This blog post is part of a (nearly) yearly series on running a research group in academia. This post summarizes year 12, the 3rd year after moving to ETH Zurich. In the last blog post I wrote down some of our overall research directions for the first 5 years of the group at ETH and I will wait another year or two before reflecting back on those commitments. This time, I wanted to try to write down some thoughts I have been having about essentially becoming more established in academia. This includes a longer term perception of group turnover, the time and resources needed to achieve research objectives and some activities that go beyond the management of the research group.
Group member turnover cycles
With 12 years of managing a research group, I have gotten used to some of the broader rhythms of turnover of the lab. Our lab is now almost totally renewed with just 1 lab member that came with the lab from EMBL. While this turnover was somewhat enforced by the move from EMBL to ETH, the turnover of lab members is a constant in academia given the short term nature of the lab members’ positions. In our group PhD students have typically stayed for around 4 years and postdoc have typically stayed for up to 5 years. Since there is some degree of clustering of the hires there tends to be some periods of higher turnover. We have had something like 2 to 3 periods where the lab has seen a large change. In the group, I try to hire from diverse backgrounds (e.g. biology, CS and math) and we work with a range of experimental and computational approaches, including for example yeast genetics, proteomics, structural bioinformatics, machine learning, etc. This creates a nice dynamic of group members building up their projects, while at the same time learning about the capabilities of the rest of the lab. The projects are usually meant to be somewhat synergistic, trying to address bigger goals from the individual problems (see past blog post on this). This means we have had windows of around 3 years when things click together before the turnover starts again. We are just around that exciting stage in the cycle and I am really looking forward to making the best of it. I still don’t enjoy what comes next, when the group will inevitably turnover again. I have accepted that it is an opportunity to steer the ship into new directions but sometimes it is disappointing to change the group just around the time it feels like we can take on almost any challenge.
Longer term view of science
One thing that has been on my mind is that I am sometimes weary about the time it can take to achieve a research goal. I am not talking here about an individual research project which tends to take on the order of 2 to 3 years on average. In our group we have tried to address some bigger research goals, such as trying to understand the evolution of protein phosphorylation or the functional relevance of individual phosphosites. These kinds of challenges take multiple independent projects and over 10 years of time to make a meaningful dent on. These days I will look at a potential long term research goal and I will think about the many different types of methods and steps that will be needed and this can distract me from the excitement of figuring those things out. I should say that I am by no means jaded about doing research. I still get such a thrill discussing the day-to-day results with lab members, being at the frontier and trying to figure things out. It is just when I pause to think about the longer term view, either in the past or trying to project into the future that I sometimes wish things could just move faster. I have taken part in a couple of large multi-PI projects that have moved very quickly and from these I can see the temptation of trying to have large labs.
From junior to “established” PI
There is no point in time when a switch happens and someone is no longer considered a junior PI but after 12 years I can safely assume that label no longer applies to me. This has brought some relatively small changes in my job, one simple one being that I no longer think about tenure. For most of my career I was on fixed term positions, including my first group leader position at EMBL which had a time limit of 9 years. I joined ETH 3 years ago on a tenured contract and not having to think about my next job has left me with a tiny post-tenure slump - what am I aiming for ? Related to the previous section, I have considered that I could enjoy overseeing science at a higher level than as a group leader. As one example, I organized an application for a National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCRs) with 19 PIs interested in human genetics in Switzerland. While the application failed, I was really keen and excited to co-direct the center if it had been funded.
Another aspect of my job that has changed somewhat is a higher commitment to activities outside the lab, such as taking part in committees, advisory panels or formal and informal mentorship of junior PIs. I don’t feel particularly overwhelmed by these activities but that might change if I am required to take part in more committees within ETH. Not everything is an additional burden to an already busy job. I have felt that being more visible and connected in international science comes with benefits, including being easier to at least discuss collaborations or having labs interested in joint grant applications.
Scientists that have worked in academia for longer than I have might find some of these things funny and I am certainly curious about what it will feel like reading this 10 years and more from now. In fact, the blog is now a bit over 20 years old with posts starting in my PhD. While I don’t post much these days I aim to continue at least this yearly series while I feel there are some new things to say beyond the progress in our science.