Pursuing research as a career

By H S Sudhira

One fine morning, I chanced upon an old friend, and after exchanging pleasantries, he enquired about what I was doing for a living. I said, “I think!”

“Think?”, he quipped. “Yes”, I said, explaining that I was a researcher by profession, where my job is to think. “In other words, I get paid for thinking. On a lighter note, I am in the business of knowledge production.” He was obviously puzzled, and understanding his predicament, I elaborated further.

As a researcher or a scientist, we are all trying to expand the frontier of knowledge—finding the whats, whys and hows of things around us. We are all involved in producing new knowledge or adding to the existing body of knowledge. We are finding answers to some known questions or posing new questions based on the facts we discover. Of course, it helps to have a basic training on researching, and once equipped, they can dive into any domain of their interest.

Strong foundation

Curious, my friend further asked “So, what exact training is required?”

That’s when I started to recollect my journey. Across the disciplines of science, engineering and humanities, a doctoral degree, also called a PhD, is a must-have to establish oneself as a researcher. The doctoral program provides the requisite training to methodically carry out research. This methodology includes identifying the problem or the gap in understanding in the chosen field, covering ground on the available published research in the specific area and thus arriving at the relevant questions that need answers: the research objective.

In many instances, identifying a research problem and defining the questions in itself is research. Once that barrier is crossed, comes the pursuit of the answers. Needless to say, the process of research is physically and mentally demanding, even as one trains their mind to think over the problem and sharpen the question and get a better clarity of answers. What helps one sail through during this period is a person's passion about the topic they are working on.

“I knew about scientists but didn’t know this is what they do everyday. So, is it just a PhD that’s needed?” he asked.

Building a mind map

While a PhD is necessary, it is never sufficient by itself. Researchers need to build a mind map, charting out several aspects of the research—what is being researched, who are the people working in an area, the universities/institutions they are publishing from, journals they are publishing in and the domain of their interest. This exercise is repeated over time and needs to be revisited often. Eventually, this process helps one remain on top of things in their field of research.

There is a reason why researchers are often thought to have massive book shelves. Reading is the next on the list of must-have skills. This includes reading books, research papers or anything that is of interest and quenches one's curiosity. There are different reading strategies one can adopt, depending on what they would like to read. Writing too is a very vital skill, as it is a primary mode of communication for researchers. The research outputs—discoveries, inventions or the new body of language that we produce—all of these have to be put in writing as journal papers for our peers to validate our findings.

Of course, there are also grants, seminar papers and workshops that test logical reasoning through crisp and clear writing.

Then comes soft skills, which is as relevant to researchers as it is to professionals. One needs to know how to articulate their work through presentations in key conferences/seminars or to committees or even to the general public. A welcome trend these days is researchers trying to communicate their science to the general public, who eventually pay for the research and benefit from it.

No retirement!

“Wow! This is interesting,” my friend nodded. “Can anybody in any discipline get into a field of research? For how long can one pursue research as a career?”

Of course, as long as you follow the standard norms of asking the right questions and seeking answers to them, anybody can do research. A person who has a PhD has a licence to do research, and they can literally get into any domain. But they need to apply their training correctly. As an active researcher, one almost works towards knowledge production incrementally and there is no end to pursuing research. Look at Prof C N R Rao, Prof Roddam Narasimha or Prof Rohini Godbole; they have formally retired but they are still pursuing research.

Awed at this, my friend took leave, saying that he wished he knew this before and resolved to suggest this research as a profession to the youngsters around him.

(The writer is a researcher with Gubbi Labs, Bengaluru)