For this traditional end-of-year post, we’re sharing our 2017 dreams as viewed through our Research Whispery lens.

Yes, you read that right: we’re in the higher education sector and we still have dreams!

Given it’s our 5th birthday this year, it’s a fitting way to think.

Tseen’s Research Whisper dreams for next year:

• Having a luxurious few months’ worth of blogposts in the pipeline so we don’t end up doing our 11pm frenzy on Sunday or Monday nights as often! I dream about this. Yes, I do. As our friend, Inger “The Thesis Whisperer” Mewburn flagged very early in our RW-hood: “Blogs are hungry babies.” A year’s worth of weekly blogposts is a lot of work. So, if you want to give your jolly Research Whisperers an excellent holiday present, write us a guest post!
• Universities leading society through expert, savvy, forward-thinking actions and statements. I wish for this every year, and getting to know more wonderful researchers all the time from working on Research Whisperer just affirms for me that the passion and smarts of our fields are not being used – or understood – in the best ways. I love this sector – it’s why I’ve been in it for so long. The potential for transformative actions generated by our institutions is around us all the time. But, more often than not, it’s not the kind of thing that ‘counts’. And that’s why we are left with platitudes, reactive actions, and a relatively unhappy, increasingly precarious workforce. We think it’s very important to have underrepresented voices and thorny issues represented on the blog, but I do dream of a time when our energies are not spent on trying constantly to make our sector recognise what doing the right thing by their people means. Imagine spending our collective time pulling in the same direction when it comes to research and how it can benefit our communities, the world, our human knowledge-base.
• World peace. Or at least a little more peace in the world.

Jonathan’s Research Whisper dreams for next year:

• Permanent jobs for all university workers.
• The mythical Research Whisperer book (ebook actually, but aren’t they all?). We’ve been talking about putting together a Research Whisperer ebook for several years now. 2017 is the time to stop talking and start publishing.
• A domain of one’s own. We own the Research Whisperer domain name, so 2017 might be the year that we transfer off WordPress and set up our own site.
• Fewer broken links. If we do move to our own site, we can put in place some web quality checks, like locating all those broken links (and maybe even fixing them…).
• A page for #CrowdfundResearch. I desperately need a page to bring together all of the bits and bobs relating to my Masters (hopefully soon, PhD) on research crowdfunding. 2017 might be the year for that, too.
• A training course on crowdfunding, running at two different universities. I want to run an action research program for a couple of universities where I run crowdfunding campaigns as training programs. We’ll see how that goes.
• A new method of providing peeps with better feedback on grant applications. I’m thinking of using Google Docs as a way for the applicant and myself to literally re-construct the application together. Not sure if it will work yet, but I want to give it a shot.
• Ten decent ARC Linkage applications. Just ten – is that too much to ask for?
• Ecological sustainability. Or at least a more ecologically sustainable world.

Thanks to this year’s guest posters

Every year in our last entry, we list our fabulous guest posts from the year. We do this because we are so grateful to have warm, savvy fellow-travellers on this road, and they cannot be thanked enough for sharing their time and expertise with all of us. We also do it because it’s a great chance for us to reflect on the topics the blog has covered, and the range of people who have written for us.

For 2016, the wonderful guest writers for Research Whisperer are:

• On leaving home and growing up: Caitlin Nunn.
• ‘I’m not worthy!’ – Imposter Syndrome in academia: Jay Daniel Thompson.
• What does your soul (read: postdoc application) look like? Jonathan Laskovsky.
• Little chickie: Rosemary Chang (with Jonathan O’Donnell).
• An open letter to the ultimate imposter: Belinda Cash.
• Responses to ‘Your word count means nothing to me’: Inger Mewburn and Katherine Firth.
• A dream collaboration: Self-publishing for academics: Helen Kara and Nathan Ryder.
• Write Up – #MelbWriteUp: Jason Murphy.
• What does it take to move from precarity to security? Dani Barrington.
• Top tips for internal grants: Reza Mohammed.
• Free the academic conference: Craig Lundy.
• Developing my portfolio career: Ian Street.
• More Open Access – take the pledge: Eva Alisic.
• Saved by slow scholarship: Ali Black.
• Impact sensationalism: A means to an end? Jenn Chubb and Richard Watermeyer.
• Research under attack? Anonymous.
• It gets worse! Karina Luzia and Kate Bowles (with Jonathan O’Donnell).
• What makes a successful writing group? Angela Dobele.
• Becoming autonomous: Amy Loughman.
• Recruiting research participants using Twitter: Andrew Glover.

Thank you, one and all.