What makes vibrant and innovative research?

Patrick ProsserACRG & APES

andFriends (ACRG, APES, NASA, LIRMM, IBM, CSIRO)

“What IS vibrant and …?”

• I couldn’t ask that, however …– “What MAKES …?”

• “innovative”– can we have research that is not …?

• I can give you an answer, but ...– I asked my friends

“What I would like to know is what you consider the ingredients that allow you to be productive, and also some of the things that most definitely get in the way of your progress?”

I asked friends, people I work with, that I know, andknow the quality of their work

Ian GentAPES

• St. Andrews, Strathclyde, Edinburgh (DAI), Warwick, Cambridge

• “… our series of footnotes … (stolen from Alan Bundy)• “I would emphasise enjoying yourself.”• “… create an atmosphere where you enjoy doing

research …”• “I try to do only research I’m going to enjoy doing.”• “… it is a very personal thing for me.”• “It is such a great joy to do a job you actually enjoy, and

pretty much the only reason to do an academic job.”

• Did you count how often Ian used “enjoy”?

Ken BrownConstraints Group, Aberdeen

• Aberdeen, CMU, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow• “… you have to enjoy doing research.”• “… environment … where people are encouraged to talk

about their research and share their enthusiasm”• “… presenting their research or chatting about it

informally”• “Procedures need to be geared to make this happen.”

– “… invited speakers, informal seminars, discussion sessions, coffee breaks, meeting rooms …”

• “… physical layouts in which researchers are intermingled with teaching staff.”

Ken BrownConstraints Group, Aberdeen

• Hindrance to progress– increasing admin and teaching load– short term targets

• employ more people to help do admin & teaching• Be exposed to people with different backgrounds, problems,

solutions, etc• Be encouraged to think wild thoughts without having them

dismissed• “I still remember being surprised a number of years ago

when a colleague called a meeting of the (already productive) research group and demanded we all came up with new problem areas so that we could break out of what we were doing”

• EPSRC Advanced Fellowship (YORK), Strathclyde, Edinburgh (DAI), Marie-Curie Post Doc Fellow (Trento & Nancy), Cambridge

• “EPSRC and others are starting to realize you invest in people. Given them space, get a critical mass … and wait for the results to come pouring in.”

• “I definitely learnt a lot from Alan Bundy.”• “… footnotes …”• “It is important to build trust and social relationships.”• “Research retreats are a good idea.”• “… informal weekly meetings … expose results at an

early stage … to a supportive (but critical) audience …”

Toby WalshAPES, DREAM, AIG

• “… travel! ”– and that is why he is the apes ambassador

• “Going to conferences exposes you to new ideas, gives a good feel for direction of research, make new contacts …”

• “Taking a sabatical, visiting a colleague in a foreign country “

• “You are taken outside of your regular environment (and many distractions) so can focus on new topics, …”– toby

Toby WalshAPES, DREAM, AIG

David ManloveACRG

• Glasgow & Oxford

• What is “vibrant” research• “… benefit the community … driven by a real-world application”• “… help us to gain a better understanding of some other problem

…”• “… because we find it interesting …”• “The knowledge we have gained is an investment …”

• What “facilitates” ?• “Yourself. … only you might hold the key …”• “The team about you. How well you can work together, exchange

ideas and communicate with each other.”• “To be able to devote enough time to research.”• “… the ability to know when to move on to another problem …”

David ManloveACRG

• What facilitates?• Ability to present material to others• research facilities on tap … equipment, library, finances

to travel to conferences and to other institutions, secretarial and technical support

• support from colleagues … vital for morale and confidence

Jeremy FrankNASA

• “… there are 2 important things about NASA …”

• a wide range of problems that people work on• … range of problem solving techniques• In the same day I can hear people talking about very theoretical

problems , very practical problems, and most everything in between.• … you can both find a place for yourself and never fall into a rut• I can get several different angles on the same problem

• NASA has fantastic people working here• … people are very happy to talk to you about their work, help you with

your problems, and trade experiences• … people are happy to be working at NASA• There is really nothing like choosing to work among a bunch of motivated

happy people like that

Jeremy FrankNASA

• “There is an additional aspect to working at NASA which is very important, but a bit more controversial, and that is the applications. Unarguably, the technology we work on at NASA has some very cool end-uses.”

• One person who came here from Xerox PARC said that while he tried to get excited about copy machines as immobile robots, it was hard to do so.

• … diagnosing failures in a subway switching system and a deep space probe may be similar … there is something very powerful about knowing that you are working on something really cool

• “… appreciating the end application is also a big part of my motivation …”

Barbara SmithLeeds

• “… be able to talk to people who have a different point of view on similar problems … e.g. for constraint programers it’s good to talk to OR people.

• “… a different perspective can spark off new ideas …”

• “… having a range of real applications to work on is valuable.”

