In the last of July’s posts focussing on PhD tips, I thought I should probably spend some time focusing on research questions and creating an environment that supports having ideas. This sounds like the simplest thing, but I think it’s often an undisclosed struggle for many and a source of silent pressure that might benefit from being acknowledged, especially when you’re just starting out.

I think this area probably ties into who you are as a person. I, for instance, have never found ideas to be a particular issue, but I think that’s because I’m by nature a starter and not a finisher. I often have too many ideas in my head to be efficient in any form of implementation. You may, however, be the other end of the scale, great at implementation, but struggle at the start with staring at a blank sheet of paper. Both of these traits have their unique challenges when it comes to finding ideas and taking them through to realisation. As with so much else, knowing how you interact with the world will probably help in finding the best pathway to success.

So whether you are being over or underwhelmed by inspiration and ideas, I hope this week’s post may help you navigate some of the challenges of finding your next research question.

Science is a creative process

As Scientific Director of the Nosocomial Project, I’ve spent a far amount of time now working with people who are based in what is acknowledged as a creative industry. I think one of the things that has struck me is that there is more that is similar in some of the processes within the Arts and Science than is different. Although science is often seen from the outside as a process driven area, at its very heart, and to be successful, it is actually based around ideas, questions, and developing concepts. Both areas require us to be able to ask new questions and sometimes see the world or challenges in a different way to those who’ve come before.

Creativity in itself is a process. It’s something that requires the identification of time in order to allow ideas to be inspired, developed and reflected on. This is true whether you are a natural ideas person, who needs this time to be able to sort and feel less overwhelmed, or someone who needs space to allow the ideas themselves for formulate.

Now, I’m not going to say good ideas because I believe you don’t know whether an idea is good or bad until much further down the line, ideas aren’t weighted at the start, they are just ideas. Sometimes, the most far out one’s turn out to be best and sometimes the most solid appearing ones turn out to be a waste of time. Which brings me to thought number one: inspiration shouldn’t involve a value judgement. Being open to ideas requires time and occasionally bravery, but the shifting process, where you consider whether an idea has legs, comes later.

Make time for inspiration

One of the biggest challenges I’ve found with the way I see this and even when I’ve been writing this blog, is the temptation to describe and discuss productive time. The thing is, the creation of time for ideas is key but often doesn’t feel productive. I think this is because the very word productive links the time to a value judgement about the ideas produced, whereas creating the time for ideas is where the value lies, whether those ideas end up being genius or merely a stage in process.

This is one of the challenges with science being a process driven environment, with a focus on outputs. If we are not ‘doing science’ time is considered to be wasted. One of the things I try to encourage in my students is that a walk in the park just letting your mind wonder, or staring at the rain through a window to free your mind, is sometimes the most valuable time you will spend during your PhD. Especially if you’ve come up against a tricky problem. Staring at something head on can only get you so far.

Sometimes it’s hard to be passive, I’m really not that great at just ‘being’. If you are like me therefore you may decide a kitchen disco is the best way to free your mind or to go for a run. Finding a way that allows you to distract your mind to enable you to see things in a different way, whatever way that works for you, is the main thing.

Spend time reading and reflecting

Occasionally, the pressure to solve things or come up with ideas can feel a lot like writers’ blocks. Staring at empty screens, lab books, or grant templates. Although space often helps, sometimes you need a kick-off point. I find reading (or going to listen to people speak) can often be helpful at this point. I’m not talking about reading for critique here but reading for inspiration.

Often, when we are reading papers etc we are reading it to evaluate how good it is or to support technical understanding. I think reading for inspiration is probably a different skill. It’s the opposite of the trying to focus on the details we normally do. It’s reading and almost actively listening and recognising those little side tracking ‘what if’ thoughts that we would often try to ignore.

When reading for inspiration, you may also want to try different content that you would normally engage with. You might want to read about your subject from a different disciplines perspective, for instance, infection control but from a human factors perspective. If you are working in a translational area, you might want to read about another use of the technique that isn’t within your specialism or some fundamental science papers. You may even want to read articles and blog posts from patients or advocacy groups in order to get a different perspective. The main thing is to be cognisant in your approach and be open to going down some mental rabbit holes to see where they lead.

