Physics world.
Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly
podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.
In this episode,
I'm going to chat with Annette Bramley, who
has over twenty years experience
fostering research excellence in The United Kingdom
and has coauthored a new book about how
to build a successful research collaboration.
But first
Twenty twenty two is the United Nations International
Year of Glass,
And, naturally, we're very excited about that here
at Physics World.
I'm joined down the line by my colleague
and the Physics World features editor, Tushna Kamasariat,
who is planning a special issue of the
magazine for later this year that will celebrate
glass.
Hi, Tushna.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Hamish. Great to be here. And, yes,
we're definitely excited about the year of glass
and the special issue that is hopefully gonna
be the month of May,
for all of you. Very keen to read
it.
Excellent. So so, Tushna, what is an UN
international
year? Because I think we've we've covered them
in the past, haven't we? What does such
a thing entail?
Yeah, Hamish. The UN picks a topic,
and it's it's
quite varied. They've had all different sorts of
themes and topics, and the ones we've covered
in the past are,
well, there was a rather obvious year of
physics.
I think that was 02/2005.
Mhmm. And then they've had things like the
year of astronomy.
One of the things that I remember that
we did a lot about was the
year of light,
and that was in 2015,
if I remember correctly.
And so it's this you know, it's this
idea that they pick these these key
things, and and and it's a whole year
of celebrating
the science and society and the applications.
It's it's just lots of stuff about glass,
isn't it? Indeed. Exactly. So it's like a
whole list of programs and events for the
whole year.
And and so it kicks off, I think,
in a few weeks, doesn't it, with with
an opening conference on glass in Geneva?
That's right. Yes. That's right. They're gonna have
a big opening ceremony in Geneva, and then,
you know, they have,
they have an international high-tech industrial congress, which
is in
Shanghai later on, and then a similar thing
in Berlin. And the of course, with,
a topic like this,
there's gonna be some amazing museums and art
galleries that will get involved through the year.
And, apparently, the clo the closing ceremony will
be in Japan in December. So it is
truly all over the world. And, obviously, glass
is something, but,
you know, it is like light. It's absolutely
everywhere.
And it looks like there's lots of local,
events. One that really intrigued me was one
called from pharaohs to high-tech
glass, and that's a conference that's going to
be held in Egypt, of course,
in in April and May. So it looks
like there's lots of really interesting things about
glass coming up this year. Mhmm. And and
so from your point of view, you know,
you're you're trying to put together a program
for for Physics World magazine. What are some
of the intersection points between physics and glass
that you're looking at?
Well, there's so many. It's almost
too much to sort of squeeze into one
issue, which is only a good thing, really.
But, you know, I mean, obviously, there's the
very literal, you know, the amount of glass
we use in our laboratory in physics in
so many different ways.
And, you know, it was something,
that, you know, I think we all sort
of discussed, what it was like when there
were actual glass blowers that worked in physics
laboratories,
you know, that a little bit of
interesting history,
and and sort of the very practical bits
there.
But then, of course, there's also, you know,
there's all sorts of interesting
glasses and glassy materials
when it comes to condensed matter physics. You
know, there's been a number of Nobel prizes,
awarded to it from last year's spin glasses
to Phil Anderson's Nobel.
And so there's that idea of condensed matter
glasses.
And then there's all these modern high-tech glasses
from windows to windshields,
and then there's fiber optic cables.
There's the very cool applications of glass and
some very key big science experiments, like, you
know, the ones
that jumped to mind for me immediately,
the mirrors in LIGO,
and, of course, any other interferometer, really,
or the photomultiplier
tubes in Kamiokande,
you know, some some sort of beautiful and
key uses of glass. So, really,
you know,
glass is everywhere in physics. It is. It
it is everywhere, isn't it? And, you know,
also in real life, of course, you know,
the the Internet is brought to us via
glass fiber optics and, you know, you've got
glass
windscreen in your car. And, I'm drinking out
of a a glass right now, because my
throat's getting a bit dry. It's yeah. It's
I mean, it's such an amazing material
and and so many opportunities.
