Original subtitles

Welcome back to a nagging see the future.

I am the real concern, I'll be your host for

this very exciting panel for our next session.

Our panel discussion will be looking at the

topic of academic careers outside of academia.

The COVID pandemic has shown that the world needs researchers

of the highest caliber to address the challenges we all face.

To discuss this topic, we're going over to Sydney, Australia, where

we have a panel of three very distinguished speakers Warwick Dawson.

Miss Wong won. Miss Sarah Haigh.

Warwick Dawson is the director of Knowledge Exchange and a division of

research and enterprise at the University of New South Wales, Sydney,

is responsible for knowledge, exchange and IP commercialization,

with an emphasis on enabling and facilitating external partnerships

and engagement within users to translate the university's excellent

research outcomes into use for social progress and economic prosperity.

Miss Warwick from the University of New South Wales is Dr Wan Wong,

head of the university's Twitch Innovation Precinct and conjoint

senior lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,

Wan as a research fellow in the Human S.W. Schools of

Chemical Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

She has completed her PhD at Moscow

Center for Membrane Science and Technology,

UN S.W., and is a specialist in the design of membrane models

and processes for water and wastewater treatment plants.

Computational fluid dynamics. Modeling of membrane separation processes.

And diagnosis of various modes of water treatment plants.

WOW.

Wine has more than 15 years experience in

the water industry in Australia, China and Europe,

leading or managing many successful

research projects with industry and government.

In her current role, Wine is responsible for delivering the University

of South Wales strategy research partnerships with Chinese industry

and has managed more than 160 projects since 2016.

Dr Sara Hay is research engagement director at the Faculty of Engineering

and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney,

where she leads the development of strategies to increase research

funding from industry, government and grant funding bodies.

Prior to this role, she was a research development manager

and served several postdoctoral research fellow positions

at different engineering schools at the University of South Wales.

She holds a PhD in nanotechnology from

Nanyang University of Technology in Singapore.

Wow.

Please post any questions you may have for the panel in the Q&A box

or responses to your questions will be available after the conference.

In the official See the Future conference report,

please use the chat facility to communicate with other conference

delegates and to contact the see of future conference management team.

So at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Mr Warwick Dawson

to this really phenomenal and very important

panel where we're talking about clean water.

Warwick over to you.

Thank you so much, Daryl and colleagues and I go,

It's really great to be with you this afternoon

and to share some of our perspectives on career pathways outside academia.

So welcome, Yuan. Welcome, Sarah.

Thank you so much for your time today.

We'll dove straight into it.

You maybe if you'd just tell me a little bit more about your current role.

Briefly, what your main activities are and how long you've been doing it?

Coincidence Warwick?

So I'm the director of torch innovation present at the U.S. Embassy.

My job mainly is to identify industry partners

that are interested in US subdues technologies

and help US lobby researchers to collaborate with

industries, scale up their ideas and the technologies.

From laboratory scale to an industrial or commercial scale that can

share and serve the community saw real world problems, et cetera.

So I have been working on this role since 2016, so this year

actually also marks the five year anniversary for my job.

That's really great. Congratulations.

And Sarah, briefly, what's your current

role in and how long have you been doing it?

Looks like I'm the director of research

engagement in Faculty of India and its UTS,

and I need the development of the strategies that generate that.

Increased volume in research, funding from

industry governments and other funding bodies,

and in particular, I work with researchers on a specific funding

opportunities to support applicants to submit high quality proposal,

review draft application and provide a strategic feedback

to enhance the competitiveness of their proposal.

And I have been in this role for about two years and eight months.

Excellent.

And I've had the pleasure of working in teams currently with Johan

and previously with Sarah, so it's great to be together today.

And for myself, as Daryl introduced really the role

of the team that I lead, which is knowledge exchange.

It's really about connecting researchers and their expertize with external

organizations so that together we can translate and transfer that knowledge

into impact for the benefit of the broader community.

And I've been in this role for four years.

But altogether, working in leadership roles in university research

management for 26 years, as well as four years in industry.

So let's go back in time now, starting with you, Sarah.

Where did you what did you study at university and where and

what were your career aspirations back when you were studying?

I studied nanotechnology at Nanyang Technological University

in Singapore, and like most of the researchers, I should say,

I wanted to make a positive major impact in my field and I chose

nanotechnology because it's a multidisciplinary field that,

in simple words, it is studies how properties of the smallest particles

in the world can revolutionize and have a big impact in many applications.

Go ahead and Yuan, what did you study in that way and what

were your aspirations back in the day when you were studying?

