{"id":3342,"date":"2008-05-15T11:34:57","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T11:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2008\/05\/the-business-of-research\/"},"modified":"2008-05-15T11:34:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T11:34:57","slug":"the-business-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2008\/05\/the-business-of-research\/","title":{"rendered":"The business of research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was an <a href=http:\/\/sciencecareers.sciencemag.org\/career_development\/previous_issues\/articles\/2008_05_09\/caredit_a0800067>interesting article in <i>Science<\/i><\/a> last week, which argues that a successful career in research requires much the same skills as running a successful business. The author, Peter Fiske, argues that a number of business strategy ideas can be profitably employed in the academic arena, which may be particularly relevant as the competition for research funding becomes ever more intense:<br \/>\n<UL><LI>Product differentiation &#8211; developing novel ways of approaching scientific problems, or the techniques that you employ to solve them, so that you stand out as a unique individual within your particular subfield.<\/LI><br \/>\n<LI>Customer base &#8211; specifically, diversifying your sources of funding, so that you are not completely reliant on the fickle attentions of one big &#8216;customer&#8217; or funding body<\/LI><\/UL><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s an interesting way of thinking about things, and I&#8217;d be interested to hear whether <a href=http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/drugmonkey\/>people<\/a> more <a href=http:\/\/physioprof.wordpress.com\/>well-versed<\/a> in the ins and outs of a successful research &#8220;business&#8221; see any value in it. However, I was also struck by another interesting point made in this article: that &#8220;most businesses are solo ventures led by one person who starts the company and then does all, or almost all, the work.&#8221; One thing that we academics like to pride ourselves on is that, for the most part, our job is more than something which puts food on the table, it&#8217;s something we believe in, and find rewarding to do, and will often sacrifice our free time to. Perhaps that&#8217;s not so different from someone who runs their own little cafe, or t-shirt printing business, or garage. We&#8217;re not the only ones who make sacrifices for a career we believe in; something that we would do well to remember from time to time, before we start thinking we&#8217;re too special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was an interesting article in Science last week, which argues that a successful career in research requires much the same skills as running a successful business. The author, Peter Fiske, argues that a number of business strategy ideas can &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2008\/05\/the-business-of-research\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}