Now I know I know you don't want
to give away too much, but what are
some of the ideas that you're exploring at
the moment for for that special issue
of physics world, that's looking at glass?
Well,
some of them are the ones that I've
just mentioned.
Of course,
we'll be looking into,
hopefully, all of these topics. As I said,
there's definitely gonna be,
some stuff on the condensed matter angle.
We're hopefully gonna have an interesting thing on,
you know, the sort of practical users and
also,
the physics of glass blowing maybe,
and and, you know, art with glass.
And, you know, unsurprisingly,
the president of this International
Year of Glass,
is,
one
Alicia
Duran. She is,
part of,
you know, and and she's she's a Spanish
researcher, and she is a physicist or at
least she has a degree. Oh, fantastic.
So, you know, and and she she covers
a whole lot of interesting things. So we're
gonna we're gonna be talking to her
and getting her her look, her her perspective
on this because she was one of the
key people,
involved in putting together this proposal
for the UN,
that, you know, was ultimately successful. And and
and so she's the president of this year
of class. So we're hopefully gonna have her
insights
on what it's like for her working in
this field and,
how she sees this year going. Great stuff.
And I understand that you'd like to hear
from Physics World readers and podcast listeners
about what they would like to see in
the special issue. What what what's the best
way for them to to get in touch
with you?
Well, yeah, I'd love to I mean, if
any of you have any interesting ideas or
if you're,
if you're a researcher working in in the
field,
if you're working in something glassy
and you'd like to,
talk about your research,
to us, then, yeah, drop us an email.
Let us know via email.
You can con you can find the details
on the contact us page,
on our website, and, let us know what
you think. You can also tweet to us,
and, we'll we'll get all your ideas in,
and we'll see what we can do.
Well, that's great. And, yeah, as Tusha said,
check out the Physics World website for, an
email contact or indeed a link to our
to our Twitter page. That that sounds like
a really exciting project, Tushnet. Thanks for coming
on the podcast.
Lovely chatting as always, Hamish.
Despite the popular character of the lone scientist,
research is usually a group activity.
Physicists normally work in small to medium sized
teams and will often collaborate with people outside
of their group,
sometimes at the same university
and other times with people halfway around the
world.
To talk about how scientists can be more
effective
at collaboration,
I'm joined down the line from the University
of Manchester
by Annette Bramley,
who is coauthor with Liz Ogilvy of the
book Research Collaboration,
A Step by Step Guide to Success.
Annette is director of the N8 Research Partnership
of the research intensive
universities in the North Of England,
and we'll also chat about the role of
that organization.
Hi, Annette. Welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Hamish. Thanks for having me. This is
very exciting.
So, Annette, there are many ways that scientists
can work together. What would you define as
collaboration?
So I think there's so many ways that
you can define collaboration, and that's, you know,
one of the challenges of of the book,
really. But literally, to go back to first
principles,
collaboration is is about working with someone else.
It's something you can't do on your own.
In the book, we've really focused on
the collaborative
advantage that you can get when you combine
the unique skills and resources and expertise of
of two researchers
to be more than the sum of their
parts.
And and so when you think of collaboration,
do you count, you know, what goes on
within
a research group as collaboration,
or are you looking more at sort of
external
collaborations,
outside of a specific group? Yeah. So I
think you can look at it, several ways,
and a lot of it is about the
dynamics
of the relationship.
So for,
so every collaboration
is about a relationship between human beings, at
least one other human being, but sometimes,
you know, more than one other human being.
And and I think, you know, you could
think about, for example, a,
a PhD supervisor and their student.
And for some supervisors
and some students,
at various degrees of maturity,
that will move from a relationship which is
maybe quite directive at the start of,
a a PhD project, for example,
to something which is much more collaborative
over a period of time where
the supervisor and student really start to be,
influencing each other,
and modifying
their own thinking and modifying the way the
project goes based on both of their input.
Whereas at the start,
it might not have been like that. And
I think there are lots of examples
like that really,
where collaboration is kind of on a spectrum.
