Speaker 1: Hi everyone, welcome back to another academic video and this week I'm talking about your university research brand. Welcome to this little academic space here on YouTube. My name is Caroline, I am a lecturer in physics here at a UK university and in the past I've talked a little bit about how my job is divided broadly into three sections, teaching, admin duties within the department and importantly research. And today's video is all about that last part of my job, research. For many academics, research probably is one of the most important driving factors that made them want to be a university scholar. You know, it's that curiosity about your subject and wanting to explore and you know try to further knowledge of a particular area that has maybe brought you into the world of academia and into studying a particular topic. Now for me that topic is physics and so when I joined the university as a lecturer it was really important that I establish and grow my own personal research brand. In the past in the kind of academic chats I've spoken a little bit about how when you interview for an academic job as say a lecturer where you've got both research and teaching, you need to show that your research is going to fit into the department but be complementary to the work of others yet still be a unique area for you to explore. And so it's really important that when you do join a university and you are setting up your research area that you establish and create an identity for yourself in a particular research field. That's not to say your area of research will remain static throughout your whole career and I think for many academic scholars their area of research is constantly moving and evolving but it's important to clearly articulate to your research community, to your department and indeed to your research students what your area of research is. Now most universities if you're an academic member of staff are going to do this for you automatically. You'll join the university and they will ask you to populate a web page which basically describes a bit about yourself, what you do within the department and what your research is. And this web page then becomes your kind of I guess key starting point for creating your research brand and your research identity. So I'm going to show you for creating your research brand and your research identity. So on my university website research page it lists out obviously which teachers I call, which courses I teach and it also has my personal academic qualifications and my route from being a student into joining the university as a lecturer. And there is then a whole section focused on my research. So it will say which are the research topics that I'm active in, which are the key words associated to my research areas, which are current projects that I have had experience or I've supervised or I've led. It'll have my current PhD students, it'll have PhD students alumni so the students that I've supervised and have now been awarded their qualification and it will have people and collaborators and networks and partners that I either actively work with or have worked with in the past. So if you are a prospective student looking for an academic researcher to supervise your master's project or maybe your PhD project, you can immediately see my research areas of interest. And if you're a fellow academic who are networking and wanting to find other academics working in the same field or similar areas as yourself from different universities, again you can use my web page to find out a little bit more about me. And I guess for many academics these days that's not enough, we do more when we create our research brand and our research identity. So alongside that university web-based resource that will also then link to maybe a personal website and so you'll see lots of academics we host our own little personal website that maybe has a bit more detail about what we're up to or things that we're working on or outreach or activities that we're engaged with that are linked to our university work. It may link to our Twitter profile, you know sometimes it might link to our Instagram profile, you know there's other social media platforms that we might want to advertise to people to keep a watch of what we're working on. It's really important to think about how your research brand is shared and communicated with that wider community. And as I said the web page from the university is a really really good starting point and I would say nowadays it's almost you know essential that university academics have that web page. But on top of that you may choose to layer up with your own personal web page, your own personal Twitter or your own personal other social media platforms. And of course it's also quite important what you kind of name your research brand or your research identity. So when you join a UK university most typically you'll be joining a department and then quite often they'll be joining like some kind of subsection team within that department. And then different universities will have different rules about what you can and can't do. So you might be allowed to create a little research group so people sometimes use their surnames and call it like a research group or a research area. Sometimes people pick the thing that they're working on and say a particular team or area and sometimes you're locked into a research area or team already identified by the university. But again it's key to think about what you want to call your research team or kind of group because again that will then be something you might use across your websites, your social media, you might make a handle, a hashtag, all so that people who are looking for those kind of key terms will be maybe attracted or channeled in to your particular academic efforts. And all of this takes work you know so it's not something really that you kind of set up and you leave dormant and you come back to in 10 years time. These research identities and brands that you're putting out there for the community they need to be constantly refreshed you know. So at least, oh I don't know how many times I do it, I tend to do at least one major overhaul every year and then probably check in with it several times throughout the year to make sure the information is current, you know to update what the research projects are that I'm working on, where my current students have gone, what they've currently finished working on, what their thesis titles were, you know all of this stuff can be on your website and will help guide people to your particular research areas within that university. And of course I guess more of it you might say well why bother, you know the university employs you, you're going to get some teaching to do, you can do a bit of research, why bother creating either kind of a brand or a profile and actually making it public and visible to others. So I guess firstly you know academia is a competitive challenging community to be in. Yes it could be lovely and supportive but at the same time you know there's only so many research funds to go around, there's only so many research grants you can apply for and if you've got a public presence, if you're known for working in a particular research area, if you can easily demonstrate quickly to other people that you've got a published track record or that you have got active students, you know it might be helpful when you come to put together your research grant applications. Always as an academic you're looking to be able to attract PhD students or master's students into your research area. That's a future video really about how you handle and how many students you want to take on personally. I think I've discussed it in a past video, you know there will be an upper limit to how many PhD students you feel comfortable supervising but nonetheless if you don't advertise your particular projects, your particular research themes, you're not necessarily going to be attracting those best student candidates into applying for your particular PhDs. You may also want to attract people who will be looking to apply for postdocs or maybe fellowships. You might want to put in a joint application where you are the supporting academic to somebody coming through who wants to have a fellowship in their own right but be working alongside your particular research area and again you know these people who will be looking to make these applications will first and foremost look potentially at any web-based profile that you have describing your research brand or your kind of research area. It's also really important to have your kind of profile out there when people are maybe looking to look for examiners. So if you want to work as an external examiner for other PhD students, again it's useful to be known in a particular area and to have some kind of presence out there so people know what you're working on. You know the same with reviewing papers for journals, it is all about making it visible the area you're working in, the research topics that you're focused on working on, so that you can attract excellent people to work alongside you but you can also then bid and be successful when you go for research grant applications for funding and for onward career developments. I realise in this video I've kept it kind of I guess talking more about the ideas behind creating a research presence in a research area. I'm not necessarily spoken about the specific details of my own, I mean that is something we could do in the future if people are interested. I can talk about my very own specific area of physics that I'm working in but I'd love to know from everyone you know connected or watching the videos, how do you create or promote your research area, your research identity? Do you find that your research area has changed? Do you keep your research area very much closed, not really tell people what you're working on or are you very open and very public about what you're working on? You know there's pros and there can be disadvantages from having a very very active Twitter maybe for example, you might get lots of opposing viewpoints coming your way which is something you're then going to have to handle and again we can save that for a future video. But yeah let me know how much energy and effort do you put into creating your research brand and profile and how much does it matter to you as an academic or somebody who wants to work in academia? But yeah I'll leave that as the parting thought for the week. It's going to be I guess a cold week in the UK here so look after yourselves wherever you're watching in the world. Thank you so much for the comments, please do keep them coming, take care of yourselves, you have a really good safe fun week and I will see you next Monday for another academic video on a related university topic. So until then, bye.