Managing Your Academic Research Project

By Jacqui Ewart and Kate Ames

This book is an essential resource for academics managing a large and complex research project. It provides important practical insights into the processes that inform such research projects and delivers insights into the delicate balance between industry, stakeholder and academic needs. It gives practical advice about developing relationships with diverse partners and colleagues and managing the expectations of the various parties involved and on avoiding pitfalls. This book uses examples from Australian research projects, but it contains insights relevant to researchers all around the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9789811591921

Book preview

Jacqui Ewart and Kate Ames

Managing Your Academic Research Project

1st ed. 2020

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Jacqui Ewart

Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

Kate Ames

Central Queensland University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-9191-4e-ISBN 978-981-15-9192-1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9192-1

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

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This book is dedicated to those who have helped us in our academic and industry careers. It is for those whose academic careers have just started.

Preface

This book is based on a series of lessons learned by the authors in the course of successfully delivering a range of academic research projects—from small one-off projects to large nationally competitively funded projects and projects that are international in scope. These projects have involved diverse stakeholders and a variety of partners including industry, government and non-government. We have also drawn on some important lessons we have learned while managing projects in non-academic environments.

This book provides a road map for academics who are tasked with managing a research project that may have diverse, and at times, competing demands and where the goalposts are simultaneously rigid and flexible. It provides important, and practical, insights into the many detailed processes that inform such research projects. The book explores ways to develop and sustain relationships with funding bodies, industry and other stakeholders while negotiating the delicate balance between these stakeholder needs. It provides practical hints and tips about managing a large research project, including developing relationships with diverse partners and colleagues and managing the expectations of the various parties involved. It provides handy tips and hints so that readers can see and absorb them at a glance.

This book is intended for academics at any stage of their career, including those who are new to academia and who may have just joined an academic research project in a junior capacity, or who may be managing their own small, encapsulated research project for the first time outside of their Ph.D. We also believe it will be useful for mid-career academics who may be about to begin a large research project working with a variety of partners because it will highlight many of the considerations involved in such projects. Finally, we hope that established, senior academics might find something useful in these pages because every project throws up new challenges and opportunities and we have encountered many in our academic and professional careers.

This book acknowledges the very unique environment in which academic researchers find themselves when working on, or managing, a research project that involves multiple stakeholders under an external funding agreement. Hopefully, some of the lessons we have learned can help readers avoid similar mistakes. Successful academic research projects have a broad social benefit—they contribute important knowledge to inform practice or understanding. It’s important that we try to get things right.

Jacqui Ewart

Kate Ames

Nathan, AustraliaBrisbane, Australia

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support of a number of people. We are indebted to our colleague Dr. Kate O’Donnell for her contributions to the initial proposal from which this book emerged and also for the conversations we had with her and which she undertook with some of those interviewed for this book. Those discussions made it stronger and better.

Thanks to the wonderful staff at our publisher Springer for their support and understanding.

To those colleagues with whom we had conversations long or brief about this book, we offer huge thanks for your advice, patience and encouragement. This book did not write itself, and to that end Jacqui Ewart thanks the co-author Kate for diving in without hesitation when asked to join this project.

We would like to thank Dr. Susanna Chamberlain, Dr. Christine Feldman-Barrett, Dr. Collette Snowden, our mate Murray Cornish and Bill Adler for the suggestions they offered for our academic typology. Thanks also to Prof. Tara Brabazon for vlogging about things that matter and to Dr. John Cokley for the conversations about academic life.

Our heartfelt thanks to the people who so generously gave their time to speak with us about their project management experiences. It would not have been possible to write this book without their generosity. They were genuinely interested in helping others by sharing their experiences openly and honestly. We decided to anonymise their comments so that they were able to share not only their positive experiences but the negative ones as well. The examples cited in chapters are generalizsd and hypothetical and no reference to any individual should be implied.

We would like to thank our families. Jacqui would like to thank Dean for his love, support and encouragement while she was writing this book and on every other day. Kate would like to thank Jason, Maeve and Joshua for their patience while we were juggling life at home thanks to COVID-19, and also Jacqui for bringing her along on this journey.

Managing Academic Research Projects was inspired by many conversations and we thank everyone for those discussions.