So even in the very, very big
collaborations that you might see,
at some of the big
physics site and the Large Hadron Collider or
or something like that, you, you know, you
will have people in that collaboration,
and some of them will be kind of
experiencing quite a directive relationship, and others will
be having this kind of very collaborative
relationship where they're coming up with ideas together
and are being influenced by each other and
shaping the direction of the project.
And so I think, you
know, different people can move in and out
of this kind of collaborative mode at different
points and in different parts of their,
relationship.
But the kind of crux
of collaboration being about the the interaction between
human beings is really kind of what underpins
the the whole,
story
of of the book,
because it starts with it starts with you
as a as an individual,
and then we build it up through you,
a team, an organization,
and then kind of a whole r and
d system, you know, multiple organizations. So that
that kind of spectrum, I think, I I
also think about that in terms of,
research disciplines. So is it a single discipline
or is it multidisciplinary?
But actually,
you know, research always lies somewhere on a
spectrum,
whether that's of a single discipline
or or a tiny part of a discipline
and another subdiscipline
all the way to something which is, you
know, maybe quite extremely interdisciplinary.
And I and I try not to get
bogged down in the,
you know, in the is it inter or
trans or multidisciplinary,
but more think about it as this kind
of beautiful
spectrum,
where there's there's lots of different shades and
lots of different colors in between.
So, Annette, in your book, you encourage people
to develop the right mindset
for collaboration.
What do you mean by the right mindset?
And is that is that
can that be a difficult thing for some
people to, to achieve?
So I think that there's a kind of
various mindsets that you need to to have
if if you're gonna,
collaborate successfully.
So, for example,
we talk about the importance
of thinking about,
scarcity and abundance.
So in a in a kind of a
scarcity mindset, there's not enough. And if you
want to collaborate with people, then you have
to have the perception that there's enough to
go round and that there's plenty to share.
You have to be able to, be willing
to share kind of some power and control.
You have to be able to understand that,
you might be wanting to collaborate or you
might need to collaborate with someone who you
normally compete with.
And then
how do you how do you, yeah, overcome
that kind of tendency
to want to compete, to be able to
see the benefits of working with a competitor
to to get to get more out of
it?
So there's there's lots of different kind of
mindsets that that you need to adopt.
Another one is about being proactive and not
being defensive.
It's about mindsets and behaviors. And for some
people,
you know, it can it can be a
challenge. And that's not,
a reflection on
the person, but it's often the way that
over many
years and decades in some cases, they've been
trained into a certain way of culture, a
certain way of thinking,
a certain way of doing things.
And I the part of the book is
saying, well,
if you really want to collaborate, and, of
course, not everyone does, but if you do
want to collaborate, then then maybe
have a think about some of these perspectives
and some of these issues.
And then you may be able to put
yourself in a better position to
to collaborate successfully.
And and, ultimately, that's, you know, that's what
we want. We want to kind of help
people to have the,
positive experience of of collaboration so that they
can, you know, develop new knowledge,
and new understanding of the world,
and and be transformed in that experience because
working with with other people with different perspectives
is is, you know, transformative
and can be really beneficial to your own
research.
Now now here in The UK, we have
a very exam based education system,
you know, particularly for,
for for children, young people who who study
science. And there there are a lot of
countries around the world that have similar systems.
Is it difficult taking a young person who's
essentially
been used to working solo,
you know, with the one goal of of
of getting a great grade on their exam?
Yeah. Is it difficult for people like that
to
to to to become involved in collaboration? Do
they tend to to want to do everything
because that's what they had to do during
their schooling?
I think it's less to do with
with schooling as to kind of what their
perceptions are about what's gonna make them successful
in the career that they are choosing.
Many people who
would like to pursue an academic career,
you know, would feel that having
first name author papers in high impact journals,
is is going to be the the the
the absolutely key thing. And I think that's
something we have to think about that UKOI
are introducing their,
or building on the world society's resume for
researchers and making that more,
of a requirement for their funding, which,
means that that people have an opportunity
to talk more about
the things that they do in research,
which
are maybe civic kind of citizen responsibilities
or, you know, are part of these kind
of networks and collaboration building,
activities. So I I think it's more about
what what people especially people coming into the
the the the field would see as
how they're going to be measured,
and and and and what success looks like.
