
Two blog posts from a PhD student trying to get to grips with mindmapping which might strike a chord if you haven’t “got” MindMaps before – the “before” http://thephdpimpernel.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/mind-mapping/ and “after” http://thephdpimpernel.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/mind-mapping-ii/
Once you’ve put together a map of possibilities surrounding your project it can be a useful resource as you start to identify:
– things that aren’t clear or known to you, and have affected your ability to plan
– areas which will need particular support or training to complete
– aspects which are central to your work and those that are more peripheral or secondary
– your priorities
Drill downs, or Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) are good for the next stage of planning. The core elements of the project are identified and the tasks which must be completed broken down. If your motivation is low, break down the tasks into small chunks, giving yourself a set of achievable goals. (“Write literature review” is lot more daunting than “Summarise the key points in Bailey’s papers”). You can also use the WBS to estimate the time different tasks will take – usually the smaller the task, the more likely you will be to estimate the time accurately.
There’s some generic advice to help your “drilling” from the “For Dummies” website http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-a-work-breakdown-structur…
Gantt charts take the tasks from the WBS and map them against time. This is great for seeing potential bottle-necks, interdependence between tasks, possible over-commitment and for planning back from a deadline such as a conference or transition point. Gantt Charts also offer a great monitoring tool. At any point you can draw a line through the chart and see if your progress is in line with the plan! If you are behind on some tasks, these become your priorities; if ahead on others, you need to reflect on why this is (could they be more fun?). If the chart (plan) doesn’t reflect the project (reality) then rewrite it!
Risk analysis is an important part of the project plan as it leads to good practices which should minimise problems throughout your PhD. We use a “likelihood –vs- impact” grid in our workshop.
Think of everything that could go wrong with your research, supervision, motivation and life (if naturally fatalistic, you might want to do this with an optimistic colleague to ensure you don’t give up and walk away at this point!). Then think carefully about how likely these things are to happen and what the impact would be if they did. Map them out on the grid.
The next step is to think about the two elements of the process.
What can you do to make this less LIKELY to happen?
What can you do so this has less IMPACT if it can’t be avoided?
We tend to suggest you think about this question as you consider your risk analysis:
If you knew this was going to happen tomorrow, what would you do today?
Risk analysis is the basis of COSHH, health and safety, good data storage, good lab management, good supervisor relationships, improved career planning and almost anything that will give you a little more control and peace of mind as a PhD student. It’s worth the investment in time and worth developing the good habits.
Useful websites and resources
Newcastle University students : The slides for this workshop are available to download from Blackboard.
The Postgraduate’s Companion, ed by Gerard Hall and Jo Longman, ISBN 978-1-4129-4025-3
The Research Student’s Guide to Success, Pat Cryer, 3rd edition, ISBN 0-335 22117-3
Postgraduate Study in the UK: The International Student’s Guide. Nicholas Foskett, Rosalind Foskett, ISBN: 1412907195
Selected Websites
The Vitae website includes a section for research students (click on the orange ‘researchers’ tab, then the ‘postgraduate researchers’ tab) with lots of advice:
This site also contains an accessible summary of the Researcher Development Framework (RDF) that replaces the earlier Joint Skills Statement and encompasses the skills, attributes and behaviours of successful researchers:
ScienceCareers is a huge searchable careers site that includes some great stories from successful scientists
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/
For mind mapping and other software tools, check out
www.mindtools.com/ www.businessballs.com/
FreeMind is free mind-mapping software
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download
There are also umpteen apps available for smartphones and tablets. If you have the option, trial the free version to see if the interface suits you.
For Newcastle students – any regulations quoted in the slides are at:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/regulations/docs/2012.html
For lively discussions, read #phdchat on Twitter
Twitter will lead you to all kinds of interesting, useful and supportive resources which would be difficult to find without devoting FAR too much time to the Internet. Professor Pat Thomson’s great blog about academic writing is just one of the reasons to start looking into social media as a research student. [http://patthomson.wordpress.com]
To be further convniced and get started, download this guide to social media for researchers from RIN [http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers]
I’ve spent most of this week where I spend a lot of my time – in UK universities working with research staff and academics. I’ve had lot of conversations about various aspects of academia and careers but two really stand out.
