The Most IMPORTANT Video I've Ever Made For Academics

[@MichaelBrueckner]

Great video. I needed this 40 years ago, when I started to work on my thesis on the beta decay in strong gravitational wave fields. The professor had no idea what the result would be, nor had I, jumped on the train anyway. In present times, I'd probably refuse to take the risk.

[@garrae6981]

Nice video Andy, Risk is always related to resources. So time, physical resources (location, equipment, capacity etc), funds, knowledge, know-how, capability, people (supervisors, peers, participants), motivation, commitment, mental lethargy (our own and others), mental resistance, legal, social and ethical issues, competition, demand for the explanation or solution, material & technical processes (can it be done), ICT capability, power and agency processes etc.

[@endorphinder]

Stapes! Thank you for your candid and infor-taining content!! Maybe this comment will give a tiny bump for the algo. In addition to the categories of risk, perhaps categories of reward would be useful as well to help prioritize efforts. While getting a phd is reward in itself (hahahahahaaaaa ..... rolling on the floor-I crack me up), monetary, near-career, far-career, personal-predilections, etc. could be used to add up the "checks" for rewards just as you have done for risks.

[@Qkecke]

Competition risk. How many people/groups might be working on something similar based on their previous research? Do they have more resources/data than you? Do you have any competitive advantage over them (e.g., resources/data they don't have)? How much might their results affect the potential impact of your work?

[@hoesseinalki]

Thanks Andy! This came at the right time for me. I am halfway my first year of PhD in an engineering field. What I would add are: (1) Risk of available physical 'products' , 'materials' to test. --> Like in my case, I need to physically test physical objects. And their availability is a big issue for me. (2) Risk of analysing the data. --> In my case I also need to perform mathematical calculations and validations, which are not always easy to do. I am aware that you might have incorporated my two addition in your 'Data Risk' and 'Experimental Risk', but I personally felt that the distinction might be more helpful to understanding your table. A great fan of your work!

[@amypratt9946]

Brilliant perspective. Thank you for the reminder to balance risk with progress! I'm in the first semester of my Social Psychology PhD and have gained a ton of perspective from your videos. Thanks!

[@mohammadalinilforooshan8416]

Excellent! In some cases, a single risk might be a "no go"! For example, an ethical risk may stop that work from having any publication.

[@kakkopf]

Hi Andy, great approach! I like the framework and it is very true that no one teaches you about risk management! Maybe an idea to add: from risk management in project management we learn that at some point the high risk tasks need to be re-evaluated or stopped. I know that this would probably make the framework a little more complicated, but you already propose something like a scale system with the points you are assigning. Maybe for the deeply red ideas something to track (after some time of trying) if it is still worth proceeding. Thanks for the video!

[@zai9594]

@DrAndyStapleton some really interesting idea. I'd love the chat in more detail some time. I'm currently lecturing in Risk Management and Project Management but come from a professional background so share a lot of your views on the issues with the standard academic approach.

[@kamaluddeenbabagana1647]

In academia, the reward of success is more work

[@leinababy]

My PhD involves a lot of cultural risks. Perhaps, it should be included in that excellent table too? There are cultural consequences that must be considered for international research. Huge thank you Andy by the way. Loved watching your videos. I have written so many notes and printed many pages of your videos as part of my personal SOPs. 😊

[@lsf3699]

very informative. these discussed some of the main challenges faced in research.

[@takiyaazrin7562]

Life changing!

[@monoamiga]

It needs to be slightly altered for doctorates is arts.

[@meemsultana5299]

Thank you Andy 😊🐱❤

[@aidenmiles0307]

Interesting, this could turn into a full-blown paper. 😂 Try to get it published, mate. 🗿 However, I do have to mention that this lacks the 'bias' factor that comes into play frequently, and nobody really ever wants to talk about it. You know them, professors. Inconsistency is their main thing. LoL.🗿

[@llbodlearning8591]

A must watch.

