1 / 38

Life in academia and elsewhere

Sophie Cluet Directorate General for Research and Innovation Mathematics; Physic; Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies; Security; Information and Communication Science and Technology. Life in academia and elsewhere. Organization. Life as a CS researcher Life as a CTO

teryl
Download Presentation

Life in academia and elsewhere

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Sophie Cluet Directorate General for Research and Innovation Mathematics; Physic; Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies; Security; Information and Communication Science and Technology Life in academia and elsewhere

  2. Organization • Life as a CS researcher • Life as a CTO • Life as a research center manager • Life as a science policy « maker » in a Ministry

  3. 1988 – 2000 INRIA Rocquencourt Life as a CS Researcher

  4. Foreword Special thanks to Serge Abiteboul for • His Support through the experience • His slides …

  5. The Three Phases • PhD • Junior • Senior 100% 0% PhD junior senior Time spent doing research (common case)

  6. PhD • Research, including • Reading and writing papers • Going to conferences, workshops, … • Eventually, system development and experimentation • Teaching • Collective interest tasks • Team (annual reports, seminars, web site, …) • Institution (communication, various committees, …) • Community (reviewing, …) • Advising Master students Grants Eventually, consulting for industry And the normal life: family, friends, hobbies, sports…

  7. The Missing One : Postdoc

  8. Junior • Research, including • Reading and writing papers • Going to conferences, workshops, … • Eventually, system development and experimentation • Teaching • Collective interest tasks • Team (annual reports, seminars, web site, …) • Institution (communication, various committees, …) • Community (reviewing, …) • Advising PhD or Master students • Grants • Eventually, consulting for industry And the normal life: family, friends, hobbies, sports…

  9. Senior • Research, including • Reading and writing papers • Going to conferences, workshops, … • Eventually, system development and experimentation • Teaching • Collective interest tasks • Team (annual reports, seminars, web site, …) • Organization (communication, various committees, …) • Community (reviewing, …) • Advising (PhD students, etc.) • Grants • Eventually, consulting for industry And the normal life: family, friends, hobbies, sports…

  10. Life as a CS ResearcherE As for men, an exciting life : • Relative freedom • General feeling of getting smarter • Mainly smart colleagues • Great highs and lows • Part of an international community • …

  11. Life as a CS ResearcherE (cont.) Differences : • Pregnancies : one of the jobs where it is not really a handicap • Still, part of a minority • Negative effects : getting better in France but still a tendancy to consider women less seriously than men (cf. Françoise Giroud"La femme sera vraiment l'égale de l'homme le jour où, à un poste important, on désignera une femme incompétente.") => women who succeed usually work harder than their male colleagues • Positive effects : women are more noticable => Easier to make friends, more offers of responsabilities (program committees, …

  12. Why did I quit ? • Essentially, the opportunity of a new challenge • But also, after 12 years, feelings of YAP and YAC

  13. 2000 – 2002 Xyleme Life as a CTO

  14. Xyleme History • 1999 : a bet • 1999 – 2000 : getting ready • 2000 : starting the company • 2001 : the first customers come in • 2002 : getting more money and what comes with it – end of the story • 2007 : end of Xyleme

  15. 1999 : The Bet • An audit of the team’s work by an old friend (François Bancilhon) • Semistructured data (among which XML) : models, query languages, query processing • Web applications : crawlers, integration (wrappers/mediators) with light language analysis, distributed query processing, … • The old friend’s bet : a year to build the new Alexandrian library • Hypothesis : soon, the interesting data of the Web will be in « good » XML (i.e., not XHTML)

  16. 1999-2000 : getting ready • Working hard on a product and a business model with the help of INRIA • Alliance with an AI team • Hiring a technical director and some engineers • 2 seminars with friends from industry and capital risk • Deciding who will be who : founders, boss, directors (business development, finance & administration, commercial, technical, …) • Getting money (before the internet bubble) from friendly capital riskers