I I I guess I'd also reflect there's
quite a lot of work done at schools,
and even in universities and in undergraduate courses
about
working as teams. You know, you kind of
have team building days and team building courses.
But actually collaboration is about something more,
it involves build team working, but but but
it there's subtly something more and
we don't teach and understand all of these
kind of skills and that's what this book
is is kind of helping to do is
provide a resource to help people think about
that and to to teach it or or
learn it for themselves.
Look. Collaborations
often take place between different teams,
And, that I suppose that can really add
an an extra layer
of complexity to relationships. You know, you could
have individual team members
collaborating with other team members, or all the
collaboration
could go through
team leaders,
I suppose, is another way to to manage
such a collaboration.
Is there a best way for a team
to approach a collaboration, or does it really
depend on,
on the nature of what they're doing?
I think very much it it, you know,
it's,
as we spoke at the at the start
about research and and and those kind of
relationships being on a spectrum, I think, you
know, this again, you know, each each team
and and arguably each of the relationships within
those teams will be,
in a in on a different part of
that spectrum.
But I think
going into collaborations,
one of the things that that that teams
can do
is think about
their own
psychological safety
as a as as a group. And, you
know,
I guess, for some of your listeners, they
won't have
heard maybe of the term psychological safety
very much. And it may and it but
it what it really means is, you know,
that in with this group of people, I'm
okay to show up
and ask questions,
pose,
challenging or constructive viewpoints.
I you know, it's going to be okay
for me to ask a question if I
don't understand.
And and as human beings, we're kind of
quite highly attuned to to those those kinds
of dynamics, you know, they've evolved over over
billions of years. And if and if you
don't feel safe,
you don't show up,
authentically to work, but also you might keep
good ideas to yourself.
And and so
I think what is important is for for
teams to think about,
are we psychologically
safe?
Have we got a leader or is our
kind of person leading?
You know? Are they are they helping to
shape, you know, make it psychologically safe? Because,
you know, ultimately,
the leader will, you know, really have a
strong influence on that.
And and think about,
you know, the
and and start the, you know, the other
groups coming together.
And I think, you know, if if if
you can if you can have that, then
then then that's a good starting position. And
I think the other thing is it's
we quite often think about collaboration
as,
you know, coming together and winning a huge
big grant
and, you know,
all the bells and whistles that come with
that. And and so, actually, it can seem
really daunting to get into collaboration. I think
one of the things we can do, especially
when,
you know, it's early days, is to just
take things, like, to just to to lower
the bar a little bit and and to
kind of take things one step at a
time,
and not to put so much pressure
on the relationship
or on the people,
but to, you know, to have to have
these kind of stepwise interactions where you build
trust,
you build understanding, you start to build a
common language over time.
And then and then you'll be ready to
go and bid for something perhaps,
but also the fact that you've tried being
in collaboration and and maybe it wasn't the
right thing.
It does that's also okay, you know, and
you can go off and try another collaboration.
I think we we put we put a
lot of pressure on ourselves
to get everything right first time and,
and and and go and win the grant
or or, you know, get the publication. And,
actually, with collaborations, you
it's about relationships,
and you can't win them. You know, they're
a process, and they're evolving. And
and and, eventually, they might kind of come
to an end, you know, and and that's
that's all good. You know? That's that's part
of part of the rich tapestry of life.
And,
and I and that's a so for me,
kind of not putting so much pressure on
the relationships in the early days is, you
know, again, a good thing, which which means
you have to start relationship building while in
advance of,
you know, any potential
large funding, you know, call in an ideal
world if you can do that.
And collaborations
can occur, within the same university.
And, you know, I think some universities are
better than others at at at sort of
fostering,
collaborations and cross disciplinary,
interactions.
