Real-time research seminar

1. Real-time research seminar David Jiles WESEP 594 Fall Semester 2013

2. 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

3. Perspectives on the role of research • Educational aspects • Creative aspects • Research in industry • Research in universities

4. Research – answering questions solving problems

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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 !

9. 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?

10. 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)

11. Research in its broader context • Research as an enterprise • funding • people • time

12. Funding

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. The funding cycle mystery

17. People

18. 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?

19. 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!

20. 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

21. 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

22. Time

23. 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.

24. 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!

25. 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

26. 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)