Sometimes, you need to act on your thoughts

Once you’ve done your reading for inspiration and have your thoughts the next step is deciding what to do with them. This requires some form of action, often doing some further reading or sitting down to grow that thought, and specifically reflect and write about how that germ of an idea might grown into a more fully formed question or piece of work.

This step is not always easy, but I think it is the part that most of us are more used to as scientists. That said, there are some days where my mind is a hell to me, and I think if it was visualised, it would just be a cloud of buzzing flies. On days like this, I write. I write blog posts. I write postit notes. I scribble notes in books. Writing things down, even if not to do with my research thoughts, creates a little space so that I can see the wood for the trees. It empties my mind on specific topics so I can gain clarity on other things and do the development work needed.

If being overwhelmed isn’t your issue, this is probably the time to hit the reading for research portion of development. This is where you would read more closely around the idea itself and start to see what others have done, undertake your gap analysis, and begin to think about the practicalities of undertaking the work.

Be prepared for failure

A wise person once told me that ‘science is 80% failure’ and that ‘the earlier I got used to that concept, the easier my journey would be’. As you hit the evaluation phase of idea development, you need to be OK with throwing out or needing to redefine a bunch of the thoughts you had in the earlier phases. This is the phase where you take your researched concept and try to change it into a fully formed research question or practical experiment. It is also the phase where you find out whether your idea truly translates into something workable.

Although this part can feel painful, it’s actually the core part of being a scientist and where a whole heap of the learning that occurs. The more you do it the better you get at spotting a good idea in the earlier stages, and actually the easier it is to be inspired and have ideas as it’s a skill that needs to be developed like anything else.

Sometimes it’s better to just start

Because the question develop part can be painful it’s something that, if you are like me, you may procrastinate over. You may just want to sit in the lovely inspiration phase where all your thoughts are still possibilities. The truth of the matter is that it is easy to justify staying in the thinking phase as it can be hard to know when you’ve done enough thinking and prep to move an idea to the next stage. However, if you never try moving from an idea to a reality you will also never succeed, and so sometimes we all need to pull off the psychological band-aid and just try it out. There are also times when you just frankly need to stop being scared and JFDI it to see where it goes.

Appreciate the role of translational reasearch

In my kind of research, which is clinical as part of Infection Prevention and Control, I have found something else that sometimes helps. Sometimes it can be easy to become hyper focussed on scientific issues and challenges. On days when I’m stuck and just don’t feel a way forward I play a little mental game with myself. Now, it’s no secret that I spent a bunch of time in hospital and experiencing healthcare as a child, and I now work in paediatrics. I therefore run myself through different scenarios as a paediatric patient visiting or being admitted to hospital. Scenarios with different incidences, organisms, and experiences. Sometimes inspired by real patient challenges I’ve been involved with, sometimes entirely theoretical. I then try to use that process to better understand what might be important to me, what the significant moments may have been and where we could do better. I find that running this from a patient centred viewpoint can provide me fresh perspectives, which in turn enables me to have better ideas. If you don’t work an environment where you meet patients, but your work is on a specific organism for example, maybe reach out to an advocacy or similar group, to help you also get a fresh perspective, or even just speak to family and friends about their lived experience.

Don’t worry too much about everyone else

I wanted to finish by talking about something that has been a bit of a theme in my academic life and the main thing I have learnt to manage it. That is the fear or reality of ideas being taken by either those more senior or those with more power/access. I don’t think I can say with any good conscience that this doesn’t happen, I have myself previously come in to access my desk to find a senior PI searching it for my lab books containing data they weren’t working with me on.

The thing I’ve learnt is not to hold onto any one thing too tightly. This isn’t justifying the fact that this behaviour exists, it’s just the way I have learnt to maintain my mental health and wellbeing. There are times when you need to defend and maintain ownership of concepts, especially if something is key to your PhD. For the most part, however, I’ve discovered that I will always have other ideas, and there will always be different ways I can spin the original concept. Some of my best work has actually come because of the external push due to someone published some of our shared work as a solo author instead of together. It forced me to take the next thought step and develop more than I may have otherwise.

So I’d like to finish on the note that no matter where you are on your scientific journey, trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Trusts you will always have another idea. Trust that you will always be able to come up with a plan B. Trust that there are people out there who will want to help and support. Sometimes, developing and maintaining that trust is our biggest challenge as individuals working in science, but it is worth doing the work as it will provide long-term dividends both in and out of work.

All opinions in this blog are my own