Real-time research seminar

David Jiles

WESEP 594

Fall Semester 2013

Summary

Perspectives on research

Research in its narrower sense

– Solving problems that haven’t

been solved before

Research in its broader sense

– Research as an enterprise

» Resources

Perspectives on the role of research

Educational aspects

Creative aspects

Research in industry

Research in universities

Research – answering questions

solving problems

How do we become aware of the research problems to work on ?

– Other people– Conferences– External organizations

» Companies

» Government departments

» Funding agencies

– Outgrowth of our own prior research

What is a good research problem ?

impacts the lives of many people

many people are interested in has a chance of success is of personal interest is challenging / non-trivial

Where do we start?

This is very context specific You could be in a situation in a company

where – you are given a problem to solve motivated

by internal company concerns

– the request comes from outside» from a customer concern

» via a contract

» via a proposal in response to a “solicitation”

» from federal government

– the motivation comes from you» university research

» via an unsolicited proposal from you to federal agencies to a charitable organization (“trusts”) to a corporation

To what extent can research be planned ?

Objectives can be set Activities can be organized Short term reports can be

scheduled Time lines / Gantt charts can be

produced

but you can’t know what you are going to find !

Goals and objectives

Identify the goals (long term) and objectives (short term)

Do these come from...– an outside corporation?– your organization?– federal agencies?

How is it funded?– Contract?– Internal R&D (overhead) ?– Grant?

End products

What is the desired “end-product” (or deliverable) of a research project ?– paper – patent– technology transfer – impact– marketable device– educated graduate student(s)– educated post doc(s)

Research in its broader context

Research as an enterprise– funding– people– time

Funding

Resources

Find out how extensive your resources are– people– capital– time

Is there a serious mismatch between goals/objectives and resources?– yes? …see your supervisor!

Plan the work towards the goals based on the resources

Mechanisms for funding research

Contracts– direct “one-to-one” agreements

between an industrial partner and the PI

Grants– direct “one to one” agreements

between an agency (eg.NSF,DoE) and the PI

Consortia– several partners pool resources to

tackle common problems

Mechanisms for funding research

Cooperative ventures– one or more partners join with a

research organization to obtain funds from a third party such as government sources or other research foundations

– examples» DoE “CRADA’s” or “LTR’s”

» NSF Center-type funds

» NIST AEP funds

The funding cycle mystery

People

Who are you reporting to?

Clearly identify who this person or persons are– most times it is obvious– but sometimes not

» (so avoid surprises!)

Are they inside your organization? With an outside company? With a federal agency?

Handling the people

Find out their strengths

Encourage them

Managing directly

– the less of this you have to do the better

– remember they want as much freedom as possible too!

You don’t have to do everything!

How to proceed? One step at a time? No give goals!

Give general goals and objectives (best in written & dated form) with some indication of the expected time frame for completion

Try not to give steps that are too small– less challenging

Check periodically to see if the individual can handle the size of steps that you gave them– if so that’s good

– if not you have to make the steps simpler and shorter term

– the longer these steps are the better for you and the individual

Personnel are not just resources!

Be careful with everyone inside your management group

Be careful with everyone outside your management group

The people that you think are dispensible today have a nasty habit of reappearing to haunt you later in life from positions of influence!

You may not see them as significant today …but the world is a surprisingly small place

Time

Time management

There is only one commodity which you definitely can not get more of...

- time

Time is one of three major resources...

- time, capital, people

Since there is no way to get more time this means that it must be utilized very carefully.

Time management

As you get more senior (which means more and more demands) the effective utilization of time becomes increasingly critical

It is usually the major factor which limits what you can achieve

Your time is valuable, perhaps the most expensive in your unit ... remember this!

Conclusions

Research is a multi-faceted activity– involving proposals, funding, personnel,

data collection, interpretation and publication

The funding cycle involves all of the above

The group’s (or unit’s) research activities or projects must contain some commonality

Separation of the various projects within the group’s portfolio must be maintained to avoid confusion

Conclusions

Professional development activity must be included, together with – education, data collection and publication

Various major areas of activity within the group need to be identified and structured

Major resources are– time, funding, people

Only time is inelastic and limits what is achievable

Time management is therefore the most critical (and the most easily overlooked)