October always brings us all back to Earth with a bump, new students arriving and, this year, all kinds of changes within the organisation involving new colleagues and new procedures. We have some new early career academics joining us and I’ve been meeting with them for induction over the past couple of weeks. It takes me back to my own days as a young academic, when everything was new and unfamiliar. In January 1991, I arrived at Durham University, full of enthusiasm to take up an academic post and duly reported to the Head of School’s office, expecting an enthusiastic welcome. His secretary went in to announce the arrival of this new lecturer and I heard his response booming out: “What the b***** hell does he want?”
My enthusiasm a little dented, I went to find my office. It was fully equipped – with a desk, a broken chair and a rusty wastepaper bin. The good news was that I had been allocated some bench space in the lab. The bad news was that it was in such a state of disrepair it needed varnishing and in the absence of any response to getting the job done I bought a can of Ronseal and in one weekend took the bench to a mirror finish. Overall, it wasn’t a particularly promising start to my academic career and at that time (as I learned from fellow new appointees in various instituions) not uncommon. It was a product of the time. There was very much a culture of leaving young lecturers to sink or swim, so little support was offered in favour of natural selection.
Things were really tough in that first year. I was shocked when my first grant application was turned down. But even then, I was building up my resilience and beginning to understand what I needed to do. Part of that was becoming inured to failure and just getting on with things. By taking on board the reviewers comments, I was able at to resubmit and get funding on the second attempt. Learning from the first experience, another grant success followed.
I’ve built on that knowledge and resilience over the years and you’ll still hear me banging on about the need for a diversity of funding and using your contacts. I already had plenty of contacts in industry at that time and they were extremely helpful. It was a difficult 12 months but by the end of the year I had built up a research group of five staff and I thought I was doing pretty well.
Two years later and with our first baby on the way at home, reality began to bite as I realised that there was a lot more to academic life than writing and winning grant proposals. Horror! There was also the expectation that I would deliver results and publish research papers, deal with an increasing lecturing load and cope with requests to manage degree admin.
Why am I telling you this? Well, firstly I wouldn’t want our new members of staff to experience the kind of welcome I’ve just described, and I do think that the culture of academic life has changed for the better. I’m glad to say that there is a lot more support available now, but it’s still tough for young researchers. What I do want them to realise is that we have all been there and we are genuinely sympathetic. The School and your colleagues are here to help. I’d also like tell them that it is all worthwhile. This is just the first step in what can be a great research career, but you will experience failure along the way and that’s ok. It happens to everyone and it is part of being successful. Building resilience is vital and the basis of success is learning to survive failure.
To my older colleagues: I want to ask you to remember that our younger researchers do need your encouragement and support and, above all your interest in what they are trying to achieve. Academia can be a lonely place – so remember what it was like for you and offer a helping hand when it is needed.