{"id":3896,"date":"2009-07-21T10:14:51","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T10:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/07\/21\/pnas-hazel-phillips-uk-governm\/"},"modified":"2009-07-21T10:14:51","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T10:14:51","slug":"pnas-hazel-phillips-uk-governm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/07\/21\/pnas-hazel-phillips-uk-governm\/","title":{"rendered":"PNAS: Hazel Phillips, UK Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"i-c1dcf0e55a49c272ffac967b7f698295-3729799549_6e0f1ba03c.jpg\"(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers<\/a> with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Hazel Phillips, a communications specialist for a UK government agency.)<\/i><\/p>\n

1) What is your non-academic job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work for a UK government agency which operates in a scientific
\nfield. My job involves communicating the outputs of our R&D department
\nboth internally and externally. Our most important audience is policy
\nand decision makers across government – we want to make sure that the
\nresearch we do is used to underpin our policies and the way we
\nregulate. I am responsible for coordinating the publication of 5-10
\ntechnical reports a month. I work with our scientists to tease out the
\nkey messages of reports – who needs to know about this work and what
\ndo we want them to do as a result of it? I liaise with our freelance
\ntechnical editors, write non-technical summaries of technical reports,
\nwork with the Press Office on media strategies and generally try to
\nmake sure that the right people get to read and act on the research.<\/p>\n

2) What is your science background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a BSc in Chemistry from Bristol University and stayed on to do
\na PhD in analytical chemistry. I then worked in the flavour industry
\nfor a couple of years, before returning to Bristol University for a
\npost-doctoral research assistantship position in environmental
\nchemistry. Whilst in this job I successfully applied for a Royal
\nSociety Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship.<\/p>\n

3) What led you to this job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Royal Society Fellowship was a highly prestigious 4-year award
\nwhich offered a great start in an academic career, however I really
\nstruggled to get the results I needed to obtain further funding. After
\n3.5 years I realised that although I had always dreamt of being an
\nacademic, actually, I didn’t love the work enough to either put the
\nhours required in, or to cope with the uncertainty of short term
\ncontracts. I decided I wanted to move out of academia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I had to do quite a lot of soul-searching at this point. I didn’t
\nreally know what I wanted to do, what I could do, or even what kind of
\njobs were available in the “real” world. My University careers service
\ngave excellent advice and helped me sort out my thoughts.<\/p>\n

I started looking for jobs that looked interesting and applied for
\nseveral that I thought I might enjoy. I decided that if they weren’t
\nright, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to move on in 6-12 months.<\/p>\n

I saw this job advertised on the agency’s website, applied,
\ninterviewed and was offered the position.<\/p>\n

4) What’s your work environment like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work in an office. However, my organisation are very flexible on
\nworking arrangements and I am able to work from home regularly if I
\nwant. I sometimes work from other offices if I have meetings to
\nattend, though I am mostly based in my home town. Since returning from
\nmaternity leave 6 months ago, I have been working 4 days a week.<\/p>\n

5) What do you do in a typical day?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst my computer is booting up I usually pop down to the canteen for
\nsome toast, then grab a cup of tea on my way back to my desk. I
\nusually then spend an hour or two catching up on emails. Typically
\nthese are from project managers who are sending me reports that need
\nediting and publishing and from our freelance editors returning work
\nto me. I try to catch up on the phone or in person wherever possible –
\nit’s a big organisation with people based in many different locations
\nbut it’s easier to talk than to email. I might then ring a project
\nmanager to talk through their latest report – what did we find out and
\nwhat needs to change as a result of this work? What will other
\nresearchers think of it? Might we be able to get some media coverage
\nof it? I would perhaps then ring my contact in the press office for a
\ndiscussion about the report and what we’re planning to do with it.<\/p>\n

After lunch I might have a meeting with some other communications
\nstaff about how one of our R&D reports might provide evidence to
\nunderpin a new campaign on trying to get the public to respond better
\nto flood warnings. When I get back to my desk, I might spend an hour
\nwriting a short non-technical summary of a long, complex report.<\/p>\n

6) How does your science background help you in your job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s essential. I cover work from a wide range of scientific
\ndisciplines, so don’t always know about the specifics of the work, but
\nI do understand the scientific method: how scientific experiments are
\nconstructed and interpreted, how science is written, how researchers
\nwork. I understand that science is written in very specific language
\nbut am able to know enough science to know when that can be softened
\nfor a non-technical audience and when it can’t. I think it’s also
\nhelped me gain the trust of the researchers. Many were initially
\nworried that their work would be ‘dumbed down’ or butchered but when
\nthey realised I’m “one of them” it helped them to trust me to keep the
\nscience right.<\/p>\n

I think that it’s probably easier to learn the tricks of the comms
\ntrade than to be a comms specialist trying to gain 10 years of science
\nexperince.<\/p>\n

7) If a current college student wanted to get a job like yours, how
\nshould they go about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They need to be able to demonstrate where they have communicated
\nscience to different audiences. They’ll already be doing this – if
\nthey present at conferences then that’s one set of skills. Similarly,
\nwriting a thesis involves another set of skills. It would be even
\nbetter if they have some experience of public engagement in science –
\nmaybe helping out at a science fair for the public, or talking to
\nschool children about what they do. Enthusiasm for science in general
\n– a passion for explaining it and engaging with people about it – is a
\nbonus too.<\/p>\n

In terms of work experience, there are various schemes for science
\nstudents to work on a scientific journal or magazine. Maybe try
\ngetting some experience writing articles for your local newspaper, or
\nstudent magazine.<\/p>\n

8) What’s the most important thing you learned from science?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apart from flame tests? Um. I think the most important thing I’ve
\ngained is an analytical approach. I’ve realised I’m able to assimilate
\na large amount of data and assess its validity relatively quickly.
\nIt’s made me quite a good strategic thinker.<\/p>\n

9) What advice would you give to young science students trying to plan
\ntheir careers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstly work out what transferable skills you have. Studying a subject
\nwith a lot of contact hours and a lot of work to do means you’re
\nprobably developing good time management skills. You have probably
\nlearnt analytical thinking. You’re almost certainly numerate and
\nprobably literate too! Work out what all those skills are because you
\nneed to sell yourself.<\/p>\n

Next, work out what you enjoy doing. Personally, I hated labwork
\nbecause it was the boring, logical, repetitive bit. I enjoyed the
\nbrainstorming that came before labwork. Henri Poincare said that “it
\nis through science that we prove but through intuition that we
\ndiscover’. I realised I enjoyed the discovery bit more than the
\nproving bit, so I wanted to be worked on new things frequently. Longer
\nterm projects are not for me.<\/p>\n

Finally, remember that there’s no such thing as a job for life any
\nmore. That’s often portrayed as a negative thing but actually it’s
\nincredible positive. It means you can have several different careers
\nwithin your working life. It also means that if you take a job which
\nisn’t right, it’s perfectly OK to move on after 12 or even 6 months.
\nLook for jobs which interest you and think about moving on when you’re
\nbored for more than 40% of your day.<\/p>\n

10) (Totally Optional Question) What’s the pay like? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Not bad. When I moved from academia to the government agency (not
\nproper civil service but similar) I was paid almost exactly the same.
\nSince then my job has been regraded and I’ve had a significant pay
\nrise. Science communication isn’t always that well paid – possibly
\nbecause so many people want to do it – but my pay isn’t at all bad.
\nProbably similar to expectations in academia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This… Continue reading PNAS: Hazel Phillips, UK Government<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57,58,59,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-jobs","category-non-academic","category-pnas","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}