I Am the Very Model of a Modern Principal Investigator

(to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Modern Major-General”)

I am the very model of a modern Principal Investigator,
A scientist, administrator, and data navigator,
I formulate the questions that are novel and ambitious,
Then spend my days completing tasks considerably less delicious.

I seek to build collaborations and funding applications,
Developing methodologies and research innovations,
Yet long before a study starts, I wrestle with documentation,
And draft participant consent forms for ethical examination.

I understand sponsorship and regulatory expectations,
Information governance and institutional obligations,
I negotiate the contracts and the data-sharing covenants,
And justify compliance with a dozen diMerent documents.

I coordinate data access bids and every validation,
Responding to committee queries needing clarification,
I oversee management plans and analytical preparation,
Then write the reports describing every finding’s interpretation.

I know our governance processes and every accreditation,
The policies and frameworks and the latest legislation,
Though half of them appear to have the singular intention
Of generating paperwork instead of aiding comprehension.

For every helpful service there are forms that must be filled in,
With meetings to arrange the meetings where the forms are further drilled in,
And every risk assessment seems determined to instil in
The researcher the feeling that no progress can be willed in.

The contracts team know contracts, but perhaps not data curation,
The governance team governance, but not the joys of computation,
The legal team love legal things and risk elimination,
While I alone must integrate the whole implementation.

The data providers seldom know the grant award conditions,
The analysts are distant from the funding competition’s missions,
The ethics boards are separate from operational provisions,
Yet somehow I must reconcile their many contradictions.

I’m trained in scientific inquiry and scholarly endeavour,
Not procurement, law, compliance, project management, whatever,
Yet every year the expectation grows continually ever
That I’ll master all professions and perform them all together.

My projects often promise to transform our understanding,
With linked datasets and analytics truly groundbreaking,
Yet months are spent awaiting forms and signatures outstanding,
Before a week’s analysis finally gets its landing.

The people in the system are invariably well-meaning,
Protecting institutions with diligence quite intervening,
But sometimes all the safeguarding obscures the larger meaning:
That research should produce discoveries, not just endless intervening.

What I require are partners who can help with navigation,
Not wardens guarding checkpoints through procedural occupation,
For shared ownership of problems would improve the situation,
And greatly aid the conduct of a modern investigation.

For now, I am a scientist, diplomat, and advocate,
A project manager, compliance chief, and policy bureaucrat,
And though the title “Principal Investigator” sounds quite adequate,
It’s very far from what I thought I’d be when first I started at it!

For I am the very model of a modern Principal Investigator,
A scientist, administrator, and data navigator!
Whose greatest skill is somehow keeping all the moving pieces straight,
While everybody else insists the forms can simply wait!

Note: Header image imagined from the text by artist Chris Glynn