Knowledge obtained by science is an important aspect of informed decision making and management on many different levels. During a field day, we started talking about how much time and effort goes into doing research, and that few people realize this. I therefore decided to dedicate a blog to some common struggles of research – at least those that I know of in my field. For some people this blog might be recognizable, for others, eye-opening.
Preparations Let’s start with the hours, days, weeks, months, or even years of preparation. The amount of preparation depends greatly on what you are going to do, and the same applies to practically every section of this blog. But let me give you some examples. Naturally, you have to thoroughly read into your topic to make informed decisions on what, where, and when you are going to do – taking in mind limitations such as time, money, rules, and locations. Then, you sometimes spend more time planning and calling stakeholders or landowners, than actually collecting your data. You might have to convince (all kinds of) people of the value of your research, or arrange official permits. The amount of administration and bureaucracy involved with doing research in some protected areas is quite impressive. Preparations also include getting all your materials ready, from worksheets and the actual experimental setup to your vehicle. To keep costs low, you sometimes make your own low budget experiment materials (plenty of course, for reliable experiments – would 1000 repetitions be enough?). And there are unforeseen changes to be kept in mind, like changes in staff, opinions, or management, changes of funding, availability of materials, vehicles, roads, or your research location.
Once in the field Completely prepared and excited, you head out to the field. You just need to get to your study location and start your research. This can be easier said than done… You may need to figure out where to go exactly (or where you are for that matter) with limited data and technology. Your map may be only partly usable, there may be inaccessible roads, or roads that require maintenance on the spot, or a potentially dangerous animal is blocking your path. You can spend more time getting to your location then collecting data. Even there, your experiments might not turn out as you hope. This does not only include results turning out completely different than you thought they would (which is not a bad thing, unexpected results will still teach you something!), but it goes as far as having completely ‘failed’ experiments – again due to unforeseen circumstances and changes of weather, people, and materials. I’ve had times where I spent hours making specific testing materials, only to find them ruined by the rain the next morning, or just removed or stepped on by people. Other times the things you counted on just don’t happen. For some reason that you have yet to find out, your plants don’t grow, your animals have moved away, or your focus elephant doesn’t defecate (seriously, at Elephants Alive we are eagerly waiting for elephants to produce a nice steamy bolus in our presence). You might get another opportunity to collect your data, but in the meantime you’re stuck and rather disappointed.
Data analysis Loved by some, dreaded by others: analysing your precious data. Dependent on your skills and the complexity of your data, this can take many months. It is tremendously important to do this correct though, as wrongly interpreted data will give you unreliable results. Therefore you sit behind your computer and practice, find bugs, think, try to fix bugs, run your analyses again, call in the help of an expert if necessary, feel relieved to get some help, call him or her again when you’re stuck again, and finally, finally, get your correctly achieved data. Right, now you only have to make some perfect little graphs to visualise your findings. Good luck! To be honest though, it’s definitely not always this dreadful, it gets easier over time, there are some great instructional videos online, and people are willing to help. You will survive.
Writing and reading Summarizing your findings for yourself or for your colleagues is easy. Writing it down in an official report or a scientific paper is a different story. For a scientific paper to be even remotely considered to be published in a fancy topic-specific journal, it has to live up to very strict rules. When it’s a few words too long or the format not as they please they won’t even look at it. You therefore learn to write in such a way that your product meets the needs of your target group, whether it be for publishing in the form of a scientific paper, a report for a partner, or a summary for the general public. You should always refer to the sources of your information correctly – although of course the format is not always as strict as in a scientific paper. A big part of writing is actually reading, because you need to base your statements on many reliable sources, which you should correctly quote and acknowledge. While learning how to do this at university, you honestly start wondering whether you should find a reference for stating that Paris is the capital of France (source: Wikipedia (or is this source not reliable?)). Writing a complete report is not something you do overnight. It takes time, a lot of adjustments, reading numerous papers over and over, and occasionally removing paragraphs that you previously were so proud of. In the end, you’ve stared so much at the thousands of letters you produced, that you simply can’t see obvious errors anymore, and you kindly ask someone else to read through your report - of only 40 pages long. Sometimes it is a challenge to write reports, but it can a lot of fun too, and very rewarding when you finally send it in.
Funding and outreach Conservation and ecological organisations are generally not rich. Some organisations manage to gain some money by ecotourism of all kinds, while others are more or completely reliable on funding from for example the government, conservation funds, or private donors. If the funding stops, the research or conservation efforts can’t continue, and in the worst case you have to cancel your projects or fire people. Therefore much time is often dedicated to fundraising. This includes applying for different grants as well as updating your current sponsors with a variety of media, from reports to social media posts. Both this applying and updating can take a huge amount of time, and you want to do it properly to not lose a funder. (Social) media is however also a great opportunity for outreach. Although (social) media definitely has downsides (for example strong opinions, untruths, and exaggerations), it is also a great way to share your projects, raise awareness, and educate various groups of people. Conservationists are often also working on local projects and community development. And of course, your research should reach other specialist scientists, for example by presentations, congresses, and of course publishing your results.
On the positive side Reading back on this blog I realise I have sketched a quite terrifying image of doing research. Let me take some edge of it by saying 1) the above stated struggles don’t always occur, 2) you learn to deal with all kinds of complications, 3) many situations are actually quite funny to be in, and you and your colleagues will laugh about it, and 4) all aspects of research have their charm. As a field ecologist, I absolutely love spending time in nature and observing animals. Those that feel more for lab work feel the same about their lab experiments. You often meet smart and inspiring people, learn more every day, and your research may positively influence management decisions in the future. Lastly, it brings you places. Not only different places to do experiments or collect your data, but you might also be invited for fancy congresses around the world, cool right!