Reclaiming Control Over Your Academic Career

When your grant funding suddenly vanishes, panic isn't just common—it's expected. But how you respond to that panic could determine whether your research vision survives or gets sacrificed in the scramble.

Drawing from recent conversations with early-career researchers facing  grant terminations, this episode delves into a crucial dilemma: the instinct to immediately "fix" your funding situation by attaching yourself to others' grants may eliminate space for your own research. When we believe circumstances have stripped away all our agency, we stop prioritizing our own work in the short term—which may lead to permanent losses. Even amid crisis, retaining focus on your unique contribution is crucial.

It's just as important to acknowledge the emotional fallout from these professional setbacks. Many researchers pride themselves on resilience, attempting to push through disappointment without processing it. But this approach can backfire, manifesting as an inability to focus. Counterintuitively, making deliberate space for grief, frustration and anger allows these emotions to move through you rather than block you.

The principles for navigating academic career challenges remain consistent even in extraordinary times: make intentional rather than panic-based decisions, honor your humanity within your professional identity, and protect space for the work only you can do. By balancing pragmatic solutions with purposeful choices, you can weather funding disruptions (and other professional challenges) without losing sight of what brought you to research in the first place.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Significant Impact podcast, the
show dedicated to helping womenfaculty convert their NIH Career
Development Award into theirfirst big R01.
This period in your career issuch an important turning point
and it's a crucial opportunityto design the kind of research
career that really works for youso that you're able to write
and lead these big,career-fueling research project

(00:24):
grants.
It's not easy to figure outwhat you really want when you
have so many different voices inyour ear telling you what to do
and how to do it.
But it is possible to design acareer that's fulfilling and
meaningful to you while alsosecuring enough grant funding to
sustain your lab and make animpact with your research.
That's what we're talking abouthere on Significant Impact,

(00:46):
with me, sarah Dobson, nih grantconsultant and academic career
coach.
Tune in for an honest look atwhat it really takes to be
successful in the world of NIHgrant funding.
Start thinking differentlyabout what an academic career
looks like, one that's driven bypurpose and curiosity and a
healthy dose of disruptiveenergy.
So I don't need to remind youhow difficult the last few

(01:16):
months have been in highereducation and biomedical
research.
It has been scary, it has beenfrustrating, it has been
heartbreaking, and I've had alot of conversations over the
last few months with earlycareer researchers who are

(01:37):
facing some really bigchallenges, and so today I
wanted to talk about some of theinsights that emerge from that
conversation and whether you arecurrently facing something
similar, or if you have managedto navigate this period

(01:58):
relatively unscathed.
What I recognize in theseinsights is that these are the
things that we have been talkingabout all along on this show in
terms of how to navigate yourcareer.
Those things, even in theextreme scenarios that we find

(02:19):
ourselves in now, thoseprinciples haven't really
changed that much, and so Iwanted to talk through some of
that with you today and help usall remember what we need to
stay focused on to navigateuncertainty and to navigate

(02:41):
challenges.
So a lot of the conversationsthat I have been having lately
have been with PIs who have hadtheir grants terminated through
no fault of their own, just therug pulled out from underneath
them, and they are trying tofigure out what comes next.

(03:04):
And they are trying to figureout what comes next, and, of
course, it is completelyunderstandable that in that
scenario there would be quite alot of panic right.
Something that you had plannedfor and foreseen and organized
around is no longer available.

(03:25):
And so what do you do?
A lot of the PIs that I havespoken to in this situation are
scrambling a bit.
They are trying to getthemselves onto other people's
grant applications.
They are seeking out newfunding opportunities.

(03:46):
They are doing truly whateverthey can to salvage the work
that they have been doing orcobble together some sort of
plan to, you know, pay theirsalary and continue to pay the

(04:07):
others on their team.
Right, that's an understandablereaction to the current
circumstances.
But in those conversations, whatI have observed and what I have
coached a few of these earlycareer researchers around, is

(04:30):
this idea that you don't haveany agency in this anymore, that
the circumstances have havetotally taken over and you just

(04:53):
need to do whatever you can tofix it.
And what that typically lookslike is spreading yourself
really thin.
Right, you are doing whateveryou can to cobble things
together and you are reachingout and tapping your network and
getting yourself on grants andyou are spreading, spreading,
spreading.
But what can end up happeningin that situation is that you

(05:20):
don't have any room left foryour own work.
You don't have any room leftfor your own work, right, if you
are putting yourself on otherpeople's grants to try to stay
afloat, then that may mean thatyou don't have any room left for
your own work, and what Ireally want to drive home here

(05:43):
is the idea that if you don'tthink you have any agency, you
just give it away for free,right?
If you don't think that youhave any say, in the situation
that you don't get to make anychoices, you don't get to
prioritize your own work, thenyou are not going to do it.
The beliefs that you have aboutyour position in this situation

(06:08):
dictate the choices that youthink are available to you, and
again because of that, you canend up putting yourself in a
situation where it is extremelydifficult for you to get back on
track and do the work that youwere previously doing before the

(06:32):
grant termination, becausethere's just no room for it.
And so I caution you to, notonly because you need to hold on

(06:53):
to that meaning and thatfulfillment and that sense of
ownership over your researchideas, but because that have
brought you here are completelyout of your control.
But that does not mean that youcan't still retain some control

(07:24):
over what happens next.
The other thing that I wanted tobring into today's conversation
is what happens to usemotionally in these types of
scenarios.
Right, you are thrust into asituation again through no fault

(07:44):
of your own and the immediateand understandable reaction is
to start to try to fix it.
And you know we've just talkedabout the consequences of just
trying to fix it as quickly asyou can and how that might erode
your own work and your ownsense of agency over your own

(08:08):
work.
But the part that I want totalk about now is that urgency
to fix the situation and whatthat allows you to skip over.
And what it allows you to skipover is how you feel about it.

