Research Project Management
Depending on the composition & experience of your research team, there are strategies to help them remain productive during your leave without your day-to-day input. A first step is a detailed assessment of each member’s project, research goals, and ability to productively engage in research without your daily guidance and mentoring.
Assess Your Team's Experience
- How you manage research during your leave depends in part on the experience of your team. The goal is to identify a new leadership structure that will enable everyone’s research to progress.
- Do you have a senior member of your group including junior faculty, senior postdoc, senior graduate student, or experienced lab manager that can serve as your team leader?
- Do you have a co-investigator or collaborator that direct the team during your leave?
- Do you have a colleague with experience in your research area that can be a resource during your absence?
Research Team Mentoring
Many faculty going on leaves has the intent/plan to be available by email, text, or frequent zoom meetings. This is often unrealistic and can result in challenges. One strategy is to establish a temporary research management structure that does not include you!
- Each member of your team should now understand & respect the leadership structure that you may want to establish before your leave.
- If your group has graduate students, you can reach out to their program directors and dissertation advisory committees to let them know that you are on leave. You may be able to identify a member of this committee to serve as your proxy during your leave and establish weekly meetings for example to go over research progress and to discuss obstacles.
- More junior members of the team that may need day-to-day supervision should be aware of who will serve as your proxy both within and outside of your group.
Research Project Management
Every research project has short- and longer-term goals. While your group’s productivity might be slowed during your leave, it does not mean that it will grind to a halt. It is important to consider strategies for research project management. Now you may want to consider strategies for research project management.
- Every member of your team should already understand the short- and longer-term research goals. Your leave may be an excellent opportunity that enables each member of your team to grow and develop as researchers. For example, if your leave is for 1 month, 3 months, or possibly longer you can develop a detailed research plan.
- Realistically consider how much work can be accomplished by your mentees during your leave. Consider developing a week-by-week project plan that includes contingencies for delays & problems. Discuss alternative strategies for the experiments.
- Discuss before your leave if or how you would like to receive research updates. For example, you can ask each member to email a weekly or biweekly progress report and plans for the following block of time to you and your designated proxy. This allows you to stay up to date on progress and provide feedback if desired.
Equipment Management
- If you are listed as an emergency contact for research equipment, you may want to update the contact form. You should already know if you are in BU or BMC space which can be confirmed using this helpful tool: PI home institution search.
- Contact BMC Control center to update your equipment emergency contact sheet: 617-638-4144 or control.center@bmc.org
- Contact BU Control Center to update your equipment emergency contract sheet: 617-358-4144 or CPO-FMO-BUMC-CONTROL-CENTER@bu.edu
- Consider also reviewing with your team contingencies if lab equipment breaks during your leave which is part of your financial plan.