One was with an institute director with whom I was discussing some ideas to support his researchers. We met at the end of a long day for both of us and I must admit I went into the meeting with some weariness. I received a email just before the meeting from someone who has a habit of sending scornful messages and was distracted thinking about how I was going to respond. I was facing a long drive home and an early start the next day.
Two and a half hours later I emerged from a meeting which completely energised me. We had a great plan and determination to turn our ideas into an event or programme. We’d shared book recommendations and people in our networks. My good mood wasn’t due to the prospect of a new piece of work (although that’s great), but because I’d connected with a positive person. For those few hours, anything was possible.
Academic life isn’t easy at the moment. I spent a day with new and emerging research leaders this week and the discussions about REF were demoralising for me (let alone them). It feels like the important things in academia that can’t be measured are being devalued, and that the sector risks favouring 4* papers over “4* people”. The pragmatist in me understands where REF has come from and that scrutiny of academia is part and parcel of public funding, but it worries me that we risk losing a generation of brilliant, committed people who are made to feel that they don’t tick the right boxes.
The second conversation of the week was with someone like this. They are exactly the kind of person who should succeed in academia. Passionate about their work, delivering important outcomes and yet demoralised by the perception that they are failing. During our conversation I recalled my meeting earlier in the week and we talked about the power of positive people. I suggested they find ways to spend time with people with a positive approach – working with them if possible.
As we spoke about ways to find positive people and connect with them, two areas of opportunity cropped up – the impact agenda and the push towards collaborative research. Both of these are based on developing relationships and both provide the chance to meet people who care about the things you care about. Even if they are only a small part of your workload, these connections might “top up your happy tank” enough to get you through the daily grind.
Although I now work on the periphery of academic life, I’ve embraced both of these ideas. I’ve found another positive person (a teacher in a local school) and set up and run a very successful little science festival. (If you know me, you’ll know ALL about this, otherwise, check out last year’s event…). I think the success of this is down to the fact that both Andrew and I focus on what is possible, rather than what is difficult. I’m not suggesting it was easy to run the event, but it was fun and energising because we kept meeting people who were positive about what we were doing. Neither of us receive an income from our work on the festival but it pays a rich wage in terms of the people we meet and the satisfaction we get from delivering a great event.
I’m also collaborating much more as part of my professional life. Although this means sharing rewards and remuneration, the benefits are huge. I use collaboration as a mechanism to spend time with other positive people – I perform better with them because they inspire me to push forwards and do bigger things. Not all of our projects come to fruition but we all benefit from the time we spend together.
Some people have the negative default – focusing on what you can’t do and why “that won’t work here”. They often make good points and help us avoid repeating mistakes, so this post isn’t suggesting that you should avoid all negative thought. However, if the negative voices are all you hear, they will stifle you.
Time with positive people builds your resilience. They remind you of why you’re in your role and why it’s important. They give you permission to be positive yourself and to get excited again about being a researcher.
As the Christmas break approaches in the UK and we are enjoying our first real fall of snow in Southern Scotland, there is a real ‘end of term’ sense in the air. A good time therefore to focus on a skills/attribute/behavior that really benefits from a little space and opportunity to step back – that of creativity.
Until about 5 years ago I limited myself with the mistaken belief that I wasn’t creative. I knew I was able to work well and to deliver ideas really effectively, but I thought that really off-the-wall thinking was beyond me. Then, through my involvement in the Crucible programme and with encouragement (more accurately, irritation that I held such a preposterous notion) from a good friend, I started to realise that (a) I was as creative as the next person and (b) further creativity could be developed from a set of behaviours.
I’m going to share some of these in this post and to link to the resources I’ve found useful. Let’s start with a health warning though – my creativity isn’t the same as yours. The techniques that help me to think in a more innovative way might not help you – we all need to recognize our existing strengths and weaknesses and to be able to characterize our own brand of creativity before we can find tools to develop it further or in different directions.
I’ll start with a great presentation from Jason Theodor, a Canadian creative director and speaker. Jason shares his ideas and developmental tools in a brilliant workshop available on slideshare. Once you get to grips with the ideas he introduces, you can start to see where your own creativity can be developed and then to understand which changes to your thinking and habits will have most impact. The element that I want to develop is “deviation” and the prescription for boosting it is, in Jason’s words “exposure to new things”. I think of it in slightly different terms – in order to develop better ideas I need to shake off (for a time) my preference for ideas which are useful and readily applicable.
