WEBVTT

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Even though in my field
of study, and specifically

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in the university, research
plans are not mandatory,

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I do tend to use some
form of research plans.

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Typically, that would be
of larger granularity.

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So I would set them in
terms of milestones,

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let's say three,
six, or 12 months.

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And then within each month,
I would refine details.

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This way, I'm able to plan
for unforeseen circumstances.

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For example, if I
plan for publications,

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but while doing
auxiliary research,

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something interesting pops
up, and I want to publish,

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I can shift around other
things and publish it.

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My thoughts about research
plans have slightly

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changed over time.

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The very first year, I was very
concerned and detailing

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all the steps of
the Gantt charts,

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because we have to do
Gantt charts as well

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with the research
plan, and I could

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see that it was not in
the second year, that

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was not too important, all
these little milestones.

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It was more important the
literature review, the content

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inside the research
plan were more important,

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than the deadlines exactly.

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It was too focused
on the deadlines.

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I have always seen
planning as important,

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but the process of
setting the plan

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has definitely
evolved over time.

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So for example, when I was
an undergraduate student,

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the narrow scope of
my responsibilities

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was asking for one
type of research plan.

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Then when I moved on to PhD, and
I needed to be more independent

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and set the direction
of research,

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that has changed the research
planning procedure again.

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When I became a
PDRA, I had to work

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with many more
people, which again,

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asked for different
research planning procedure.

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Nowadays, in my field, when
I have some experience,

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I do tend to improvise a little
more, but within some bounds

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as well.

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So I would say the
importance of research plan

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has not changed for me, even
though the procedure of setting

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the research plans has evolved.

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Having a research
plan has helped

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me remember when prompting
my supervisors and my team.

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Every time I looked
for the Gantt chart,

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I remember, OK, now is the
time to ask the supervisor

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to revise my research before
sending something to a journal,

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or to a conference, so that
the milestones that I had to do,

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were all described
in the research plan,

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including the
literature review steps,

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so they quite helped
me to maintain the focus

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on the deadlines and milestones.

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In my current work, I do a lot
of collaboration with industry.

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Industrial partners are mainly
focused on profitability, which

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is natural, and when
they need to focus

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on chasing quarterly
targets and the like,

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communication can
get slowed down.

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So recently, what
happened to me is

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I had to request access to data,
but for a number of reasons,

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this access permission
got slowed down.

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So I had to wait
for several months.

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When I requested
the data, I've also

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planned for the
eventuality where

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I don't get it right away.

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So in the end, that helped
me to really perform

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some theoretical work while
waiting for the results

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to arrive, and I was
able to finally publish

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this, which really paid off.