[@ethanbair9763]

One thing this doesn’t account for is the risk of getting scooped by another researcher. For almost any project you can think of, someone else is likely doing something similar, and being second is almost worthless in academia.

[@csbc92]

This is why publishing results early is important to avoid disputes over originality when including the work in a thesis.

[@MC-ub4xj]

This is brilliant! As a long-time project manager, I agree that risk management is one of the key things we need to do for any project. I love the simplicity of the framework - the only thing I could add as a way to refine it if needed is to add a "likelihood" ranking, which is when you determine how likely is it that the risk will become a reality and thus an issue that must be overcome to reach success.

[@TheKindDoc]

Yes, it is very important! I do wish Andy had looked at a Research Project Management text like Babler et al. on how to do proper risk management.

[@shalalehb.ghodsi5239]

Lovely sweatshirt

[@Wanees-cx7mk]

🙌very helpful

[@DrAndyStapleton]

Glad you think so!

[@talayehmirhosseini4224]

Dear Andy I am a second year Phd student and I am having trouble with my supervisor who does not guide me or spend enough time for my research instead he expects me to focus only on my RAship and this is making me fall behind . I am afraid of speaking to the chair of my department about this ? should I do this or is it to much to risk?

[@1000000trs]

Very good !

[@MatheusCarvalho-ev9hw]

Remember, if you do a PhD, it's years that you could be doing something else. This is alreayd a risk on itself.

[@Victor76661]

Brazuca? Mto de acordo

[@csbc92]

Isn't that always the case no matter what you do? The grass is always greener.

[@dmitry5319]

Looking at what people do in my field, I would say that one of the major problems is that everyone just does zero risk things. You need papers at very high pace, you cannot risk delaying anything. Next, doing the same safe thing as everyone is, in fact, beneficial as you get more citations. If, instead, you do high risk high reward thing, even if you succeed it is not guaranteed that you will be rewarded. Other researchers have zero incentive and zero time even to read what you do. Even if they will and will be able to appreciate your results, they will anyway keep doing what they did before. There is no incentive for them neither to switch to new things nor to give credit to your work.

[@naomi5495]

Very useful! Thank you.

[@ChemCoder404]

I hear a lot of high risk, high reward. But as a society/community, we are creating more paths to fail than succeed. I can go on for an hour about this.

[@gabrielwooden7094]

Can you elaborate? I am curious what you mean exactly

[@adibudica]

George Costanza entered the chat, He's an expert in Risk Management, you know

[@Jessie_zzx]

That traffic light system really makes me "Wow" for a moment! Thank you so much Andy, as a second year PhD, I've learned a lot from your videos!

[@jfleming572]

Thank you. I am continuously concerned about risk. Access is always a problem for me. Data risk and experimental risk is a problem.

[@DataRae-AIEngineer]

Very interesting video. Thanks for making it. And yes... I'm over-risked. I'm a risk-on person. It's boom or bust! Fingers crossed LMAO!

[@wkt2506]

Put the topic in the title / thumbnail please. clickbait social media is a scourge on humanity - don't normalise it please. In context its not 'fun', its stressful, & part of social media's 'race to the bottom of the brain stem'.

[@Kenleaty]

Just got a 2..1 degree in linguidtics. Was thinking of not doing a masters but your vids changing my mind

[@guyfawkes5012]

Now I'll ignore it out of spite

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Independent research is so much easier. You don't need ethical approval.

[@gayatricasey6618]

But when u want to publish that work the journal going to ask the ethical approval certifications.