Abbreviations

CFMEU

Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union

CI

Chief Investigator

COVID-19

Coronavirus Disease of 2019

CV

Curriculum Vitae

EAP

Expert Advisory Pane

ECR

Early Career Researcher

FTE

Full-Time Equivalent

HR

Human Resources

KPI

Key Performance Indicator

MLO

Media Liaison Officer

PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

RA

Research Assistant

Vlog

Video blog

Contents

1 Introduction to Managing Your Academic Research Project 1

Why Research?​ 1

Genesis of This Book 2

Some Advice 4

Chapter Structure 7

2 Working with the Right Team on Academic Research Projects 11

Solo or Team Research 11

Selecting the Right Team 13

Mentoring 16

Same Team—Same Page 18

Roles and Duties 19

Dealing with Failure 22

Dealing with Conflict 24

Managing Changing Project Needs 24

Expert Panels 25

Onboarding and Off-Boarding Staff 26

Juggling Roles and Personalities 28

Co-authorship and Research Students 29

Example 31

Conclusion 33

References 33

3 Approaching a Multi-year or Large Academic Research Project 35

Multi-year Projects 35

Funding Sources 37

Planning 38

Data Management 43

Managing Expectations 44

Managing Issues 45

Risk Management and Scope Change 46

Promoting Your Project 47

Conclusion 48

Example 49

4 Research, Data and Milestones 53

Embedding Research in Your Project 53

Scoping the Relevant Research Fields 54

Team Work and Resources 56

Dealing with Data 58

Embed Data Collection in Fieldwork 58

Reflect on Data and Revise Approaches 61

Data Ownership and Management 63

Conclusion 64

Example 64

5 Setting up for Success:​ Contracts, Accountability and Budgets 67

What Success Looks Like 67

Contracts 68

Key Contract Considerations 68

Contracts and Staffing Details 69

Accountability:​ Defining Success:​ Expectations Versus Reality 71

Identifying Key Timelines and Milestones 71

Understanding Funding Rules and Environments 72

Stakeholder Involvement 72

When Stakeholders Argue 74

Managing Beyond Contract Scope Requests 74

Managing Data 75

Example:​ The Two-Headed Hydra 76

File Sharing 76

Budgets 78

The Importance of Trust 81

Conclusion 82

Example 82

6 Relationships 85

Relationships 85

Developing Relationships 86

Building Trust 88

Relationship Failure 92

Flexibility 93

Benefits of Partnerships 93

Different Partners, Different Relationships 95

Building Research Team Relationships 95

Relationships with Volunteers and Publics 97

Managing Expectations 98

Communication Rules 99

Conclusion 99

Example 100

Reference 100

7 Outputs Versus Outcomes 101

Understanding Your Deliverables 101

What Are You Measuring?​ 105

Maximising Deliverables 106

Spin-off Projects 108

Reporting 109

Controversial Data and Reports 111

Planning for Research Outcomes and Outputs 113

Disseminating Findings Publicly 114

Conclusion 115

Example 116

References 117

8 Conclusion 119

Looking Back 119

Strategies for Academic Project Success 121

Research in a Lockdown 123

Conclusion 124

About the Authors

Jacqui Ewart

is a former journalist and media/communication manager. She has worked as an academic for more than 20 years and is now a Professor of Journalism and Communication at Griffith University. Jacqui’s research interests span several fields including radio studies, audience studies, news media representations of Muslims and Islam, news media coverage of diversity, news media coverage of terrorism and various aspects of disasters communication. She has led nationally competitive funded research projects, authored, co-authored and edited seven books.

Kate Ames

has a background in media and communication, having worked as a journalist and editor before a long career in military public affairs. She has been an academic since 2001 and more recently, has led complex innovation projects in learning design at CQ University. Her research interests are in storytelling in the public sphere, encompassing broadcast talk, regional media, disaster communication, health promotion and distance learning.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

J. Ewart, K. AmesManaging Your Academic Research Projecthttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9192-1_1

1. Introduction to Managing Your Academic Research Project

Jacqui Ewart¹   and Kate Ames²  

(1)

Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

(2)

Central Queensland University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Jacqui Ewart (Corresponding author)

Email: [e-mail]

Kate Ames

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book and helps readers to understand why we wrote it. We also discuss how readers might want to use this book, which is they can dip into chapters when they need assistance or read the whole book. To that end, we outline the content of each of the chapters, so that readers can find what they need at a glance.

Keywords

Managing projectsMaking mistakesGetting it rightLearning lessons

Why Research?

Research can change the world. It can make a difference. Quality research can expose problems and develop solutions for them. It can have positive effects on society through changing policy and practice. Great research can provide new insights, discoveries and lead to vaccines or cures for diseases. There are, of course, different types of research and research has different meanings depending on the context in which it is undertaken. Academic research is very different from the type of research that your aunt or friend might undertake if they are thinking about buying a product or are seeking information to support their opinions about whether cotton or polyester is the best fabric for hot climates. Academic research, unlike your friend or aunt’s research, is scientifically and ethically rigorous and subject to peer review. It involves much more than a gut feeling or consulting Doctor Google. It might start out as a hunch but as it progresses, it becomes subject to a series of tests that underpin academic research projects. The government, non-government and industry sectors employ researchers, but the type of research they undertake may be very different from academic research. In a government or industry context, research can have different meanings depending on the setting. For example, someone might undertake some research to inform a policy document, which might involve drawing on academic literature, or they may examine some statistics and analyse them to justify the change to policies or procedures. People also undertake what they refer to as research as part of their professional duties. For example, journalists will underpin news and feature articles with research, which may include interviews with appropriately qualified expert sources, or searching databases or other online sources to locate reports or other documents and then analyse those materials. The political pollster may not be conducting rigorous research—their questions may be worded to obtain answers they want, rather than answers that truly reflect the way an individual intends to vote.