So I would say chemical engineer by training.

I completed my benchmark engineering degree in Tianjin University in

China, which actually ranked number one in chemical engineering in China.

Then I completed my masters by research and the Ph.D. degrees

both at the School of Chemical Engineering at the UN. Established

but also I have a I got a graduate certificate on

research, management and the commercialization,

which was actually part of the Australian Commonwealth

Governments Commercialization Training Scheme

that provided to a Ph.D. student in STEM disciplines.

So as you saw my starting pathway.

So I actually wanted to be a research engineer, a team leader and director.

Yeah, R&D, department of a world leading research institutions or leading company.

And to do this, I need to have deep understandings

on both technology front, but also management skills.

Yeah, that's great, and that may not have worked out how you expected,

but I'm sure that you used those skills that

you learned in that certificate to good effect.

So for myself, a little bit different.

I studied commerce and law at U. A.W. back in the late 80s,

and I didn't really know where that degree would lead me,

but I thought that probably I'd end up in a

company or in some business of some sort.

I was very fortunate to secure some part time employment during my study,

which actually helped me decide the

jobs that I didn't want to do when I finished.

So that in itself was of some value.

So back to you, un, once you finished your study, what

was your first job and what did you like about it?

So I was actually appointed as a postdoc research fellow by Million

Dollar Industry, founded the Australian Research Council project.

So I was responsible for the day to day management of the whole project,

including development of the technologies that the industry partners want.

So milestone delivery? They asked.

We saw industry partners and they if they're from both Australia and

China and also mentoring the students and also for 30 research students.

So lots of things, that's my first job after completing my degree.

And what did you like about it?

So actually being a researcher, you always need to find new

solutions that normally do not exist in the in the current

what you need to, you know, you always need to.

You know what? And there's almost no routine work.

So like every day is a fresh day, and then there are always challenges,

and sometimes you just simply do not know where I can find a solution.

But once you pass that point and you do find a solution, you feel like

you really make a breakthrough and then you feel proud of yourself.

So that, like a full feeling is this is really a good, really rewarding.

And then you are also well respected by the communities, so so

that there's quite a lot of passion points of being a researcher.

So you consider yourself to be a researcher in that role.

Which is.

Yeah, so, so so I think so, so so a lot of the like the

lost, there was a lot of different, difficult moments.

But like we just simply because because, you know, we're in the 21st century.

So a lot of things that you those have been, especially if we

want to work with for industry to deliver a solution or technology

that the industry can use is it's just difficult because because what

what has what had been developed is already there and the the like,

our problems are all really difficult ones, but we just need to

being innovative and and find the solutions and work really hard.

Yeah. So lots of problem solving there and finding ways forward.

Sarah, how about you? What was your first job once

you finished studying and what did you like about it?

Like you on? I was also a postdoctoral research fellow at the NSW, and I

was working on synthesizing knowledge fluid for solar thermal collectors.

And as a researcher, I should say that you would never get bored and what?

You would get disappointed a lot.

It was full of ups and downs.

You could walk on a project and run experiments for

months with absolutely no progress, as you all mentioned.

And finally, one day you make a breakthrough

and get the result that you wanted for ages.

And when that happens, that moment of joy is worth all that's how it works.

Excellent.

Now I presume that you were both on relatively short

fixed term contracts in these roles, is that right?

Yes. Three years.

So I got a three year appointment with I renewed just a year by year after that.

Right. So a little bit uncertain in terms of, you know, what the future held.

Which brings us to the next. Actually, I should just share with you.

So my first role after my degree was on the graduate program of a very big

Australian company that operates around the world in the metals industry.

It's not as BHP.

And I stayed there for three years.

And I, you know, as with most first jobs, everything was new and exciting,

and I learned a lot about work and being part

of a big corporate business through that time.

So let's now start thinking about the transition from

being a researcher to moving into research management.

Maybe, Sarah, if we could start with you.

What was your thought process?

Obviously, you've mentioned that some aspects of being a researcher

are really exciting and the highs were high, but the lows were low.

So what started you on the the thought process or the pathway

to thinking about transitioning to research management?

I think the main reason was like during my time postdoc positions, I

had the opportunity to work in a very collaborative research groups,

and I was given the opportunity to review and

comment regularly on work of other researchers.

And I find it very enjoyable to be

exposed to a variety of interesting projects.

And later, in my postdoc position, when I started

getting involved in research proposal development,

I realized actually I was really good at it and enjoyed

supporting others to develop their ideas into academic narratives.

And I started to think of this as what I'm going to pursue and

excited to learn more about the research support career paths.

