• Question: how many hours of research do you do a week ?

    Asked by 07oakeym to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Well I usually work from 8am to 5.30pm every day and do about 2 hours work a night at home most evenings. If you take out my teaching and all my admin (meetings) then I would think I spend 25 hours a week on research

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      30-40, although research work includes much more than just doing experiments. It also includes finding funds to do research, budgeting, reading scientific papers, analysing results, going to conferences in interesting locations. By the way, doing Science can be a good way to travel because other experts in your field, who you need to keep in contact with, are scattered around the world. Last year I was incited to Austealia to give a talk, and I’ve just come back from Siena (Italy) where I was meeting with a team of scientist I work with.

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Officially I work for 35 hours a week. I spend some time teaching, but most of my time is research. I also do some work at home in the evenings and weekends but I don’t usually mind if it’s interesting

    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      That’s quite a difficult question for me to answer oakey, as the amount of ‘research’ I do varies depending upon which part of the car I am working on.
      On some projects it takes up all my time (apart from answering emails and meetings etc), whereas with others not a lot of research can be done, as nothing has ever been done like it before!
      If you mean working hours though…
      I normally get in to the office between 8 and 8.30, I am then here until 6 or later (sometimes past 8 o’clock). Then there are extra hours at home finishing some projects, and I work some weekends on occasion. That equated to about 55 hours per week average (not including emails and lunch breaks!!!) 😀

    • Photo: Emma Carter

      Emma Carter answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      About 35 – 40 hours a week normally – depends what I’m doing really. It’s quite flexible and I get quite a lot of holidays too.

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