ABOUT WORKING GROUPS

The Network for Vegetation Function operates through working groups. These gather researchers together for sessions of a few days. There might be 2-4 such sessions spread over a couple of years.

Working groups are not just for discussion and exchange of ideas. They should aim to actually accomplish high-impact research. So therefore, they should be aimed at research questions where substantial advances can be made via data synthesis or fresh concepts or theory. If the questions are ones that mainly need new experiments or data collection to advance them, then a working group might have the aim of preparing a research proposal co-ordinated across multiple institutions.

Working group sessions would typically be several days long. The main reason for this is so that data analyses actually get done or papers actually get drafted while people are there at the working group. Progress becomes much slower once people have returned to their home institutions and to all the competing demands on their time. A second reason is that for short meetings, the costs of travel become large relative to the amount of progress that can be made. Still, there is no absolute rule about duration, and there might be circumstances that made a short meeting worthwhile.

Sometimes what may be needed is a catalysis meeting rather than a working group. Catalysis meetings address topics where there is a perception that many new research opportunities are opening up. They are a 1-day brainstorming session among relatively large numbers (perhaps 20-50) from a range of fields. The aim is to make new connections among people and techniques and data sources. The new connections can subsequently be explored in more depth by smaller numbers of people. The Network is willing to consider proposals for catalysis meetings. But given the high cost of airfares to bring large numbers together for a 1-day meeting, applicants should address the question whether outcomes will be commensurate with expenditure.

Participation
Working groups would usually range between about 6-14 participants. Groups larger than 15 participants have been found less effective. Introductions and whole-group discussions take too long, and it is harder to lead the group back to focus. The aim of a working group is not to include everyone who is knowledgeable in a field, but to get outcomes accomplished.

Groups would usually bring together people from 2-3 different disciplines. Proposals would not usually rate highly if they are dominated by a circle of people who know each other well and have previously worked and published together.

The Network is enthusiastic to include early career researchers, whether postgrads, postdocs or people in the early years of continuing positions. At the same time, it is expected that funded participants will be serious contributors to the outcomes from the group. If people would like to attend in order to strengthen their knowledge of the field, they can appropriately attend the talks on the opening day of the working group, rather than being invited as full participants.

Senior researchers are valuable to working groups for their knowledge, for data from their research groups, for their proven capacity to carry research through to completion, and for their experience in judging whether an idea would be publishable. At the same time they are often heavily committed to other activities. So if a proposed working group consists predominantly of senior people, the Science Advisory Board would appreciate some explanation who is going to take the lead in driving forward different outcomes from the working group.

Process
Applicants are welcome to design their working group processes as they think best. However, it may be helpful to outline the process that the Network has found effective so far.

The first phase of the first meeting allows for 15-minute informal presentations from each participant about their research and what they bring to the topic. This phase lasts much of the first day, allowing for plentiful questions and coffee-breaks. During this phase, local postdocs and postgrads may be invited to sit in. They may organize to have lunch with particular visitors of interest to them later on, to discuss something about their own research. Sometimes, a local postdoc or postgrad may be inspired by the working group topic and ask to participate and help.

The second phase (morning of the second day) is an extended whole-group discussion to refine the specific research targets that were stated before the working group was formed. Whiteboards are filled with details of datasets and models and technical issues to be overcome. Intelligent and sensitive discussion leadership is important. This second phase concludes by sorting out which targets should be tackled first versus which should be deferred, and which people will work on which target initially.

Typically a research target corresponds to a potential manuscript. During the third phase, the group splits into sub-groups of perhaps 3-4 people each, to pursue individual achievable targets. They find somewhere to gather round laptops, exchange data files and statistical packages, and get down to it. This third phase often goes on for days, interspersed with sessions where the subgroups report back about their findings. Before the working group breaks up, plans should be discussed for further research targets and for what people are going to do after they leave and in advance of the next meeting of the working group. Usually the working group leader will rough-draft a document summarizing those plans and responsibilities, project it on a screen and revise it to reflect general agreement during the concluding discussion, and subsequently will circulate it as a reminder of what was agreed.

You might wonder whether these discussions and research targets could not be achieved just as well by email. But the working groups make them actually happen, through a combination of processes. Star researchers always have very busy lives. The only way they give sustained attention to a topic is by taking them away from their home base and giving them an intensive but congenial working atmosphere. Fieldworkers become willing to contribute their hard-won datasets when they can see how theoretically-interesting questions can be answered. Data proprietors must be present in person, because the dots on a graph need to be interpreted by people who can visualize the actual species and its natural history, and because there are always technical issues in reconciling different measurement methods. Eating and drinking together in the evenings throws up a wealth of fresh ideas and research opportunities, arising from the mixture of disciplines present. To carry through to a manuscript, usually there needs to be someone taking responsibility for the detailed writing and referencing and graphing, and this is an opportunity for ambitious postdocs or postgrads. The fact that the group is scheduled to meet again induces participants to keep the work moving, once they are back at their home institution.

People who win places in working groups are being awarded funding and an opportunity to pursue interesting research, but they are also implicitly offering to put some time into the work.