Question: do you eever worry that in your job you actualy do more administration then research and how do you feel about that?

  1. I worry about it all the time. Great question. I do masses of administration. Financial, human resources, etc etc. It is a pain, I’ll be honest, not my favourite tasks. But I do get satisfaction out of the fact that by doing this, I’m enabling my team of ~50 researchers and students to get on with the job of research. I also do spend a lot of time doing research myself, but mostly it is telling other people what to do, then they go and have the fun. I try and reserve some time and effort to doing end-to-end research myself, just to show the students that the boss can still do something useful – it keeps them on their toes! So, it all adds up to a lot of hours in the day, but I get a kick out of seeing the research being produced, in results and papers and students graduating. I could never do admin for its own sake, it has to be toward a useful end.

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