Skills and attributes of Researcher

What skills does it take to become a researcher? What skills do you gain after researching (e.g. undergraduate research experience to PhD)?

What are the attributes of successful researchers?

I'm not claiming to know all the answers, but articulating these skills is important in enabling you to get new opportunities (e.g. scholarships, jobs both in and beyond academia). In this page, I am going to write down and link to a few things that may help my past, current or future students to promote themselves and their skills.

(Neither do I claim to have mastered all of these...)

Some Attributes

  • Dedication, commitment, perseverance, tenacity

  • Curiosity, inquiring mind

  • Enthusiasm

  • Passion

  • Patience

  • Motivated

  • Articulate

  • Confident

  • Level-headed

  • Practical

  • Versatile

  • Organised

  • Dependable

  • Analytic

  • Enthusiastic

  • Logical

Some skills/ attributes keywords/ thoughts.

  • Research (develop a protocol to solve a problem)

  • Problem solving

  • Innovation

  • Collegiality, working in a team, collaboration

  • Willingness to take intellectual risk

  • Open-mind

  • Willingness to learn

  • Willingness to engage with advice from supervisor

  • Strong writing and language skills

  • Strong numeracy skills

  • Intellectual insight to a problem

  • Skills in constructing scientific arguments

  • Ability to self-learn (e.g. computational techniques)

  • "Googling"

  • Evaluating, synthesizing

  • Literature review

  • Distill complex ideas into simpler ones (extract key information from scientific manuscripts)

  • Time management, self-management (what is your specific strategy here)

  • Maintaining work-life balance

Project Management

  • Systematic

  • Organisation

  • Natural instincts to lead complex projects

  • Recognise when a project is taking you down a dead-end

Communication

  • Communication in all its forms and to a variety of audiences (be explicit here!)

    • Type

      • Presentation

      • Formal writing

      • Informal writing

      • Email

      • Tweet

    • Audience

      • School students

      • Expert in your field

      • Scientifically literate non-expert academic

      • Scientifically literate non-expert non-academic (i.e. business, industry, not-for-profit sector, politics etc)

      • Non-scientific "general" public

  • Present problems clearly

  • Present results using a variety of tools - e.g. tables, figures, graphs, words, infographics etc

•TENACITY

• Think critically about complex problems

• Independence

• Analyze multifaceted situations

• Overcome fear of difficult situations

• Become comfortable learning new concepts

• Develop logical solutions

Work with people under stressful situations

• Recognize rejection is part of research, retreat and try again