Digital participation and leadership training
The recent shift of academic (and not only) life into digital space due to lockdown and social distancing removed lots of important things from us, such as meeting colleagues face-to-face and going on conferences, but also made participation easier in some way. One of the drawbacks of that is the fear of missing out, as there is a large number of interesting online events on the topics of digital health, security and privacy, and human-computer interaction that seem to happen almost every day.
Even though my energy and motivation to participate in such online events has its ups and downs, last week was quite active in that sense, and there is one past and one future event I would like to talk about in this post. Both of them are about learning academic leadership and promoting a sustainable working environment, the topics I find important, and the skills I am committed to work on.
Future Digileaders
Future Digileaders was an event for selected early career researchers who identify as women or are non-binary and interested in the topic of digitalization and research themes within Trust – Learn – Cooperate dimensions. These themes cover factors such as the wellbeing and safety of people, environmental impact, and economic growth in industry, business and society. The event was a part of the Digitalize in Stockholm, an annual conference on transformation through digitalization in academia, industry, government and civil society. It included many interesting talks and panel discussions on topics such as robotics, smart cities, and the risks of digitalization (I hope they will be available online at some opint). The event usually takes place in Stockholm, and organisers included information about the city and tried to recreate the Swedish atmosphere, which to be honest made me want to move to Stockholm.
The selection process
Besides CV and publications, the selection process for Future Digileaders required a written opinion on the most important digitalization research that benefit society. My take on that focused on the research on digital health. I believe that digital transformation in healthcare is reshaping how we interact with healthcare providers and how our data is collected and shared. Disruptive COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated already existing trends and presented new challenges to the global community. Technology has the potential to provide the services that are otherwise discontinued due to the healthcare system overload or inability to maintain face-to-face interactions. For example, technology can help in reaching at-risk individuals at any time or place with a more scalable level of involvement of health professionals. However, such systems can also pose serious ethical, privacy concerns, and design challenges, so future research should pay close attention to digital health and how it is changing our lives.
The event organisation and inspiring keynote
The event was organised as a career workshop with talks, panel discussions, and networking opportunities. We discussed the joys and struggles of becoming and being faculty, professional development and a broad range of career paths and strategies, and values and practices that should be promoted in a good research environment. Prof Geraldine Fitzpatrick gave a brilliant and inspiring keynote presentation "From super chickens to superpowers: leadership through kind connections”, a heartwarming and thought provoking talk on leadership through kind connections.
Superchickens experiment. Geraldine made an analogy of a current course of academia with an experiment on the interactions among chickens observed by Purdue University evolutionary biologist, William Muir. He was interested in productivity, which was easy to measure in chickens - you count the eggs. He wanted to know what could make chickens more productive, so he devised an experiment. Chickens live in groups, so he created two flocks: an average flock, which he let alone for six generations, and a second group - superflock - of the individually most productive chickens (superchickens). At each generation of superflock, he selected only the most productive for breeding. After six generations had passed, the first group (the average group) was doing fine, and egg production had increased dramatically. As for the superflock, all but three chickens were dead, they had pecked the rest to death. The individually productive chickens had only achieved their success by suppressing the productivity of the rest.
Re-thinking academic life & leadership. The current academic environment is moving towards a similar concept (only on conceptual level though), picking the superstars and encouraging quantitative metrics ("egg-counting"): those with high h-index, number of publications, grants, awards, PhD students. The result of this has huge impact on wellbeing with high levels of burnout in academia, increasing managerial culture, job precarity, and uncertain career paths.
From Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Future DigiLeaders, 11 Nov 2020
Instead, it would be great if appreciated "superpowers" would include creating collaborative cultures where people thrive and do great science, promoting social traits of connections and care. Moving forward and learning from the experiment of William Muir, there should be less "super chickens" and more super teams. Leadership should not only be recognised for immediate countable research outputs but also for promoting sustainable and ethical working environment and building strong collaborative relationships. As Geraldine said, real change starts with us and the choices we make everyday.
Aurora - Advance HE's leadership development initiative for women
Another event - or rather series of events - I am looking forward to attending is Aurora Leadership Programme 2020/21. As I am considering a possibility to become a professor at some point of my academic career, and I am happy, honoured to be selected for this program from the Trinity College applicants, and excited about the learning opportunities ahead.
Aurora Leadership Programme targeted at women in research and professional services roles (administrative & technical) across all academic discipline and intents to support women and their institutions to fulfil their leadership potential. It will run from November 2020 to June 20201 and include action learning such as collaborative problem solving, online webinars and other resources, and institutional level support, including mentoring. I am looking forward to participating, meeting new peers, and hearing the inspirational stories of women role models.
A little bit more about the mentorship the programme offers. As a member of N2Women (Networking Networking Women) community - a discipline-specific community of researchers in the fields of networking and communications - I find it as a fantastic opportunity to get help and support from peers at a more advanced stage of their career who can point to things that might not be obvious to you. I am still in touch with my previous mentor from N2Women, and I am looking forward to connecting with Aurora mentor, and hopefully, one day to become a mentor myself.