writing an hdr
Having worked as a staff engineer for more than 5 years in public research in France, I know that the HDR (a diploma signaling that one is competent in research project management, given in a few European countries, and in France at least is a gate 🚪 to taking on PhD candidates) is a big deal for researchers. I didn't really see it as important for an engineer. Here's what changed.
In a research group, the scientific direction can be understood as a combination of grant calls and PI experience and publication record. The staff engineer is there to vet and steer that vision 👀 in the direction of what's possible. The PhD students enter to forge new paths through the wilderness of direct 👇 experience, ideally coming away with something that's truly new ✨, and not just a representation of something else ⬆️. This direct forging 🔥 tends to occur far less in postdocs who are already in career mode with their own expertise etc.
It is in the spirit of maintaining and reinforcing this direct engagement, reflection and slow science (a PhD takes at least 4 years) that it started to tip the balance from supporting others' students and postdocs to mentoring students more directly.
Doing this requires an HDR, which requires a fair bit of writing. The best way to get writer's block that is to make it into an easier task. The idea right now is to break that big task into a bunch of blog posts that will show up here. It'll be an interesting experiment even if it has to eventually move somewhere else or get scraped and massaged into a latex form.
Outline coming next ⏩