Project planning and Claire’s farewells as she moves over to the MPA team

It is with great sadness that we, in the Canadian Science & Innovation team, say goodbye to another of our teammates, Claire Hastings, at the British Consulate Toronto.  Claire is leaving our team, but not the Consulate, so although we expect to have lots of dealings with her – she will no longer have a direct hand in the S&I plots. Claire is now moving over full time to the Media and Public Affairs (MPA) team (or the dark side – mostly only because it’s NOT the science team).  Before she leaves us however (or perhaps shortly afterwards), she was kind enough to put together a blog, talking about her move and some of her favourite (project planning) work that she has done while she was with us.  Although Claire may not be one of us anymore, I have great faith that her experience on the science team will lead to an increase in cool science and innovation topics infiltrating the MPA group (has she gone over to the dark side, or are we simply assimilating the MPA team into the fascinating world of science….hmmmm).  With those thoughts in mind, I’ll turn the keyboard over to Claire: 

Claire’s Farewell blog post!

As wise (but not terribly original) people have been saying for years, “Every ending is a new beginning”. Though worn, the phrase quite neatly sums up the recent changes in my position at the British Consulate in Toronto. At the beginning of January my job changed from belonging to both the Science & Innovation and Media/Public Affairs teams, to belonging to solely the latter.

With regret I’ve hung up my (imaginary) lab coat and safety goggles, and the pile of un-read copies of Nature on my desk will now be skimmed for pleasure rather than necessity. My new gig will focus on political policy, communications, and project management – all areas that are dear to my wonk-ish heart – and in which I’ll draw on the considerable skills that I learned over 2.5 years on the Science & Innovation team.

One of my favourite parts of Science work was organising big bi-lateral projects and workshops. The S&I team in Canada exists primarily to facilitate research collaboration and cooperation between institutes, universities, government departments and individual researchers in the UK and Canada. It sounds simple, right? Shove a bunch of scientists into a room with a blackboard and don’t let them out until they’ve solved whatever we throw at them. Obesity, ocean energy technology, biodiversity, and the challenges of an ageing population are just some of the issues with which we’ve challenged the best minds on both sides of the pond.

But how does it all happen? What have you spent your time doing for the past couple of years? I hear your cries dear blog reader, and I’m here to lift the curtain and give you a peek into how we organise our science extravaganzas. The 2010 UK-Canada Ageing Study Tour is a great example.

Most of the time projects start with a small observation. Way back in 2009, Shiva and I were idly discussing similarities between the UK and Canada and ageing populations came up. Both countries will face similar challenges as the baby boomers and their parents age, and the UK government had identified ageing research as an area of interest.  When Shiva travelled to Vancouver a few months later, she met with Anne Martin Matthews the scientific director of the Institute of Aging (IA), part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Anne was extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of collaborating, and in fact, already had Professor Peter Lansley, a respected ageing expert from the UK, on the IA’s board.

A few planning meetings, an aborted location idea (Winnipeg … in November) and one successful funding bid later, we were on the project planning bandwagon. For one week in March 2010, a group of Canadian scientists, policy makers and planners would travel to London and Edinburgh to meet with UK counterparts and identify collaboration areas and forge long-term plans. Because we had research councils from the UK and Canada on board, our S&I role was to ensure the planning went smoothly while the partners rustled up participants, locations and speakers. 

The minutiae of logistics planning are similar for all big events: booking flights and hotels, organising briefings, and designing schedules. Sorting out all the details takes up the most time, while tweaking the programme – let’s have an extra coffee break! Have we asked the right person to chair the session on mobility? – is relatively simple in comparison but can have major effects on the quality of the discussions. As I quickly learned, well scheduled coffee and tea breaks are as important as research presentations because that’s when people talk to (rather than at) each other about their ideas!

We had a great group from Canada; a mix of senior scientists  (Geoff Fernie , Heather McKay, Francois Beland) and emerging researchers (Antonio Paez, Philippa Clarke and Spencer Moore), representation from the Ontario and British Columbia governments  and the Canadian Urban Institute.  The whirlwind programme included visits to London Metropolitan University, University College London, the Canadian High Commission, and the Edinburgh College of Art.

Throughout the week the Canadian and UK participants were immersed in discussing innovative research topics that relate to ageing: studying the physics of when and how people fall on stairs, designing age-friendly public spaces, sidewalk design. International collaborations were designed, and UK researchers made connections between colleagues that they had read, but never met.

In the end the project was massively successful for a number of reasons. We established an international network of researchers who now have personal and professional connections. We facilitated links between UK researchers which will foster long-term scientific innovation and excellence. And we planted the seed for future large-scale projects on ageing research. In fact, eight months after the project, Heather McKay’s team in Vancouver received a grant to study mobility in ageing, and several UK experts will participate! That, my friends is the epitome of international collaboration.