(08:30):
The people that I've talked toover the last few months have
said something along the linesof I know what I need to do and
I sit down at my desk and I justdo not have the energy or I
can't focus or I just can't getit together to write this thing

(08:50):
or take this next step.
And my first question is alwayshave you grieved this situation
?
And they kind of look at melike a deer in headlights, like
what do you mean?
And again, it is completelyunderstandable that you follow
that urgency to solve theproblem and fix things.

(09:14):
But it is really important totake some time to grieve, to
have a tantrum, to throwyourself a pity party, because
those feelings exist and theyare not going to go away by
responding to the urgency and,like we just talked about,

(09:37):
responding to the urgency in thecontext of all of those
feelings that you're trying tosuppress might lead you to make
some short-term decisions thatreally affect you long term, and
so my advice is always to justtake some time to acknowledge

(10:00):
and honor how hard this isemotionally.
You are allowed to feel thosethings.
Not only are you allowed tofeel them.
It's really important that youmake room for those feelings.
Let yourself acknowledge theunfairness of the situation so

(10:23):
that you can be honest withyourself about what it really
feels like to have to do this,because it does not serve you to
pretend like you don't feelthat way, and that doesn't mean
that you have to do it in public.
It just means that you need tocarve out some space to feel

(10:44):
your feelings and I'm serious,throw yourself a pity party,
have a tantrum, just take sometime to let those feelings move
through you, and you might bethinking well if I let those
feelings out've been inconversation with over the last
few months.

(11:18):
What I have told them is thatmost feelings are just like the
weather they come through andthey pass.
What makes a feeling so big isresisting it, saying I should
not feel this way, I don'tdeserve to feel bad about this

(11:40):
or I don't want to feel likethis.
Pushing the feeling away,resisting it is what makes it
bigger.
But if you just give yourselfsome space to let that feeling
pass, you will find that it doesin fact pass and you feel much
better, much lighter, and youcan actually continue with what

(12:08):
you were hoping to do and regainthat focus.
Not that you need to thinkabout this as a way to regain
your focus, but I want you toconsider if you are struggling
to focus, it may be in partbecause you have not allowed
yourself the opportunity toacknowledge everything that you

(12:33):
are feeling.
And so, again, giving yourselfthe time and space to feel what
you need to feel will allowthose feelings to move through.
I know it can feel scary toopen that door, but I promise
you, if you welcome thosefeelings, if you acknowledge

(12:55):
them, if you let them out, theywill not consume you in the way
that you are afraid of.
And, of course, I want to addthe caveat here that if you are
experiencing real mentaldistress severe anxiety,
depression that is somethingthat requires professional

(13:19):
support.
That's not what I'm talkingabout here.
I'm talking about theunderstandable emotional
reaction that you might behaving to the circumstances that
you find yourself in.
These topics are ones that wehave been talking about since
day one of this show.

(13:40):
Right Is making intentionaldecisions, not panic-based
decisions, and acknowledgingyour own humanity in your
research career.
Right.
Obviously, the circumstances inthe last six months have been
extraordinary andextraordinarily difficult, but

(14:06):
again, those principles are thesame and the actions that you
take are the same, which is tostay true to your vision for
your career and do as much asyou can to retain a focus on

(14:28):
your own work and on the impactthat you want to have.
You want to avoid spreadingyourself too thin so that you're
not able to pursue the workthat you are best suited to do,
that is most meaningful andfulfilling to you and will allow

(14:48):
you to create the impact thatyou want to create.
And, likewise, checking in withyourself and being in dialogue
with your own emotions andunderstanding when you need to
pause and acknowledge thosefeelings and make space for them

(15:13):
, to remind yourself that it isunderstandable to feel the way
that you're feeling and to allowyourself to have a human
response to an extraordinarysituation.
If you are struggling, if youare having a really tough time,

(15:35):
if you are finding it difficultto focus, I urge you to check in
with yourself, to make room tofeel sad and frustrated and
heartbroken and angry andactually carve out time and
space for that.

(15:55):
It's really important.
All right, my friends, that isit for this week.
I will see you next time.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Significant Impact
from K Award to your first bigR01.
If you want to dig deeper intowhat we learned today and move a

(16:16):
significant step closer to asmooth K-R transition, visit
sarahdobsonco slash pod andcheck out all the free stuff we
have to help you do just that.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe show to make sure you hear
new episodes as soon as they'rereleased.
And if today's episode made youthink of a colleague or a
friend, please tell them aboutit.
Tune in next time and thanksagain for listening.