Choosing to step out of the Principal Investigator life
With Dr Jonathan Draper
Dr Jonathan Draper is Vice-President of the Canadian Stem Cell Network and responsible for the strategic design and rollout of the network research and training programs. After a decade of working as a PI, he took the challenging decision of letting go of his identity as a research group leader and not running a lab anymore. He has now moved to another stage of being a stem cell research leader through supporting stem cell research communities via the Canada Stem Cell network.
We all have many options to live our lives in research. There are many ways of being a leader in the research environment.
Do you want to know more about Dr Jonathan:
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:
How giving a chance to others who don't have perfectly straightforward professional paths is a critical action to diversify those who enter the research environment
How seeing that we are never trapped in a career gives us options to explore exciting new opportunities.
How fortunate series of events may contribute to one step in your career, but do not define the entirety of your career path
Some reflections and questions to ponder based on my discussion with Jonathan
Perfect package
When was the last time you stopped yourself in your track and paid attention to how you are assessing others? When we recruit and give opportunities, we decide what we want and then assess applicants on the basis of what we are seeking. Many people will come not as the "perfect package" compared to what you would want when you are recruiting.
o Would you be prepared to recruit someone who has not got the "perfect package" to give someone a chance?
o Can you think about how you have defined and articulated your "perfect package"?
Your "perfect package" is probably fuelled with many assumptions and very likely embedded with the many privileges that those ahead have benefitted from.
o Diversifying those you work with could mean recruiting people who come with an "alternative package"?
o Would you be opened to explore what "alternative" could be?
Diversifying the research workforce means looking more often to the alternative package.
o How far would you go in this exploration of alternatives?
o Could you frame the "risk" that you may feel you take with the "alternative" as an opportunity for you to grow as a leader?
Defining next step in your research career
The expectations that others place on us and that we place on ourselves in seeing our next professional step being the level up onto the academic career ladder, make it difficult to challenge the default position of next being upward on the ladder.
Next step is not synonymous with up on the ladder. Challenging the status quo of how we are defining "next in my career" is an important process of self-awareness.
o What do I actually want next?
o Is next about moving up the grade scale or is next working differently, with other people, in other contexts?
o Can we regain some control on how we redefine for ourselves, what "up the ladder" may look like for us?
Principal Investigator leadership insights
Jonathan shares many insights in how he has approached his role as a research group leader.
o Giving people space
o Treating everyone as peers
o Leading by example
o Putting honesty and integrity at the core of the research group
o Being prepared to give people a go and create opportunities for others
“With hindsight I think it seems really straightforward and simple, but it certainly wasn’t. Careers in general, when you look at them in retrospect, they always seem to be really straightforward as a series of steps. But there’s a lot of nostalgia when people tell you about their careers. They miss out all of the other tedious setbacks and things that they’d rather forget”