Research means different things to different people. This book focuses on academic research. Academic research goes beyond the above examples, and those such as an amateur historian finding out who used to live in the street and how life was lived in the 1700s, although many people are interested in histories of local places. Amateur research is not subject to rigorous peer review, although it might draw comment from friends and family members. However, the volunteer who has an amateur’s understanding of history can be of enormous help to a research project, as we will point out in this book. Academic research is undertaken within and across disciplines, and organisational contexts. For example, some research companies undertake research on behalf of academics, for example, large national social surveys. In these instances, the questions have been crafted by academics, the research has ethical clearance and the results will usually undergo rigorous peer review prior to publication. Some academics will transition smoothly between fields of research, while others will work only in their chosen discipline. Some will work exclusively within university environments, while others will work for government or not-for-profit organisations. This book focuses on the specific nuances associated with management academic research projects.

Genesis of This Book

Managing an academic project can be rewarding. It can also be a difficult and sometimes fraught endeavour, as any researcher who has managed such a project knows. This book arose from the two authors’ many and varied experiences with academic and other types of projects over a combined 60 plus years. When we were reflecting on our experiences, we realised we had learned a great deal about what works and what does not during the different academic and non-academic projects we have worked on and managed.

The idea for this book emerged during the course of a large, multi-year, competitively funded project on which one of us worked. In discussing what worked and what did not, it became clear we had accumulated a lot of knowledge that could help other academics. We continued to develop the idea over several months, quite a few conversations and many cups of coffee. We drew on many of our experiences, good, bad, indifferent and sometimes those we would like to forget. However, we were keenly aware that we did not know everything about project management for academics. Nor could we possibly have experienced everything that might happen to an academic or an academic team in the course of managing large or small research projects.

To that end, we called on our colleagues and friends who are part of our extensive and highly valued networks both within and outside of academia to assist us. Individually and sometimes together, we undertook interviews with a range of experts who shared their experiences with us. They included academics from a variety of disciplines and individuals from industry and government organisations, who had worked extensively with academics on projects. The meetings with our experts were actually more conversational than formally structured interviews because the anecdotes and asides that emerged in those conversations brought what might otherwise be a somewhat dry subject to life.

As we discussed the key ingredients that had made relationships work over the course of the multiple projects we had both worked on, we realised that the most important element was trust. For us, that trust was developed and cemented over the course of quite a few years. Initially, we observed how we started with work on a small project, which eventually led to a publication and from there, something a little bigger. We learned that as colleagues whose relationship developed and strengthened over many years of working together, we still needed the storming and forming aspect of a project to shake out ideas when we started. We had already built a strong working relationship based on mutual respect and trust. We identified some commonalities in the way we undertook academic work. For example, we both approach collegial relationships with open minds and with the recognition that everyone brings different skills to a project, and we treat that as an asset not a liability. For instance, Jacqui brought her background in journalism, public relations, crisis management and academic research project management to the project. Kate had a history of teaching in large courses, combined with academic research and technical project management. Our differences enriched our partnership.

Our backgrounds and experiences complemented each other but did not necessarily replicate our strengths. That meant we learned a lot from each other over the years because we have always understood that we do not know everything and are not experts in everything. That remains a key aspect of our success and ongoing collaboration. We also recognise that those who work with us are humans with all of the marvellous complexities that accompany them. They have multifaceted and sometimes difficult lives and they may experience relationship breakdowns, deaths of a near and dearly loved relative, injury, illness or a range of other events that require compassion and time away from the workplace.

We held regular debriefs over the months and then years about our respective and combined projects. We had regular conversations about what worked and what did not. Our collective involvement in a large, multiyear, industry-funded project prompted discussions about what was possible, feasible and appropriate in each stage and what those involved should seek to get out of the project from a research/academic perspective. This was always in the context that there was never a promise as to whether the project would receive a second, third and fourth year of funding. We realised that some project teams can find themselves too busy doing, which is meeting the outcome-oriented contract obligations to think about how research might be woven into and underpin a project. We recognised there is significant value in our reflections on the lessons