• Question: What do other scientists think of your work?

    Asked by pacy520gaed on 28 Apr 2025.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 28 Apr 2025:

      An interesting question… One way you can find that out is to look at whether or not other scientists refer to your work when they report their own. I’m pretty lucky that many do!

    • Photo: Luke Fountain

      Luke Fountain answered on 15 May 2025:

      This is a very good question… Science is all about communication. As a scientist, you have to be able to communicate your work, usually through writing scientific papers and presenting talks at conferences, to show scientists (and others) why your work is important. Writing proposals for new ideas is sometimes even more important so that we can secure funding to carry out further research – it is really important here to stress why our work is important.

      When writing papers and proposals, we often go through a process called peer review, where other scientists in our field read our work and provide feedback to ensure that it is valid and we have taken the right approach – sometimes there is not much to say, and at other times, reviewers have LOTS to say about your work, but it depends. Overall though, this makes the quality of the science that is carried out and published better.

      Conferences are another great place for scientists to talk about their work, and in my field at least, most scientists are very supportive of my work and that of others in the field – we are all excited about the field, and any science that moves it forward is worth discussing.

    • Photo: Ioanna Bezirtzoglou

      Ioanna Bezirtzoglou answered on 19 May 2025:

      I have never thought of this question previously to be honest – but I believe I am working on research that has medical relevance to improve people’s wellbeing – hence they would be appreciative/collaborative 🙂

    • Photo: Charlotte Slade

      Charlotte Slade answered on 1 Jul 2025:

      That is such a fantastic and insightful question. The honest answer is that science is very different from the movies. Most of the time, you’re working so deeply on a very specific puzzle that you don’t really know who is seeing your work out there in the world.

      And for a long time, that’s what I would have said.

      But just recently, something absolutely amazing happened. I was contacted by another scientist on the other side of the world who had read a research paper I published. They told me that my work had been really useful for their own projects, and that they had referenced it many times.

      In the world of science, that’s the highest compliment you can get. It’s like another explorer finding a piece of the map you drew and using it to make their own incredible discovery. It’s a way of saying, “Your work mattered, and it helped move science forward.”

      For that one day, you were completely right, it honestly made me feel like a celebrity! It was a brilliant reminder that even when it feels like you’re working quietly on your own, your ideas are part of a huge, global conversation that connects scientists everywhere.

Comments

  • Photo: melissau

    melissau commented on :

    As Luke has said, for scientists there is a process called peer review which means that when we’ve completed a project and want to share our findings with other scientists we describe it in a paper for publication in a scientific journal – before it can be published the paper is sent to other scientists who work on the same subject and they ask questions about the work we’ve done to check that the research has been done well and the findings and recommendations we’re making are sensible. This review process can take a long time (several months is not uncommon) so we have to be patient but it generally means that only ‘good’ science is shared with the wider world. As an experienced scientist you may be asked to review other scientists’ papers too, which means you have to ask the same kind of questions to understand their work and to determine whether it’s good enough to be published. Sometimes, a newspaper or even TV journalist may be interested in talking about new research, to share it more widely, with people who aren’t scientists but who may find it interesting or useful to learn about – in this case, the way it’s communicated is likely to be different from the scientific paper as it needs to be described in less technical language.

  • Photo: aureliabrzezowska

    aureliabrzezowska commented on :

    I would say most scientists think my job is quite bothersome! The reason behind this is that my role is usually the one who puts requirements for product solutions, company security policy, cyber training and often seen as a barrier. I would love to help others get over this stigma as to see cyber as something that protects the company rather than holding it back!