Insight Exchange – October 2018 – Pilot Group
The inaugural Insight Exchange went very well!
A diverse group of thirteen participants from fields such as physics, computer science, mathematics, engineering, sociology and more, came together to talk about their personal discovery goals. As a group, we focused on defining our discovery goals and then developing insight into our progress toward those goals. We also gave and received feedback on the status of our goals, obstacles to moving forward, and strategies to try and overcome those obstacles. This session was aimed at a general academic staff audience and introduced the idea of providing a structure and shared vocabulary for thinking and talking about the discovery process. It also emphasized taking personal ownership of a discovery goal—thinking about what the individual could do to make progress. Participants had the opportunity to engage in a mix of individual thinking time and small team discussions throughout the session.
As a result of the session, a number of interesting questions were raised:
Can the types of scientific discovery one might pursue be distilled into a common set of categories? What if my personal discovery goal fits into more than one category?
Once participants had time to distill their personal discovery goal into a single statement, each one was asked to try and categorize the kind of discovery they were pursuing into one of four categories: a new object, a new attribute of a known object, a behavior/mechanism, or a technique/tool. The goals pursued by the group covered the full spectrum, but may participants had goals that straddled categories or required more expansive category definitions. This idea of categorizing types of discovery (for the purpose of better matching strategies to move forward with a particular discovery type) seemed very relevant and the groups’ comments helped give us a more nuanced perspective of the issue.
Does discovery have to follow the discovery cycle being pre-tested at “The Insightful Scientist” in a sequential way? Can I go through the cycle more than once for the same discovery goal?
Participants highlighted, in group and team discussions, that the pursuit of discovery is not a perfectly straight path! In the discovery cycle framework we currently adhere to on the site (question – ideation – articulation – evaluation – verification) feedback from each stage might cause someone to reset to a non-sequential stage. Some participants also commented that they had already completed a full cycle, but were refining aspects of their discovery goal by repeating the cycle with a newly informed beginning. Luckily, we believe in iteration too, so these insights suggest ways that the discovery cycle might be altered or adapted in future to better reflect the reality of pursuing discovery.
What if I am not pursuing a “scientific discovery goal”? What if I define it as pursuing a “discovery goal” instead?
Although the first pilot test was tailored toward “scientific discovery”, this raises the interesting question of what actually distinguishes pursuing a discovery from pursuing a scientific discovery. This definition of “what is scientific discovery” remains an open one. And do the kinds of obstacles and strategies to overcome those challenges differ? More questions to ponder and explore here on the web site in future.
You asked me to focus on “scientific blocks”, but what if what’s holding me back is really about funding or finding personnel?
A perennial challenge for those pursuing discovery is to find the resources to engage in the pursuit—be that time, money, people, or some other much needed item. For this first pilot test group we asked participants to stick to focusing on “the science” though and to try re-phrasing their funding or personnel or other resource block as a science block. So, for example, if their obstacle was “How do I find money to complete science task X to move forward with my discovery goal?” We asked them to re-frame the obstacle as “Are there alternative science techniques or processes through which I could complete task X that would be cheaper?” But the context of scientific discovery – funding climates, institutional factors, social pressures, etc. – are a reality every researcher has to face. This may merit its own special topic Insight Exchange in the future.
Wouldn’t a “special topic” Insight Exchange, with a group of experts in a related field or topic, be useful?
We agree! Four sessions are being hosted this year in order to test the Insight Exchange program. This first session covered a broad portion of the discovery cycle and included a diverse mix of researchers from different fields. We also look forward to trialing two separate sessions this year with groups of participants from more closely related areas, such as within the same field or even working on a particular topic. We hope to explore ways to make the most of the Insight Exchange.
We look forward to making improvements to the session structure and content in the future. We also look forward to more insightful questions being raised by participants that help us define and refine the framework we use here at “The Insightful Scientist” for talking about (scientific) discovery and the beliefs, processes, and behaviors that make (scientific) discovery happen.
Many thanks to the staff of the Innovation Centre for providing a wonderful host location and catering for the event.
The workshop slides sharing some of the activities pre-tested with the pilot group, as well as the “Block Buster” card template shown above, can be found on The Illustrated Scientist (Printables) page (click here).