And so for me, it was kind of like a gradual transition,

and I realized that supporting one idea to

become a project by ensuring it is funded

is kind of like as important as generating

the idea and ultimately delivering the project.

That's great. Joanne, how about you? What was your

trigger for starting to think about transitioning?

So because of my research experience I had was

actually dealing with industry partners very closely.

And then I had an opportunity to join our research show in China in 2015.

Then I realized, although I was dealing with Australian, with our

industry partners a lot and also some of the Chinese industry partners.

But there are still lots of things that I really don't

know about what industries sees the innovation needs crop,

which are very different from the academics view.

So, so which makes me think there's a real need

that that the people really need to fill this gap.

So we need to bring the the great innovations from the

laboratories of universities to the to the real world.

So so someone needs to come back the industry and the and

the academics have to make sure academics really understand

what they do and how they can help industry and make an impact on that.

I'm thinking.

And then there and then you can start to move to a stage to establish this

touching the vision precinct from 2016, and I've changed to my current job.

Excellent.

So, yeah, thanks, Sarah.

So for me, I spent three years at BHP on the

graduate program and it's a very big company,

and they like their staff to move around quite a

lot to experience different parts of the business.

But when it was my turn to move around, I just got married to my wife

had just got a job in Sydney and we just bought a house in Sydney.

So it really wasn't a good time for me to move,

and I happened to see a job advertised at A.W.

In fact, which obviously I had some affinity because I'd studied there

for five years and the job was about negotiating research contracts.

And I just spent three years at BHP negotiating

contracts, albeit not research, but construction.

But nevertheless, there's obviously some similarities.

So I thought that I would have the skills and experience for the role.

There was actually two jobs.

One was the contract negotiation, another one was a more generic

research post award administrator and I applied for both.

I did get interviewed for the Post Award, but I did get interviewed

for the contract negotiation role and I was ultimately successful.

Well, in that application now when I

was a student in business and law faculties,

I just wasn't exposed to and didn't really understand just the

massive, massive research effort that goes on in a university,

particularly in science, engineering and medicine,

but also in the non stem disciplines as well.

So it was a real eye opener to move it

to a university in a very different capacity.

Obviously, when you're a student, you're quite focused on

completing your studies and getting your degree and moving on.

But to work at a university and to be exposed to this

incredible, incredible depth and breadth of activity

undertaken by really, really smart people who were on,

you know, average pay on short term

contracts, it was just it was a real eye opener

and it really literally changed the course of my entire career.

And it was really fascinating and wonderful time.

And I also realized that I really wanted to be part of an organization

that was helping people to fulfill and achieve their potential.

So I wasn't so concerned that I wasn't a researcher, but

also able to bring some skills and value to researchers.

Then working together, we could really make a difference in the world.

So that was, you know, I kind of found the sweet spot, if

you like, that really resonated with my own intrinsic values,

but also was part of a much bigger, really important activity in society.

Okay, enough about me.

Maybe you can actually, Sarah,

tell us about the research management roles that you've had in

your career to date since you transitioned from being a postdoc?

Yeah.

Look, I already had a chat about my control.

Yeah, but prior to that's one I was a research development

manager in the Social Strategy Office at the NSW.

Your team, where my role was mainly focused on

providing strategic advice to researchers with regards

to available funding opportunities and developing high quality grant proposal.

Great and Yuan, you've had one research management role, and

you're still in it and you're doing a great job, shall I say.

Thank you.

You're not going to float like a postdoc.

Even being like my post experience is quite like a

research management rather than doing pure research.

So I was never doing fundamental research.

But now it's just and I have access to a broader communities and the stakeholders.

Then how about you, I'm sure you have lots to tell.

So, yeah.

26 years I've had a few different roles, so I started

negotiating research contracts, as I just mentioned,

and I did that for five years, and then I

moved to another research intensive university,

the other one in Sydney, and I headed up the team there

that looked after all aspects of competitive grant funding from government

did that for 10 years had the amazing opportunity

to build a new team largely from scratch from 2005

and spent five of the last five years of my time there.

It was really fantastic.

The university was performing really well, was

leading the nation in competitive grant funding.

And in addition, thanks to the hard work of my team mates,

we were one of ranked one of the highest performing

professional staff teams in the university.

Back in 2010, I shifted back to you, A.W., where I had studied and

worked previously, and I've had four roles in the last 11 years.

Ironically, when I returned in 2010, it was to a

somewhat similar role to the one that I'd had in 1994,

which was creating a team to support researchers who

were receiving all sorts of funding other than grants.

