Picture: Nicholas Moult In June I took part in the MIT-Imperial Global Fellows programme, a professional skills summer school run jointly by the Imperial College London Graduate School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The focus of the programme was to strengthen our research and personal effectiveness, with a particular focus on collaboration.
On arrival we were split in to small groups made up of both Imperial and MIT students, from a range of research backgrounds. Within my team there were people working on how cancer spreads, how to improve the efficiency of electrodes recording brain activity and fluid imaging techniques (to name just a few). We began by explaining to each other what our own research was about, through creating a poster (in an hour!) and presenting it to the rest of the group. We also took part in other team building activities and skills workshops which focussed on networking and presenting our own research.
The activities then moved away from what we could do individually and began to focus on what skills we could bring together in a potential collaboration. One activity we were given a box of unrelated items (some tooth paste, bandages, marbles and pens and paper) and asked to create a product that we felt the world needed, but was not currently technically feasible. My created a bandage that could sense infection and release the necessary medication, as well as texting alerts to the wearer. The poster itself looked disgusting (the diagram of the cut looked really realistic) and was a really interesting activity to complete.
On arrival we were split in to small groups made up of both Imperial and MIT students, from a range of research backgrounds. Within my team there were people working on how cancer spreads, how to improve the efficiency of electrodes recording brain activity and fluid imaging techniques (to name just a few). We began by explaining to each other what our own research was about, through creating a poster (in an hour!) and presenting it to the rest of the group. We also took part in other team building activities and skills workshops which focussed on networking and presenting our own research.
The activities then moved away from what we could do individually and began to focus on what skills we could bring together in a potential collaboration. One activity we were given a box of unrelated items (some tooth paste, bandages, marbles and pens and paper) and asked to create a product that we felt the world needed, but was not currently technically feasible. My created a bandage that could sense infection and release the necessary medication, as well as texting alerts to the wearer. The poster itself looked disgusting (the diagram of the cut looked really realistic) and was a really interesting activity to complete.
We were then split into small groups again, this time based on potential collaborations and tasked with coming up with a piece of research or a product that utilised all of our skills. My group devised a new social research platform (similar to ResearchGate) which would exist solely for researchers to upload grey data, non-significant results and raw data on to. We believed this idea could have the potential to reduce the impact of publication bias, as well as lead to increased collaboration and transparency in research.
Overall the week was highly enjoyable and challenging, and helped me build on skills that will be vital in a career in research. It also made me reflect on how important collaboration in research is not only with researchers from other institutions, but also interdisciplinary collaborations, and the range of skills we each have that highly transferrable. It was also great to meet and get to know so many lovely people from both Imperial and MIT, and do something a little different from my usual everyday PhD work.
Author: Ellen Grimås
Overall the week was highly enjoyable and challenging, and helped me build on skills that will be vital in a career in research. It also made me reflect on how important collaboration in research is not only with researchers from other institutions, but also interdisciplinary collaborations, and the range of skills we each have that highly transferrable. It was also great to meet and get to know so many lovely people from both Imperial and MIT, and do something a little different from my usual everyday PhD work.
Author: Ellen Grimås
Picture: Nicholas Moult
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