• it gives you a handle on what is important and what might not be• it motivates you because you’re doing something useful• it stretches you because you have to tackle things that you wouldn’t

choose to do otherwise because they are too difficult

Patrick ProsserGlasgow

• Strathclyde, Alcan Plate, Britoil/BNOC, NEL, ILOG,BT,Burroughs

• “I’m not very good at doing research on my own.”– working with new people in new areas stimulates my research– conference travel helps me meet people I work with

• “To work well with them I have to feel at ease with them”– … to do research you expose your ignorance, and it is easier to

do that with people you trust

• “Research is like play”– I prefer to play with my friends

• I do not feel that I need an application to drive my research– it is fun and a pleasure, the same as building and flying a kite– I don’t need a reason to fly a kite

• So why did you work for BT, Britoil, Burroughs, Alcan, ILOG, Pirelli, Sintef, TollPoste Globe?

Patrick ProsserGlasgow

• StrathAPES has been the best environment yet

• footnotes have encouraged us to communicate openly• weekly meetings (with doughnuts, cakes, home baking)• we reached critical mass early on and have kept it• we have an ambassador• the group is dynamic (it grows and shrinks and grows and …)• physical layout of the lab• we enjoy each others company

Christian BessiereLIRMM

• (once) The fastest man in France

• “… as said by Toby: travel, travel, and travel again”• go to conferences, take your dinners and drink beers with other

people• all my collaborations started in a conference banquet or coffee break

• “… working in a pleasant group with at least 4 or 5 people”• having a place to exchange informal ideas is something French

people have difficulty to do … because they are too proud of themselves and miss this Scottish humour that would permit them to have fun when speaking of research.

• “… the importance of helping young researchers to feel quickly members of the community”

• they have plenty of original things to bring to us

Evgeny SelenskyGlasgow

• New member of acrg & apes, from Moscow

• “The ability to share experiences … and ask questions in a

friendly setting”

• “To produce results I think I have to have time to swing the

pendulum to the maximum amplitude gathering

knowledge.

• I like to study all the surrounding issues relevant to a topic

• “This is just a beginning of my scientific career. I think

having my family here is a necessary thing for emotional

support.”

Andrew DavenportJohn Watson Labs, IBM

• “I think it is important to work with people who have different

skills … I am working with experts in integer programming,

operations research and economics.”

• “… do cross-disciplinary research, or work in a cross-disciplinary

environment. … bring a wide range of skills to bear on a

particular problem … and access to research problems in other

fields than your own.”

• “… it is important to situate my work in the real world. The real

world has a complexity which gives rise to interesting research

questions. … Nobody would ever dream of inventing such

problems. … I learn a great deal from solving them. … usually

complex and pathological enough that one has to be creative …

new techniques “

Andrew DavenportJohn Watson Labs, IBM

• “I have often seen theoreticians propose new and

interesting approaches to solve problems, which they never

implement or test. People … are unlikely to use these ideas

… unlikely that researchers will implement … little glory in

confirming … someone else’s idea …”

• “… much great research, or art, comes out of people living

in adverse conditions e.g. totalitarian regimes, wars, New

York city. People in such conditions either need to innovate

to survive, or innovate to escape from the horror of their

daily lives. …”

• “Hope all is going well in Glasgow.”

Phil KilbyCSIRO (Oz)

• “Appropriate pressure. It is good to have time, but too much

time can be a problem too - one just keeps digging deeper

and deeper without tieing anything up. … an external

deadline … is good”

• “Good problems … I find this spurs on good work.”

• “Sport. An environment that allows time for me to get out 2

or three times a week and have a run around (without

feeling like I’m cheating the company of precious time)

really keeps me in a positive frame of mind, and keeps me

keen.”

Summary (of what they thought important)

• procedures such as footnotes and arranged meetings

• but these are informal, and can be encouraged by procedure

• Physical layout, intermingling of staff & researchers

• Variety of people with different ideas and backgrounds

• Know when to quit and move on

• Appropriate pressure

• Leadership? Toby mentioned learning from Alan Bundy

• Trust, social relationships

• Travel, to sense direction, broaden horizon, meet

people

• Applications, complex, the cooler the better, wide

range

• Support from colleagues

• People, invest in people

• enjoyment, fun, chill out without guilt

• INFORMAL procedures such as footnotes and arranged meetings

• Physical layout, intermingle staff & researchers

• People with varied backgrounds, different ideas, skills, …

• Know when to quit … and move on

• Appropriate pressure

• Leadership? (Toby learning from Alan Bundy)

• Social relationships, trust

• Applications: complex, cool (no mention of size Malcolm)

• Travel: to sense direction, broaden horizons, meet people

• Support: from colleagues, technical, admin, …

• People: invest in them

• enjoyment, fun, chill out without guilt

Summary (but no conclusion!)