I’d encourage you to use Jason’s ideas and other resources such as MBTI and Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles (both tools should be readily available to university-based researchers, probably for free) as a starting point. My familiarity with these really helped me to “let go” of my preferred style and to embrace the alternatives.
This process of self-awareness should also include reflection on when you are and aren’t creative yourself. This is really key – in the workshop I ran on this topic last week we discussed our own creative preferences and had people who were most creative under pressure and least creative under pressure. Find your own creativity and be aware that the rest of this post is about MY creativity.
My next tip is to become a scribe. Get into the habit of capturing thoughts, observations and ideas. This has been a hard habit for me to acquire, but I now never travel without a notebook and use it constantly to write down anything that strikes me as interesting, useful or curious. It’s taken me about 3 years to start doing this reglarly and effectively. I don’t find this easy – which is why I do it.
Working with others gives an instant ‘hit’ of alternative perspectives, but not everyone will boost your creativity. Think about who adds to, and who detracts from, your creative life. Aim to spend more time with people who help you develop better ideas. When you are with the right people your creativity will feel like a pinball – ideas will bounce around in a frenzy and the brilliance will flow.
Perhaps draw is taking it too far, but mapping ideas out in graphical terms gives a different view. To get you started, you might like to use some templates, such as these or something as simple as a mind map. I don’t find this easy – which is why I do it. With a bit of help…
We often stifle our own creativity by allowing the inner critic to stop the flow of possibilities. Creativity comes from embracing the mad, weird and dangerous. We’re all (well mostly) sensible enough to weed out these ideas at a later stage, but in the divergent mode, we need to let the mad ideas out – there might be a brilliant one hiding behind them. Anyway, does it really matter if you get it wrong first time? (Clearly for pilots and brain surgeons it does matter…)
If you look at a problem from the same seat, in the same building, surrounded by the same people, breathing the same air, you are making life very tough for yourself. GO for a walk. Learn to knit. Visit a gallery. Read something as far removed from your own perspective as possible. Give your brain a chance to think differently.
In addition to the insights I got from reading Jason Theodor’s presentation, there are a few other ‘creativity gurus’ that help me. These guys help with my brand of creativity – no guarantees they’ll help you!
Jurgen Wolff’s book Creativity Now! and the accompanying blog
Dr Kevin Byron runs brilliant workshops on creavitiy – you can get a glimpse of his ideas in the setting up a researcher blog booklet. Hopefully he’ll be persuaded to write a book one day…
TED talks are a fabulous source of ideas and challenging thinking. A couple on this theme include Ken Robinson on creativity in schools, or rather how education kills it, and John Francis who personifies what you can achieve by being different. Radically different. I found John’s talk thought the Imulus blog. Ken’s talk was recommended by my partner in crime at Bang Goes the Borders.
And to finish, a few musings of my own from a year or two ago.
If you were at the workshop which prompted this blog, the slides are on the Blackboard site – for anyone else who wants them, leave a comment and we’ll connect!
Despite the challenges facing the academic sector across Europe – reduced funding, increased competition for posts and the eternal “post-doc” problem, an academic career is still the aspiration of many early career researchers.
My work brings me into contact with incredibly talented and productive researchers, many of whom never achieve a permanent academic position. When I contemplated an academic career as a PhD student and postdoc, I thought that if I worked hard and produced enough papers, I’d be on track to secure a lectureship. As soon as I shared these aspirations with academics in my departments, they improved my awareness of the expectations and needs of recruiting departments.
I needed to publish more and to publish things that changed the way people thought in my field.
I needed to leave the department (where I had completed my degree and PhD), ideally to work overseas to broaden my network, learn new techniques and become more personally resilient.
I needed to learn how to write grants even though I wasn’t eligible to hold them.
I needed to start thinking about what my own research area was going to be, and to equip myself to contribute to it.
I needed to be less concerned, less interested in teaching – this wasn’t going to help my career progress (harsh, but fair advice in my field for someone at my career stage.
This advice came almost twenty years ago and although there have been additions to the demands, this advice is still very sound. What is interesting though, is that until I asked people specifically what I should be doing to try and get a lectureship, no-one volunteered these insights. If you hope to become an academic, have you spoken to any? Particularly those who have been recently appointed and know the current demands.
