Today I want to talk about stalled research and how (and if we should) rescue it. Stalled research is perhaps the trickiest type of research: this is the research that you were engaged with before Covid, but have not looked at since. If you have project deliverables for a funder, you do not have the luxury of abandoning this project. In that case, fortitude is needed and extensions need to be negotiated. But at least you have somebody to be accountable to and with. You are also probably working in a team that will also keep you accountable.
If you are not tied into a funder, it can feel easy to just bin it, and move on. Dispense with the guilt. Stalled research lacks the shiny new excitement of the freshly started project. Like relationships, research is just better at the start. You don’t know how hard it’s going to be, and it’s all a wonderful discovery. It’s the follow through that is tricky. It is absolutely possible that you have started new research during Covid, but left that stalled project in a box marked ‘failed’.
The question is, will you leave it there?
If you have a stalled research project, it is possible that you have convinced yourself you have legitimate reasons for not bothering with this research anymore, eg your research method became unfeasible because the lab was shut, samples died (do samples die? I don’t know anything about Stem), or you were unable to observe participants, or carry out in person interviews etc. Someone else has written the thing you were going to do (unlikely). Maybe this is true, and you are not able to adapt your specific research method, or maybe, could it be, that you could not face making the necessary adjustments to the project to move it forward?
Picking up old research is hard. Often we have just ‘gone off’ it. Eight months ago it was cutting edge and timely, now it feels a bit ‘bleurgh’.
Should you continue?
Writing and researching slots are going to be incredibly precious in the next 12 months, so whilst in my usual writing advice I would say never abandon research (wasted time!), I think this is a genuine time to make a pragmatic call. Answer these simple questions to help frame your decision making, and take away the guilt, feelings of failure and all the *emotions* of it. Get practical.
How far along is it? Are you closer to the end than the beginning? [If Yes, this is a tick in the continue box]
How critical is this to your own personal goals (this might be tied into promotion, REF, working with certain people, publishing in certain journals)?
How difficult is X problem to overcome (new ethics committee to change research design, or just tweaks around the edges)?
Do you have partial data you could reframe into a different article / piece?
Can you work with someone who can bring a different theory/angle and ditch the empirical parts (also bonus – half the work)?
Sometimes it will not be so much abandonment than rescuing a project by changing its shape or angle, by bringing others on board or only having a partial dataset that answers one question (or poses further questions for research).
Do you want to continue?
It is only practical to engage in research rescue if you are motivated to do so. And I mean really, really motivated. In normal times, you ought to have a full research pipeline where you can move projects up and down the list, and pick up and leave off depending on deadlines, waxing and waning motivation and so on.
These are not normal times.
The next 12 months will be HARD on research and writing time. Motivation, which is always key to being a happier writer, really comes to the fore. Do you really want to do this research in the next 12 months? If there is any doubt, abandon it now and begin something you actually feel motivation to work on. In the coming academic year you will have severely waning motivation to do anything beyond just making teaching work, so you need all the help you can get in moving any research forward.
Why should I care?
Although this all feels a bit *who cares, we are in a pandemic* it is important to remember it won’t always be this way. Or, worse, it will. Regardless, you are still going to have to produce research to keep your job, and I can guarantee you this, University promotions and hiring committees will not give a fig about the pandemic as an excuse for a publication gap because other people will have continued production because this is a super competitive career. You know it, I know it.
The classic writing advice to finish the thing that is closest to completion (regardless of how much you like it) still stands. If the pre Covid research is nearly done, bite the bullet and finish. But if you are anywhere else further back than nearly there, it is seriously time to ask those five questions and decide this: if I have only got time for one piece of research in the following 12 months, is this going to be it?
Next time: This is not a vocation