Month: March 2017

Goats, Concubines and Misery – the Ig Nobel Awards Tour Show 2017

The Graduate School was delighted to host the fantastic Ig Nobel Awards Tour Show on Friday 17 March for the twelfth consecutive year. Presented by the wonderful Marc Abrahams, co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, the Show seeks to make you laugh, then make you think with research that’s maybe good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless.

Marc was joined on stage by several winners of the Ig Nobel Prize, who presented their research in a hilarious and fun-filled evening. This year, Marc was joined by the following prize winners:

Mathematics – Dr Elizabeth Oberzaucher: Mathematical Analysis of the Man who Fathered 888 Children)

Management – Raghavendra Rau: Some Business Leaders Acquire a Taste for Disasters that do not Affect Them Personally

Biology – Thomas Thwaites: Living as a Goat

Also on stage were the QI Elves, who gave dramatic readings from bizarre-seeming research studies, including, “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit,” “From junior to senior Pinocchio: A cross-sectional lifespan investigation of deception”, and “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”

Dr Elisabeth Oberzaucher of the University of Ulm, Germany, presented mathematical analysis of how Ismail Ibn Sharif, ruler of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, successfully fathered 888 children! Ismail had four wives and is said to have had up to 500 concubines, but even with more conservative parameters the numbers suggest he could have had fewer than 100. Elisabeth’s analysis focused on how many times a day Ismail would have had to have sex in order to sire so many children, with the resulting estimate being around once a day for thirty-two years. Sadly, the majority of Ismail’s children died shortly after his own death, as they fought amongst each other for the throne.

Professor Raghavendra Rau of the University of Cambridge presented analysis of how exposure to disasters in their early lives impacts CEOs’ likelihood to take risks. The results suggest that those who experienced disasters without extremely negative consequences were more likely to lead aggressive-behaving companies, whereas those who saw the negatives were likely to behave more conservatively. Who would have thought it!

Thomas Thwaites decided to take a holiday from the angst of being human and become a goat. To achieve this dream and don the identity of Goat Man, Thomas built a suit of limbs he could wear, and acquired a rumen to strap to his chest, in which he could deposit the Alpine grass he chewed. Whilst struggling to completely detach himself from his human prison, Thomas did succeed in bonding with the herd, even making a good friend in goat number 17!

The Show was rounded off with David Kilgour explaining with various charts why Britain’s Ministry of Defence is so, um, efficient. And with it, another fantastic Ig Nobel Awards Tour Show was brought to a close. It always promises to be an incredible evening, so please keep an eye out for the thirteenth consecutive Show in Spring 2018!

Evidencing Leadership and Management within a PhD

By Dr Paul Seldon

As researchers we are used to talking about our research to different audiences, explaining the ideas and findings. Often we are less able to see the wider value in our practices and how these can be translated to other roles and positions.

This became very relevant for me when having completed a PhD and several post-doctoral positions I wondered if I had relevant experience that I could evidence to gain full membership of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). The challenge was to examine my academic progress through a leadership and management perspective. Looking through the activities of my PhD I found evidence in the five areas below.

  • Research vision – knowledge progression and impact, understanding of different research areas and importance of working across interdisciplinary boundaries,
  • Leading a research project – meeting deadlines and miles stones, delivering project deliverables and generating outputs. Upward trajectory in quality of research and innovation. Challenging, original and productive research. Outstanding independent research, with impact in the field. Problem solving and creativity, innovation and application
  • Development – Training of others, process, technique, subject expertise
  • Performance review – report generation, peer review publication
  • Finance – negotiation of quotes, use of ordering and invoicing systems, managing a research budget

The process of examining my research experience allowed me to identify and translate these into the leadership and management context. As a result of this I was approved for full membership of the CMI, this is and has been very useful for career progression.

Thinking about the examples above and other possible areas, what evidence could you provide of leadership and management. Other potential opportunities might include:

  • Leadership – Organisation of peer activities, Public engagement – Outreach? Innovation? Commercial awareness
  • External visibility – volunteering, job placements and internships – leading? Supporting others?
  • Development of excellence – Design and leading of Undergraduate research projects
  • Finance – Application for funding, success securing funding, for example Research Community Funding from the Graduate School
  • Self-development – undertaking Management and leadership training

Leadership and management may not be on your mind now, but in a few years your career progression may depend on providing evidence and taking the time to undertake appropriate activities is a worthwhile investment.