1. Did you make an active decision to shift your priorities somewhat from doing to facilitating research? If so, what factors drove that decision?
There was something of an active decision here. It was partly based on a sense that the returns had been good when I’d previously invested attention in mentoring junior researchers, and partly on a sense that there was a significant bottleneck here for the research community.
2. What do you think makes running RSP your comparative advantage (assuming you think that)?
Overall I’m not sure what my comparative advantage is! (At least in the long term.)
I think:
Some things which makes me good at research mentoring are:
being able to get up to speed on different projects quickly
holding onto a sense of why we’re doing things, and connecting to larger purposes
finding that I’m often effective in ‘reactive’ mode rather than ‘proactive’ mode
(e.g. I suspect this AMA has the highest ratio of public-written-words / time-invested of anything substantive I’ve ever done)
being able to also connect to where the researcher in front of me is, and what their challenges are
There are definitely parts of running RSP which seem not my comparative advantage (and I’m fortunate enough to have excellent support from project managers who have taken ownership of a lot of the programme)
3. Any thoughts on how to test or build one’s skills for that sort of role/pathway?
Read a lot of research. Form views (and maybe talk to others) about which pieces are actually valuable, and how. Try to work out what seems bad even about good pieces, or what seems good even about bad pieces.
Be generous with your time looking to help others with their projects. Check in with them afterwards to see if they found it useful. (Try to ask in a way which makes it safe for them to express that they did not.)
Try your own hand at research. First-hand experience of challenges is helpful for this.
(I’ve focused on the pathway of “research mentorship”; I think there are other parts you were asking about which I’ve ignored.)
There was something of an active decision here. It was partly based on a sense that the returns had been good when I’d previously invested attention in mentoring junior researchers, and partly on a sense that there was a significant bottleneck here for the research community.
Overall I’m not sure what my comparative advantage is! (At least in the long term.)
I think:
Some things which makes me good at research mentoring are:
being able to get up to speed on different projects quickly
holding onto a sense of why we’re doing things, and connecting to larger purposes
finding that I’m often effective in ‘reactive’ mode rather than ‘proactive’ mode
(e.g. I suspect this AMA has the highest ratio of public-written-words / time-invested of anything substantive I’ve ever done)
being able to also connect to where the researcher in front of me is, and what their challenges are
There are definitely parts of running RSP which seem not my comparative advantage (and I’m fortunate enough to have excellent support from project managers who have taken ownership of a lot of the programme)
Read a lot of research. Form views (and maybe talk to others) about which pieces are actually valuable, and how. Try to work out what seems bad even about good pieces, or what seems good even about bad pieces.
Be generous with your time looking to help others with their projects. Check in with them afterwards to see if they found it useful. (Try to ask in a way which makes it safe for them to express that they did not.)
Try your own hand at research. First-hand experience of challenges is helpful for this.
(I’ve focused on the pathway of “research mentorship”; I think there are other parts you were asking about which I’ve ignored.)