What can an organization do to encourage
intramural
collaboration?
Because I I would guess that maybe sometimes
collaborating
with somebody down the corridor could be more
difficult than collaborating with somebody halfway around the
world for, you know, sort of institutional
or or even political reasons.
Yeah. And and in a a previous,
a previous role when I was, you know,
looking after in fact, I was looking after
the mathematicians at EPSRC.
I would quite often go go go and
visit the community and and and, actually, you
know, what they did was so, you
know, their research was so specialized that people
on the other side of the world might
understand, but but somebody's four doors down the
corridor might might not. Right? So so I
I completely kind of resonate with that.
But there's
so much
latent talent
and innovation
within our institutions
that we could be harnessing if if we
could do some of that. It's definitely
something that universities
can can be encouraging.
So how do they go about that? Well,
obviously,
workload and time pressures
are are some of the,
you know, are some of the kind of
key things that we all know, especially with
the pandemic,
everyone's been under.
So I think we have to kind of
recognize that there
are genuine
barriers to people doing
something which
is is gonna take some time,
but but may not have an immediate payoff.
And and so I think there's
there there's a need for higher level staff
in the university to recognize that and make
provision for that.
I think it's also about,
you know, the lit the sort of the
leaders in the organization
explaining why it's important,
showing that it's
that it's valued, and factoring it in
to, you know, reward and recognition
or, you know, who gets celebrated,
what stories
get
talked about in the internal newsletters. Yeah. All
of all of that kind of stuff,
is really important. And the stories we tell
ourselves are hugely important.
The sort of rituals and routines that we
have all
all add up to organizational
culture. You know, how do we
build that common language? You know, if you're
if you are somebody who's in something very
specialized and you want to go and talk
to someone else,
you have to kind of be able to
to build yourselves a common language and that's
gonna mean that that that's gonna take time
and and and effort.
So so I think there's lot that I
mean, there's lots that that universities
can be doing, you know, and they come
you know, physical spaces as well, you know.
Did does it feel do you feel okay
if
you walk into, you know, you're a physicist,
but you walk into a school of geography,
you know, and how do you feel in
that space, you know, because it's probably somewhere
you might not have been before. And,
yeah, I remember doing that when I was
at university and I was a PhD student.
I used to,
I used to go from my lab to
to,
part of the part of the chemistry department,
actually, to use an atomic force microscope.
And I kind of used to skulk in
there. Like, I felt like I'm an intruder.
And,
you know, people I always thought people would
be asking me what I was doing. You
know, what on earth are you doing here?
You're you're not in the chemistry department kind
of thing. So, yeah, I I can really
recognize that, you know, that that can actually
be, you know, a barrier, especially if people
are, you know, introverted or unsure
or, you know, it it just is another
thing that you have to kind of get
over. So having these, like, neutral spaces or,
you know, arranging to meet
in a cafe or, you know, all of,
you know, all of that is is really
kinda helpful
and thinking about,
you know, what's what's gonna get in the
way of us getting on.
So is it it sounds like really obvious
stuff but actually unless you're quite intentional about
it,
it can be so obvious that you just
don't stop to think about it. And one
of the things that we're doing
in the book is is being really explicit
about
some of the success factors so that maybe
if you've had a collaboration and it's been
working, you can go, oh, yeah. This is
why this is working,
and maybe that's why, oh, we never did
that. Or maybe that's why that didn't work
quite so well. Maybe that's something we can
kind of tease out.
So so, yeah, it's a real how to
book and,
I hope there's I mean, I can't I
can only sort of scrape the surface of,
you know, we go into organizational collaboration a
lot, and,
there's there's so many little things that you
could tweak. You know, these are kind of
big complex organizations,
and there's lots of little things you can
do that that might seem insignificant, but, actually,
they can look a huge amount if if
you do it consistently,
over time.
Now the the COVID nineteen pandemic
has really changed
how many of us work with others,
and many collaborations
have moved online.
Although, I suspect a lot of
physics collaborations
were done online
before
COVID nineteen came along.