So contract research or tenders.

And this is evolves in various forms over the last 11 years,

I've had the opportunities twice more to create

teams from scratch, which has been hugely rewarding.

And as I mentioned, currently focusing on the tech transfer,

translation and generating impact from our research.

Okay, Sara, back to you. What do you enjoy about research management?

Well, first of all, I should say, in my opinion, academics

are one of the most hardworking people on planet.

And that's the reason, to be honest, I'm not helping them to make their

dream come true by enabling them to turn their ideas into actual projects.

And as a research engagement manager, I get to do this by

helping researchers identify the right funding schemes,

right industry partners and getting their project funded,

which is critical to make the intended scientific impact.

I find it very enjoyable and satisfying to enable

adoption of research findings by the industry

as it ensures immediate impact of the research on the society.

That's great, U.N., How about you?

Yeah, I agree with Sarah to some.

So I think most people don't know how hard academics need to work now,

how many hours they walk, and they and like many, a few of them

have real holidays throughout the years and years.

So, so but I do see.

So actually, I don't think publishing papers are difficult.

What's really difficult it is how you can

convince a mystery partner to use your technology.

Then your innovation technologies could have could be applied

to the real world and help communities and have a real impact.

Otherwise, you end up just having your name on papers.

I don't think that's really rewarding, but a

lot of researchers, although they want to,

but they don't know how to actually access and how to communicate with industries.

So that's that's something I'm really excited about the research management role

and opportunities to work with broader stakeholders from different areas.

So research background, government agencies, investors or industry.

So, so across fault.

And also help researchers to understand how to transmit.

How to transform their ideas and the innovations

from lab scales to commercial and commercial scale.

And also, another thing is different from being just a researcher

that I only know one area I can actually access technologies.

Also, my own expertize, I'm the facilitator communications

and discussions and collaborations across disciplines.

So between researchers and the and the

from different industries, schools, faculties.

So that's really exciting.

Yeah, I fully agree.

It's a really critical role enabling and facilitating.

So I often talk about the complementary expertize that we bring.

Obviously, the researchers are the subject matter experts, and they're

the ones that have the critical knowledge in developing new technologies,

new disclosures and new ways of doing things.

But it's working hand in hand with people like

ourselves who bring that commercial business,

you know, know-how and expertize that working together,

we can be so powerful and it can be so fulfilling

and rewarding, bringing these technologies to life.

The other thing I would say and I've kind of alluded to it already is just

being part of high energy, high performing teams has been really rewarding.

You often find that in research management

teams in universities because they're very driven.

Often they're researchers like the two of you who bring

that's that drive and enthusiasm, energy and passion.

So that's been really fun.

Just, you know, I think of my current team and you've just got

lots of different backgrounds and lots of different skills.

It's really diverse and it really makes for

complementarity in high performance and something else.

Johan, that you mentioned is the variety.

So every day literally is a new adventure.

You don't know what's going to land in

your inbox or on a desk any particular day.

And so working in a central research management office in a large

research intensive university is really hard to beat, in my opinion.

Okay, a couple more questions for you.

And what do you think are the benefits of previously

being a researcher in your research management role?

So I think having a research background make me understand research

like what researchers think better so really and understand their needs.

And though why it's difficult, why it might be difficult with

them to work with industry and where their frustration came from.

And also, you maybe be just surprised to see real researchers.

They really just think about technology.

So how I bring a tech and technical solution

rather than whether it is a cost effective solution.

But industry is all about cost benefit.

So, so it's really different. You just need to.

So lots of training that we can provide to researchers

which one I was a researcher I didn't think about either.

But now, because I work on my new research management role.

So, so this is something like because I was doing what researchers think,

and now I have no communications with the

industry, so how I can bring them together better.

Yeah.

I and I'm often reminded of a conversation

I had with an industry person who said that,

you know, at 80 per cent solution today is much more valuable

to them than 100 percent solution in a month or six months time.

And so that's one of the messages that we need to keep reinforcing.

Sarah, how about you?

What are the benefits of previously being a researcher?

Well, I also think there are many benefits.

For example, as a researcher,

I was really familiar with lifecycle of a

research project from ideation to development

and how a research proposal is developed by academics.

And I familiar with how academics think like as

you all mentioned and what they value the most.

And I take all of these are really helpful in

a successful research management career

because you understand the research as you know

what they exactly want and how we can help them.

That's great.

OK, second last question.

Are there any skills that you didn't have when you transitioned

to research management that you've realized now that you needed?

Um, so I think a lot of things like, for example, the how to.

