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Asked by to Claire, Ian, Sergey, Vicky, Zena on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by , .
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Sergey Lamzin answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Normally, when you do research, with every question answered you create 5 new questions. Just pick the most interesting of those 🙂
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Claire Shooter answered on 20 Jun 2014:
Sometimes it’s a matter of going where the money is. If you have a specific idea for a project sometimes you can get a university, charity or company to pay you to do it. On the other hand, you can just look at all the research jobs being advertised already and apply for the ones that seem interesting. This is what I usually do and has worked out well for me so far
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Ian Simpson answered on 23 Jun 2014:
It’s a mixture of things.
Certainly continuing a strand of research that you have a good track record in can be very productive and gives you a good chance of follow on funding. However, you are always exploring the edges of new ideas and sometimes something novel takes off and you transition into that.
There definitely is an element of following the money in a lot of research, it’s hard to pursue certain topics because the money isn’t there and that can be a problem.
Sometimes exciting things break in the literature (other peoples work) and you can jump onto that and re-apply or re-purpose it for your area or it may spark ideas that you can then push forward. It’s important to keep an eye on what others are doing.
Finally, but very importantly there’s more to do than there is time to, so picking things you enjoy (and are good at) is essential too after all if you’re not enjoying and being stimulated by your research it’s going to be very hard to maintain motivation.
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