And if you add to this our sort
of desire to reduce,
carbon footprints,
how how is this move to online
going to impact future collaborations?
Well, I think it can
it can only go one way in that.
It's going to keep increasing. As as as
as in everything, there are pros and cons.
And so what we need to kind of
watch for is,
you know, what are the what are the
great advantages
of,
of collaborating online? And we know that, you
know, for from the past two years, yeah,
we can do an awful lot of stuff
very effectively online.
We can build
really quite strong relationships online without
actually meeting people face to face.
And the tech is improving all the time
to make it more seamless,
and to make it,
you know, much so so I'm thinking, you
know, if I if I cast my mind
ahead, you know, speculatively,
you know, at the moment, we're doing this
kind of in Zoom or on on Teams
and it's two d, but,
you know, the the sort of big tech
firms are thinking about virtual reality
meeting environments,
you know, which will seem much more kind
of like meeting someone
in a in a real space. So I
think you will see that develop.
What what people often talk about is
is losing the serendipity
of bumping into someone
in, you know, in a in a lunch
queue or or or around the fringes of
a meeting. And and I think that there
is something in that and we have to
really try and think about
how how can we maybe try and engineer
those opportunities into our our meetings or our
conferences and our gatherings that there there is
that opportunity
to have
the kind of side conversation.
And again, you know, there are there are
new platforms being developed. I'm sure that people
listening to this podcast will have, you know,
will have used some of them maybe like
Gather Town where you can have a poster
and you can kind of walk up to
it. And as you get near to people,
you can kind of hear what the you
know, that you kind of come into the
conversation.
So so that all of these things, you
know, are are developing,
all the time.
But, Faye, there are things where Faye, you
know, it will be nice for
for really good relational reasons to have face
to face conversations.
And
we will,
I think, be more intentional about the way
we use those. So we'll be more mindful
that if we've traveled
a long way to see someone or to
go to a conference, maybe we won't,
sit and do our email while we're there.
You know? Maybe we'll be much more kind
of focused and present,
while we're with the people that we're with
rather than multitasking. And I think that if
if we could do that, that would be
a real
benefit in terms of the quality of our
relationship,
our creativity,
the types of ideas that we're having,
the listening that we can do to each
other.
So, yeah, I I'm I'm optimistic,
about about the use of technology. I have
to say I think there's there's some really
interesting,
developments
that could really add value to what we're
doing, but I think we just need to
be intentional about it.
Yeah. I I definitely,
take take your point about not traveling halfway
around the world just to sit there and
check your emails and, you know,
write a draft of that paper that you're
working on. Because that, well, that that always
drove me crazy at, at scientific conferences. So,
yeah, hopefully, maybe maybe we'll people will appreciate
a bit more,
you know,
being together and being able to talk, and
listen. I I think that's right. But as
I think about, you know, people who organize
conferences will think about how they organize them
differently.
Because,
you know, that's the that's the other side
of that coin,
is
is to, you know, well, what actually might
be better as a webinar?
What might be better
as,
or or what will be better faced? You
know, what people gonna pay money? Because ultimately,
conferences have to make money, don't they? What
people make, you know, want to make what
will make it worthwhile people traveling,
you know, and using up,
you know, however much of their, carbon footprint
to to come.
So so I think that's that's the other
thing is it's not just for kind of
scientists
to to think about, but it's also about
publishers and conference organizers
and,
everybody really in the in in the system
to think about when we
want to be together in the same room
and and when things may be better,
done online.
Mhmm.
Now, Annette, you're the director of n eight,
the n eight research partnership of research intensive
universities
in the North Of England.
Can can you tell us a bit about
n eight?
Yeah. So, n eight, it was was formed
in, 02/2006.
And so last year, we celebrated our fifteenth
anniversary.
And, actually, well, the clue is in the
name.
We're the eight
most research intensive universities in the North Of
England. And my members are right across the
North Of England, so Lancaster, Liverpool, and Manchester,
in the Northwest,
Leeds, York, and Sheffield
in Yorkshire,
and, Newcastle and Durham in the Northeast.