Most academics I know are incredibly supportive of their students and young researchers in their departments. Most are also willing to share their advice with other researchers they meet at conferences or through other networks. Some very special ones are also willing to be involved in career development workshops!
Last week I was priviledged to be invited to run a couple of workshops at the FOM Young Scientist Day in Amsterdam. I was joined in my sessions by Professor Sylvie Roke from EPFL in Switzerland. Sylvie started the day with a plenary address on her career during which she talked honestly about the challenges, how she overcame them and the investment she has made in her career to be successful. Sylvie also displayed a healthy attitude to her own work-life balance – she has other interests and chooses not to spend all her waking hours at work. Therefore she has to be efficient and effective. Her work with a career coach has helped her to find a way to achieve more and to manage others better.
The slides and additional notes from the workshop are below. I hope to elaborate on the advice section in future posts.
As I listened to all the speakers I heard fascinating and important career development messages coming again and again. I’ve mentioned a few in my last posting and on my twitter feed but the idea I’ve taken away most strongly is the idea of control – stay in charge of your own career. Two of the speakers had called up employers who had rejected them and secured the job – either immediately or soon afterwards. One had written a letter to point out the devasting impact of a rejected grant application – and convinced the funder to rethink and give them the money. Too often and too quickly we let other people or circumstances halt our plans – could a little of the perserverence that researchers need to progress in their science be a magic career ingredient too?
(Most of the researchers who attended were physicists but the discussions we had could be applied to any academic field.)
As a final note I should add that when I started to ask my senior colleagues for advice, a few asked me to think about whether an academic career was right for me. They were generous with their suggestions, advice and networks and helped me to find a better path forward which suited my strengths and interests more closely. Although not easy to hear at the time, talking about my career and asking for advice opened my eyes to the alternatives. As someone asked in my workshop last week, “Why do we all want academic careers?” Is it because you don’t know what else would bring you satisfaction and excitement?
I spent the day at the FOM Young Scientist Day which aims to give young physics researchers in the Netherlands the tools they need to manager their careers effectively, be they academic or otherwise. I ran a workshop on academic career development alongside Sylvie Roke which I’ll post details of later (probably in the next few days!).The day started with three very powerful presentations from people with different career paths – Dr Wim van Saarloos, Director Foundation at FOM; Professor Sylvie Roke, EPFL and Dr Joost van Mameron, Coordinator Institute of Physics at UvA. Their careers have taken very different routes, but the messages they gave to the room were consistent.- take control of your career. All of them had invested time and energy in broadening their skills. Whether it is learning to touch type, volunteering for committee or paying for coaching, they have all done interesting and different things which made them more employable and broadened their perspectives. Sylvie went even further – she invested financially by paying a career coach to help her maximise her potential. To hear somebody of her calibre talking about the value and impact of the coaching on her effectivess (I work fewer hours than my colleagues so I have to be more efficient) was a real wake-up call for the audience, some of whom (it transpired later) were still to be convinced of the value of skills & career planning). We had a discussion later about the value that we give to our personal development and it made me think about the difficulty engaging many people to think about these issues even (or perhaps because!) when expert advice is available for free.- other people matter. Every presenter talked about a time where they had been “lucky” but on closer inspection, this luck was about being made aware of an opportunity they hadn’t spotted, being encouraged to apply for something or been recommended by others. In other words they were so highly regarded by those around them that their networks were looking out for them, recommending them and nurturing them. I think that this is a measure of the positivity that the first point illustrates. By being personally committed, they show that they are worth the investment of others.- know what you want and enjoy it. Joost talked about his dilemma when choosing the path out of academia and the factors which influenced this choice. He balanced his desire for a certain kind of work against a desire to work abroad. All the speakers made a series of moves which took them towards a particular goal. These goals weren’t necessarily ultimate goals, just the next step in their development. Careers often make sense in retrospect and for all that I advocate the process of career planning, I also recognise that you can only see so far ahead and career choice is often a step into the unknown. The key is to keep thinking “Am I learning? Am I happy doing this? Are there other things out there?” and to make the move when you need to.All in all a really inspiring day and I’ve added a couple of great people to my network. I’ll be writing a post about my workshop when I get back to the UK, but right now I’m off to put my shoe by the chimney, put a carrot out for the horse and sing??Zie Ginds Komt de Stoomboot. (Careers musing with free cultural insights…)