We are writing this end-of-year piece as yet another COVID wave besets Victoria, Australia (where the Research Whisperers live). Doesn’t COVID realise that it’s, like, so 3 years ago? Unfortunately, it is very much still with us. Definitely like someone who invited themselves over to your place and just won’t leave.

Discussing what our theme might be for this post, Jonathan almost immediately said, ‘Exhaustion’.

Jonathan 

I suggested exhaustion as a theme both because I feel tired and because it keeps coming up in conversations at work. I feel like the academics that I work with are even more harried than usual (whatever ‘usual’ passes for these days). While the number of applications are getting back to pre-lockdown levels, they seem to have less zing, more cut-and-paste. Maybe I’m just paying more attention.

Personally, I turned 60 this year. I have a ‘seniors’ card now, and I’m not happy about it. All the bad working habits I developed during lockdown have come home to roost. My shoulders, back, and neck are creaky and sore. I ache. I feel like I get cranky much more easily these days. I keep second guessing myself: Am I just a bit tired, or is it because I’m getting old?

On the up-side, I submitted my PhD this year (still waiting for examiner comments, thanks for asking). Tseen, Phil Ward and I published a book together. My amazing colleague, Alice Demattos Guimarães, came to visit from Norway. I took lunch. I still get to work with extraordinary people. I still get to make the world a better place. Maybe I’ll feel better in 2024?

Tseen 

On some levels, I feel like my professional world is a much narrower place at the moment. There are reasons for this. My caring commitments as a sole parent and part of a tri-generational household with a parent who is becoming increasingly dependent means that so much is not easily possible: international opportunities for conferences, fieldwork, or collaboration; my ‘usual’ juggle of projects and professional roles; or consistent instances of coffee-chats and catch ups that are the life-blood of knowing what’s going on and who’s doing what. I’m by no means  cut off or isolated but these restrictions mean that I’ve become much more aware of what a privileged existence I’ve had with my career thus far. Is exhaustion a theme relevant to me for this year? Like the boiling frog, I hadn’t taken notice of the increasingly adverse environment I had created for myself.  The tangle of obligations that I was no longer able to fulfil with integrity has led to my shedding a lot of roles in recent months and into next year. It feels like I’m being slack for doing this but I’m trying to give myself more room to maneuver than I think I need. I’m tired of always saying / thinking that I’m tired.

Our organic move towards a much more relaxed publishing schedule means that our posts are often driven by topics from you, our Research Whisperer community. We are ever grateful to those who think of us and our blog, and submit or suggest things for our folks. In the frenzy that is most of our everyday lives, something Jonathan and I never overlook is how much the RW community means to us and how appreciative we are of you all.

Special thanks as always in our end-of-year post to our guest authors who made Research Whisperer what it was this year. 

• The power of reaching out – and replying! (Michael Hooper)
• The unsustainability of the “pay-as-you-go” publishing model (Abel Polese)
• Managing research teams (Joann Cattlin)
• Post-PhD depression (Anonymous)
• Helping people navigate academia on YouTube (Andy Stapleton)
• Beyond packaging: The obscure art of introvert networking (Abel Polese)
• Taking care of business (as usual) (Anonymous)
• What’s it like to be a researchers in a commercial agency? (Som Sengmany)
• Epistemic freedom, creative research methods and ethics (Helen Kara)
• Automatic detection of image manipulation (Dror Kolodkin-Gal)

At the end of this year, we thought it might also be useful to list the series of five excerpts from the book we wrote with our excellent colleague Phil ‘Research Fundermentals‘ Ward, Getting Research Funded (2023).

1.  Learn how to ask for money
2.  Scoring your funding proposal
3.  Writing about yourself
4.  Get feedback on your draft application
5.  How long will it take to write an application?

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, we wish you the gift of a space where creativity and kindness flourish.

See you in 2024!