  17. 2000 : starting the company • More Hiring, altogether around 20 people mostly engineers • Getting a place to work and what goes with it (from computers to cleaning staff) • Madly crawling the web to find near to 0 interesting XML data … • Looking for a CEO (got one in 2001)

  18. 2001 : The First Customers • Change of the business model • From service provider to software editor • From public to private data • The main targets : the press and the banks who have tons of XML or XMLizable data • Small contracts, few money and a lot of work on pilots

  19. 2002 : Getting More Moneyand what comes with it • A great technology, INRIA in the background, a few satisfied customers, a convincing team => lots of money but this time not only from friends • More customers but hard to get : more and more pilots and specialized development

  20. Why did I quit ?And some tips… • Another exciting opportunity, but mainly : having a CTO and a technical manager in a startup is a bad idea… • Some other mistakes : • Leaving the lab before having validated the idea • Spending a lot before having the customers • A technology rather than something a decision maker can understand • A weak management • Still, a great experience : • Real life  • Many different jobs in one • Happy customers • …

  21. 2002 – 2006 INRIA Rocquencourt Life as a Research Center Manager

  22. INRIA Rocquencourt • The largest of the 6 (now 8) INRIA’s Research Centers • Budget (excluding civil servants salaries) : 11 M€ • Around 500 people • 350 scientists in 40 research project teams (CS and applied mathematics) • 130 « long » time researchers • 20 postdocs • 120 PhD • 50 Master • 50 engineers • 150 TA in 8 support services • Administration and finance • Communication • Human resources • Industrial relationship and technology transfer • Project assistants • Restaurant • Site logistic • Technical support

  23. Job Description By the CEO : • Scientific leader • Member of the INRIA Board of directors • CEO of a SME In reality : reverse order How did I spend my time ? • 106 days/year of recurrent meetings from 2 to many people (46, 40, 20) • 50 days/year of e-mails (under evaluation - basis 5mn per sent message) • ~ 300 days/year • Other meetings (to solve problems – often HR, to work on strategy, to convince people, to treat various demands, …) • Preparing the meetings • Writing or re-writing communications

  24. It’s all about people ! • That’s why it’s great • That’s why it’s time consuming • That’s why you cannot reach perfection “Happiness” and a feeling of belonging are essential

  25. Project team • Service • Research center • General scientific direction • General “functional” direction • Institution It’s all about people ! • That’s why it’s great • That’s why it’s time consuming • That’s why you cannot reach perfection “Happiness” and a feeling of belonging are essential

  26. Project team • Service • Research center • General scientific direction • General “functional” direction • Institution It’s all about people ! • That’s why it’s great • That’s why it’s time consuming • That’s why you cannot reach perfection “Happiness” and a feeling of belonging are essential

  27. Not so far from research as one could think … • Understand the big picture • Identify/analyze the challenges • For each selected one : • Search for and define the right model • Implement • Evaluate • Iterative small or large delta improvements

  28. Some of the challengesscientific leader • The basic one : every year, sharing budget and other resources among project teams => scientific priorities help • Defining scientific priorities (every 4 years or so – although, obviously, no big changes from one exercise to the next) • Why define priorities? • What is the best process? • Why is a priority a priority? • Is there a life outside a priority?

  29. Some of the challengesMember of the board of directors • CEO decisions impact the institution various structures differently. 2 examples : • Scientific advisor status • Information system • Every decision has an impact, but not all of them interest you… They should. Also, you may not be aware of all of them… You should. • What is needed ? • Keeping a bottom-up top-down bottom-up top-down bottom-up top-down … persistent flow of information • An heavy touch of transversal communication • A “happy” nature and a big mouth 

  30. Some of the challenges CEO of a SME • The main one : defining a strategy for the whole (projects and services) within that of the institution • The restaurant • People love it • Requires about 15 employees • Less than half are civil servants, half of which will retire soon • No possibility to recruit on more than a 9 months basis (or recruit less of some other categories)  hard on the civil servants • More than 100 newcomers each year • Scientific, administrative, technical • From 6 months to 4 decades • For some, weak recruiting process (public rules) • All managers are not “managers”

