Speaker 1: If you want to predict if someone is going to fail their PhD it comes down to one major factor and that one major factor is risk. There are so many types of risk during a PhD, during any research project and how someone approaches that risk portfolio will really determine whether or not they will be successful and the thing is some of this kind of risk management is quite counterintuitive so what I want to do with you is share the different types of risk and I think where people go wrong. The first sort of risk is methodology risk. That is, has anyone done anything like this before? Is there at least a foundation for you to build your work upon because if not you are taking on a huge methodology risk. Now early on in a PhD you want to be taking more methodology risks because you've got plenty of time to see if one thing or another thing will actually work. You've got three or four years to fail and fail again and a lot of people actually put off this high risk methodology until later on in their PhD when they don't have the time to fail. So methodology, is your research based on something? Have you got any evidence that there will be some glimmer of hope? For example when I started my PhD someone had done something similar but made a very very bad version of a solar cell using this technique and my job was to see if I could make it better and that small one paper gave me a little bit of knowledge and allowed me to reduce that methodology risk a little bit. That's not to say they don't lie in papers but methodology risk is a big one. Time risk. Before you sit down and do anything, any experiment, you need to just think about what amount of time is actually required to get to the final result. Sometimes experiments take years to get to the end point. Whereas some experiments only need days, hours or maybe just a few weeks. So you need to think always about the time risk. Early on take on more time risk. As your research progresses and you start seeing things working you need to start accepting that you can't take on a large amount of time risk because you don't have the time in your project and that is the same for any project. During my postdocs I would do all of the really risky time intensive stuff as early as possible because later on I would run out of time and it was never a good look to say oh we need more time. So managed time risk is very important. Each and every little tiny project, each every little tiny experiment you do needs to be thought about in terms of the amount of time it takes and put all of that time risk up front in the project. Data risk. Data risk comes in a number of forms but ultimately if you need a data set to perform your research have you got open and easy access to it? Is there a gatekeeper that you need to sort of like get through to get the data? And also another form this takes is if you are working with instrumentation that kicks out data, are you skilled enough to be able to understand that data without having to rely on someone else? That's a big thing. Quite often in these kind of collaborative environments we rely a lot on other people to do the data analysis for us but you should take on some of that ownership and at least be able to do very basic data analysis on the instruments that you're getting. Don't rely on anyone else and build up those skills as early as you can to reduce the amount of risk you're taking on in this project. Have you got access to all of the equipment that you need? Quite often in a PhD project, especially in the sciences, there are very very expensive pieces of equipment you need to get access to so do not take on huge equipment risk because that equipment may break, that equipment may not be available, the person running that equipment may not be around, may go on holiday. If you lose the skill around this equipment are you able to still do your project? So equipment risk is another really important factor you need to take on and it's okay to have equipment risk, you just need to manage it properly. Make sure that your entire project doesn't rely on one bit of equipment. I've seen physics PhDs in particular have to build a certain type of equipment that doesn't exist anywhere else. That is a massive amount of equipment risk. You can hedge that risk by doing something less risky but importantly understanding that it's there, understanding how to work with it and understanding how to reduce that equipment risk is really important. Financial risk. Have you got the funds required to access the things you need to access? Is that funding and at last enough? So throughout your PhD, throughout the research project you're able to do everything you want to do. Has your supervisor got enough of a barrier for like two or three years if they don't get funding? I've seen quite a lot of times if a supervisor doesn't get funding they panic and they take on projects they shouldn't take on and quite often the stress is passed down to their postdocs and their PhD students because they've taken on this project for money, they need to get fast results, maybe it's an industry partnership. So make sure that your supervisor has got a nice big financial buffer. Ethical risk. Have you got all of the ethical approvals required to do your experiments? Is it easy to get? What is the bureaucratic red tape around performing your particular experiments? I've seen experiments delayed for months because they can't get ethics approval. Speak to the ethics committee at your university and just ask them what the timelines are. Knowing it up front means you can manage this risk much more and I've seen people absolutely freak out because they haven't had a certain box ticked by the University Ethics Committee and it needs to be done quickly. So manage that risk up front, be open and transparent and importantly hedge that risk against other things so that you don't just rely on this one ethics approval so that you can start your research. Feedback risk. Are you getting the appropriate feedback from the right people at the right time? Is your supervisor a little bit lazy and won't give you feedback in time? You need to make sure that you've managed this risk by ensuring that there are other platforms and other people that give you advice and feedback as you go along. It could be postdocs, it could be senior PhD students, it could be other academics. If your supervisor is the type that is not giving you feedback regularly, you are not able to connect with them, they are not marking your papers or giving you feedback on written work, that is a massive risk. I have seen projects delayed for months and months because a certain thing is sat on a certain professor's desk and no one will do anything about it. So manage that risk carefully. You need feedback at nearly every stage of your PhD and research journey so ensure that you can get it. Skill gap risk. Make sure that you have all of the skills you need in the early stage of your research project to finish your research project. I've seen far too many people get to a certain stage in their research projects and go oh no this is a huge problem I don't have the skills to do this certain thing. They have to rely on other people which is also now introducing more risk into the research project. So early on think about the skills you're likely to need. It may be needing certain statistical skills, you may need training on certain software, you may need training on certain equipment. All of these are important skills to make sure you identify and build up early on. The most important thing about doing a PhD or any research project is it can be only as good as you are healthy. Healthy in terms of your own general health and also in terms of your mental health. Taking on a PhD or research project when you know that you are not addressing certain health issues can be a huge risk to the project. So make sure you're functioning at your best, make sure that you have the support that you need to make sure that you finish within a certain time. All of these risks really get compounded if you are not at your best. If you like this video remember to go check out this one where I talk about how to get better at doing research. I share with you my seven simple tips that can really help. Go check it out it's a good watch. So there we have it that's how you can actually tell if someone is likely to fail their PhD. There are a load of risks that overlap, that combine, that add, that subtract and it's important that you approach a PhD as like an expert risk manager. This isn't something that's actually taught during a PhD or at the beginning of any research project. It is something that you sort of like learn as you go along. So I'm actually developing a course at the moment so that you can manage risk like an expert, like a hardcore seasoned professor throughout any research project. So remember to sign up to my newsletter where you'll be the first to hear about it and also talking about my newsletter sign up because when you sign up you'll get five emails over about two weeks. Everything from the tools I've used, the podcast I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract and more. It's exclusive content available for free so go sign up now and also go check out academiainsider.com. That's my project where I've got my ebooks, I've got my resource packs, I've got my blog, I've got the forum and everything is over there to make sure that academia works for you. Alright then as always let me know what you think in the comments and I'll see you in the next video.