And
the the vision of the n eight research
partnership is to be an exceptionally effective cluster
of research innovation and training excellence.
And so they're
real focused there on the excellence.
And then the other part of of the
vision is, to bring benefits to the economy
and communities in the North Of England and
beyond.
So it's kind of two parts to that,
which is about bringing benefits. So,
you know, pushing back the frontiers of science,
but also bringing benefits to to, you know,
to the plat to our places,
but also being of the North, but for
both the North and The UK and the
rest of the world. So,
the research and innovation that happens within those
universities isn't, you know, isn't just gonna be
applied in the North Of England, but is
gonna bring,
benefits,
of various different geographical scales. And Annette, you're
also an artist, and I believe you have
a certificate in technical
hand embroidery
from the Royal School of Needlework. And I
think you're you're you're working on another
qualification there as well.
Does your artistic experience
inform your views on research collaboration?
So I think as,
as much as as,
it's about the
art,
it's about the learning. I think for me,
having having,
you know, hobbies
and or a side hustle,
in
in in other areas. So I'm also, studying
for a diploma in, in in group sound
therapy.
And I think this kind of, like, again,
a learning mind
set really helps to inform
my thinking about collaboration
because
for one, it gets me to meet a
whole range of different people from different backgrounds.
And
diversity is something I'm, you know, of all
forms,
extremely passionate about and
really is hugely
important,
for for collaboration.
And so I so I think part of
it is that is about that. Part of
it is that that willing willingness to be
a learner, you know, and have the beginner's
mind and and go in and and find
something
new. And,
then if that starts to kind of make
connections, but also you don't mind then being
a beginner
at at something, which, you know, maybe I'm
really good at collaboration,
and was less good at sound therapy when
I started, and I feel a bit better
now.
But but, you know, all of that is,
you know,
is is really good for
it's it's quite a leveler.
And thinking about, you know, who has who
has power, the status, and hierarchy in a
room is is another thing when you're thinking
about collaborating.
And
and so I think
not always being the person with power and
status in a room
is is quite good for you. And so
I guess that that does that does that
does influence me.
And, of course, being completely passionate about about
the embroidery and the art,
I really want to see more,
arts and humanities,
social sciences collaboration with the same disciplines.
I think many of the challenges that we
face as a world you know, if you
take,
climate change,
then we need we need everybody
to be working on various different aspects of
that challenge in order to make a difference.
The tech will come from, you know, physicists,
engineers,
but behavior change,
communication,
understanding trade offs and compromises
that people will make. You know, we I
think the pandemic has shown as well that
we need all of that, right, to get
working together towards the common goal. And then
we can really do stuff that's extraordinary
on time scales that we would never have
imagined.
And that's,
you know, that's that's why collaboration is, you
know, so hugely important.
Annette's book is called Research Collaboration,
a Step by Step Guide to Success.
It's published by IOP Publishing, and it's available
on the IOP science platform
and from some bookshops.
Thanks for moving on the podcast, Annette.
Thanks for having me, Hamish. I've really enjoyed
it.
On the December 25, the James Webb Space
Telescope blasted off from Earth on a 1,500,000
kilometer journey to its orbit at the L
2 Lagrange Point, where it arrived this week.
From that vantage point, it will observe the
cosmos in fantastic
detail,
launching astronomy into an exciting new era.
In the latest episode of the Physics World
Stories podcast,
host Andrew Glester
meets James Webb Space Telescope
scientists
who recall their experiences
of the mission launch and the telescope's journey
so far.
And, of course, they look forward to the
first observations,
which should be made in about six months'
time.
You can find this edition of the Stories
podcast on the Physics World website
or at your favorite podcast provider.
Just look for the title, the James Webb
Space Telescope
Launches Astronomy
Into a New Era.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast. Thanks to Annette Bramley
and Tushnet Kamasariat
for joining me today.
And a special thanks to our producer, Fred
Ailes.
We'll be back again next week with a
lively chat about physics buildings,
the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Physics world.