  31. Why did I quit And how did I find my next job • Why did I quit • Instability among INRIA’s CEOs and/thus(?) I was tired • Still, maybe my favorite job so far ! • How did I find my next job • Networking • In 2006, in France, in this area, being a woman helps

  32. 2006 – 2008 French Ministry of Higher Education and Research Directorate General for Research and Innovation A3 department : Mathematics; Physic; Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies; Security; Information and Communication Science and Technology Life as « Policy Maker » in a Ministry

  33. DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DE LA RECHERCHE ET DE L'INNOVATION Mission Parité Sciences de la Terre et de l'univers, géo-environnement, aéronautique, transport, Espace Direction de la stratégie Chimie, SPI, physique nucléaire et des hautes énergies, énergie, développement durable Service de l'innovation et de l'action régionale Sous-direction de l'appui à la tutelle et affaires européennes Département des études et de la prospective Mathématiques, physique, nanos, usages, sécurité, STIC Département des politiques de recherche et d'innovation Bureau de la recherche et développement en entreprise Bureau de la réglementation et des statuts Biotechnologies, ressources, agronomie Mission coordination de la MIRES et ystèmes d'information Bureau politique contractuelle et coordination de la tutelle Bureau valorisation, propriété intellectuelle et partenariat Santé Mission emploi scientifique Bureau de programmation des moyens et des TGI Bureau de la création et du développement des entreprises technologiques Sciences de l'homme et de la société Mission de l'information et de la culture scientifiques et techniques Bureau des affaires européennes Bureau de l'action régionale DRRT Organigramme de la DGRI

  34. The « canonical » National Research and Innovation System • Three levels • Orientation, national policy (macro-objectives) • Programmation (translation of macro-objectives in programs) • Operation (research operators) • The principles • Autonomy of the three levels (distinct institutions) • Interactions defined by 4 to 5-years contracts • Each level is evaluated (ex post) by the one above

  35. Job description • Service to the Minister • Definition of the national R&I strategy (A3 domains) • Implementation and follow-up of the strategy : • Supervision of level 2 • ANR (« matière et information ») • CEA (DRT, DSM) • CNRS (MPPU, ST2I) • GENCI • INRIA • Others (foundations, public interest groups, …) • Scientific policy of research operators (level 3 !) • Collaboration with other ministries • European programs (ICT, PERS, NMP) • (Too) many assessments/evaluations (historical, should slow down)

  36. National vs. Research Center strategy • The reasons for defining a strategy are more or less the same, but: • The stakes are much larger (20 B€ spent by the “MIRES” each year, desired impact on the economy) • The “domain” is larger, more interconnections • The grain is larger (you don’t see all the individuals) • The decision circuit is much longer and tougher • The method is also more or less the same, some try to formalize it (science of science policy)

  37. The method I’d like to say I use (currently) • (Bottom-up/top-down cycles + a touch of transversality + a lot of reading) to identify/order the domain main challenges (continuous process) • For each challenge • (SWOT) analysis (can be done by consultants – at this level, indicators are a must) • Validate the opportunity to act • Find clues on what to do • Collective work (all levels) to devise some action scenario(s) (and prepare the implementation) • Eventually, analysis to choose one of the scenarios • Sell the scenario to the politics • Implement You think research in CS is a long process? Try strategy 

  38. Some A3 challenges • “The French mathematics school: danger ahead because of retirements, lack of students, new policy for HE&R employment combined with universities new autonomy • Improvement of France’s performances in some identified sectors: • Computer security • Ambient intelligence • Nanotechnologies for environment or health • … • National structuring of some sectors: • Electronics • Grids (production and research) • Improvement of the management culture in the HE&R institutions : an emergency given the many changes that have occurred or are occurring • ICST employment : danger ahead for research because of many students and many R&D projects (workload can be twice that of other disciplines) • …

More Related