So, so like the whole app management

and the commercialization of business models,

how we find a it is a flexible business model

that work for researchers but also for industry.

And I think UCB is doing really well on that

and also because I'm a I came from a engineering background

and as a female and also a not an English speaking countries.

So a lot of the communication skills that I and it's really important for me,

not just so especially talking in a

language that not that I'm not familiar with.

So not from my own technical background.

And also a team management team management skills.

So I think on that point, the research management like

researcher managers actually sort of a luckier than researchers.

So as you said, like we have a team like high performing team

that we can work with almost support each other and we

have great mentors and team members, so everyone helps.

But researchers, I think they work on more individual basis.

And then and a lot of it, like they have students, good

students and the less less strong, less strong students.

So but they don't just need to work with all of them to

bring a solution to deliver their research innovations.

And I think how so to understand people and to

communicate with people are really important skills.

Yeah. Fully agree with that one. How about you, sir? What do you think?

So I do believe that I was very lucky to start my research support

career with some of the best mentors in Australia like yourself.

And having access to these mentors helped me a lot.

But definitely, yes, there are a lot of the skills that I needed to strengthen.

For example, as a recession division manager, I needed to be a

good facilitator and understand the language of industry partners.

Also, I needed to strengthen my

negotiation skills to be able to close the deal.

I know most of the ladies are really within bargaining doing shopping,

but it's really important you actually stress and your negotiating

skill as well to close the deal and also be apart from all of these.

You need to also have an in-depth understanding of many

ideas that contribute to being a successful research manager,

including basic contract management, IP and finance to some extent.

So for me, I'll talk a bit more about the relationship

skills because the longer I work in leadership,

the more I realized that these are critical.

So we've started to call them human skills because

they're the skills that humans need in order to succeed.

That includes listening.

Relationship management, project management, those sorts of things.

For me, as a leader, there's a strategic element.

So I'm not trying to always think about what's coming next, what's over

the horizon that I need to be thinking out, planning for or preparing for.

And the last one that's really been important

these last couple of crazy years is flexibility.

So I'm fortunate to have a team of

people that I can completely trust at all times.

And so we've been able to allow people the freedom to decide when

and where they work, and we're all accountable for the outcomes.

So once you've got that sort of high trust arrangement,

it makes flexibility a lot more manageable.

Now the last question, Sara, we'll start with you.

What's one or two pieces of advice that you might want

to give to people that are considering the transition

from being a researcher to a research manager?

And what advice is that if you enjoy being part of a many great

initiatives, if you enjoy working with a broad range of stakeholders,

including academics and industry partners?

And if you really care about science and scientific contribution

but don't enjoy long term focus on a particular research topic,

I think you would definitely enjoy

transitioning into a research management role.

I know it might look at the transition,

but I can assure you that this is only because we have been

trained to think of academic job as the main career path

the university sector for PSG graduates, which is not true.

It's great.

So I think it's really important to assess yourself what you are really good at.

So because research and the management are actually quite different,

and I think there's a one senior manager from us, Gabriel,

who used to say there are a lot of

academics and the researchers at universities,

but very few of them can be real managers because

they really just require different skill sets.

So it is not just what you want to do,

but also like what what your character characters are

and the what you are structured to really do a good self evaluation.

I think it's important.

For me, I would say keep all your options open because

you just don't know where a path is going to lead.

So for example, my role when I first moved into

research management was negotiating contracts,

however, sitting all around me literally with

people that were looking at the grants process.

And so I was curious.

I wondered what on earth they were doing all hours of the day and night.

So I took an interest. I, you know, got to

know what they were doing. I let you skills.

I helped out with major deadlines.

And if I hadn't done that, I would.

There's no way I would have got my next role at the University

of Sydney, which was quite a significant promotion at the time.

So you just never know where different parts

are going to lead, so keep all your options open.

And finally, ask lots of questions. Never guess.

And if you're a supervisor or a leader listening to this session, strongly

encourage your team members to always ask lots of questions no matter,

you know, give them the permission to do that without

feeling that it's in any way a negative thing,

because that will build the trust and the

rapport that you need to deliver a great service.

So thank you very much, Joanne and Sara.

It's great to have shared the last 35 minutes with you.

Thanks for the contributions that you've made to research

management and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Back to you, Darryl.

On behalf of In, I don't see the future team, we want to thank

you Warrick, Yuan and Sarah for the most excellent panel.

Please be sure to come back for the next session of See the Future.

Also, be sure to post your questions in the Q&A box and note that

the responses will be published in the official conference report.

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And we want to thank you for attending the See the Future Conference.