First of all a huge thank you to the speakers at the Resilient Researcher event which I was involved in today. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, resilience is my word of the year so I was really pleased to be able to work with two sponsors, SUPA and the IOP, to put on a day of talks, discussions and (best of all) live music to help some of our researchers understand and develop their thinking around this idea. It was a huge pleasure to work with Anne Pawsey from SUPA and the School of Physics and Astronomy on developing and delivering the day.

It was amusing that most of the speakers started by admitting they had looked up the word as part of their preparation. This echoes my own experiences of writing a guide to resilience for the IOP last year (in my pre-Edinburgh existence). My favourite definition was probably the appropriately physics based one given by Christian Killow (University of Glasgow) …

Most of us agreed that resilience is about bouncing back and being flexible when faced with new challenges.

In order to maximise the value of the day I want to share the slides quickly, so this short post will be limited to the presentations from the day rather than an analysis of the themes, but these will follow. Thanks to everyone at the event for their engagement and willingness to talk about the challenges and failures which are part of researcher life.

10 am Arrival and outline of day Anne’s slides

10:15 Resilience and success in science – personal perspectives and strategies Dr Graham Smith, St Andrews

11:00 Understanding and building my resilience Dr Sara Shinton (also includes slides from 2pm session)

11:30 Becoming a resilient research student (Katherine Rumble, PhD Student, Edinburgh)

12:00 Here to help – insights from the Student Counselling Service Dr Jenny Leeder, Edinburgh

12:30 Lunch and networking, The Sirrocco Wind Trio with support from Live Music Now

1:30 Developing resilience in a research career – advice on managing uncertainty and rejection as your research independence grows. Dr Christian Killow, RA, Glasgow

2:00 What might work for me? Facilitated discussion in groups to make resolutions for personal resilience plans, community activity and ask for support from SUPA/schools Dr Sara Shinton – included above with your favourite advice and feedback written up in the slides

Thanks to our speakers – Katherine, Sara, Graham, Anne, Christian and Jenny (not pictured…) and to Vishanti from the IOP for talking to people about the work of the Institute and the value of membership.

Apr 21, 2017