[@RyanCrossOfficial]

This looks pretty similar to the RICE feature prioritisation frame

[@dmitry5319]

For my PhD risk management was completely irrelevant. Firstly, I didn't have the power to decide what to do. Instead, it was being imposed on me by my supervisor. And the tasks that I had were not only high risk and low reward (I completed a one year project that he gave me, the results of which my supervisor decided are not worth publishing), some tasks were completely pointless, obviously leading nowhere. Secondly, there was no such a thing as "slam dunk", because there were no reasonable criteria of what is good and what is bad (I believe this is true for many branches of research, which are quite often very detached from reality and thus from any objective criteria). My supervisor was the one who decides on that unilaterally. I could have done something that I believe is very cool and my supervisor could easily trash it saying that it is bullshit if he did not like it for one or another reason. (without reputation you cannot publish anything, while people with reputation can publish any garbage) This risk discussion became more relevant, say, 10 years after PhD, when I started getting some reputation myself as well as academic freedom.

[@KobinaAddo]

Ooh my days!! I’m a masters student and this is my life. Lemme know which country you’re studying in. I’m studying in china, and my supervisor completely ignores what i want to research. First of the college just decided to change my entire research area from lets say cancer to diabetes. Then on top of that my supervisor determines what research topic under diabetes i want to to study, any thing I suggest is just garbage. Add on to that, my Chinese language skills isn’t that good, so i am unable to communicate with her , and meetings with other colleagues under same supervisor is hell. Can’t make colleagues or friends to help. It’s stressful

[@dmitry5319]

​@@KobinaAddo I did my PhD in Russia. I think, this situation is, indeed, partially related to the country where you do your PhD. One thing is cultural. I believe, in China confucian worldview is still quite strong, thus, you are expected to obey entirely someone with power, someone older than you, etc. This also exists in other countries. Another thing is how academia works at the organisational level. When I did my PhD my supervisor had zero responsibility for his students completing their PhD's. For him it was totally normal to give a project, which had high chances of being impossible to complete or to give the results he would not publish and thus they could not contribute to PhD. As a result, majority of students just dropped, while for those who managed to get the degree it took far more time than normal. Now things are changing. Universities tend not to give students to supervisors who's students systematically failed to get their PhD's in time in the past. I must also say that a lot depends on the particular person. Irrespectively of the country, there are supervisors which are more/less responsible for their students, there are more/less authoritarian supervisors. Still, I believe that issues like are quite common for academia as a whole. I worked at different places in different countries, so I could see how things work. There are also many videos on youtube with people complaining about power imbalance in their relations with their supervisors. Academia is extremely hierarchical and authority based. Even in your 40's you have far less power than researchers in their 60's (in contrast to that in pretty much any other profession you can reach the very top of hierarchy within 5 years or so). Partially this is can be justified. It, indeed, takes a lot of time before you develop expertise in your area, outlook in a wider range of topics, intuition and get more mature with general things like risk management mentioned in the video. This strong hierarchical structure can also be explained by the fact that you cannot read and understand all the papers thus you end up relying on the reputation of people writing them. People who already have reputation grow it faster by being able to afford lower publication standards and thus have more papers published and by being cited solely for their name present of the paper. Still, I believe that in the current form hierarchy in academia is too extreme. Academic freedom is very important. I think you can produce something valuable only if you do things that you personally find interesting and important. And if you have to work for decades till you get the freedom to decide what to do, most likely you will get demotivated

[@KobinaAddo]

@@dmitry5319 what u are saying is totally true, i come from Ghana, and even though most people don’t have good impression of Africa, our academia doesn’t work that strictly. So i was very supremely how things are in china. And it’s not just me. In my university this is common. Supervisors not giving a shit. And the colleges changing courses of students. Adding to that, most universities here bait international students with English taught courses and professors that’ll guide u in admission process. Only to get to the school for the teaching language to be changed to Chinese. It’s frustrating, especially after spending so much money and time. I think this hierarchical system is common here. Some people get to publish alot more than others and u just have to listen to what ur superiors say.

[@StillAliveAndKicking_]

This wins the click bait title of the day. Rules: Don’t give any hints as to the content. Use superlatives, the more the merrier. Don’t forget, it’s all about harvesting those monetised clicks, so don’t have any shame. Have fun. PS After reading the title and image phrase, I need a shower. How can anyone be so shameless?