I am the very model of a modern Principal Investigator,
\nA scientist, administrator, and data navigator,
\nI formulate the questions that are novel and ambitious,
\nThen spend my days completing tasks considerably less delicious.<\/p>\n
I seek to build collaborations and funding applications,
\nDeveloping methodologies and research innovations,
\nYet long before a study starts, I wrestle with documentation,
\nAnd draft participant consent forms for ethical examination.<\/p>\n
I understand sponsorship and regulatory expectations,
\nInformation governance and institutional obligations,
\nI negotiate the contracts and the data-sharing covenants,
\nAnd justify compliance with a dozen diMerent documents.<\/p>\n
I coordinate data access bids and every validation,
\nResponding to committee queries needing clarification,
\nI oversee management plans and analytical preparation,
\nThen write the reports describing every finding’s interpretation.<\/p>\n
I know our governance processes and every accreditation,
\nThe policies and frameworks and the latest legislation,
\nThough half of them appear to have the singular intention
\nOf generating paperwork instead of aiding comprehension.<\/p>\n
For every helpful service there are forms that must be filled in,
\nWith meetings to arrange the meetings where the forms are further drilled in,
\nAnd every risk assessment seems determined to instil in
\nThe researcher the feeling that no progress can be willed in.<\/p>\n
The contracts team know contracts, but perhaps not data curation,
\nThe governance team governance, but not the joys of computation,
\nThe legal team love legal things and risk elimination,
\nWhile I alone must integrate the whole implementation.<\/p>\n
The data providers seldom know the grant award conditions,
\nThe analysts are distant from the funding competition’s missions,
\nThe ethics boards are separate from operational provisions,
\nYet somehow I must reconcile their many contradictions.<\/p>\n
I’m trained in scientific inquiry and scholarly endeavour,
\nNot procurement, law, compliance, project management, whatever,
\nYet every year the expectation grows continually ever
\nThat I’ll master all professions and perform them all together.<\/p>\n
My projects often promise to transform our understanding,
\nWith linked datasets and analytics truly groundbreaking,
\nYet months are spent awaiting forms and signatures outstanding,
\nBefore a week’s analysis finally gets its landing.<\/p>\n
The people in the system are invariably well-meaning,
\nProtecting institutions with diligence quite intervening,
\nBut sometimes all the safeguarding obscures the larger meaning:
\nThat research should produce discoveries, not just endless intervening.<\/p>\n
What I require are partners who can help with navigation,
\nNot wardens guarding checkpoints through procedural occupation,
\nFor shared ownership of problems would improve the situation,
\nAnd greatly aid the conduct of a modern investigation.<\/p>\n
For now, I am a scientist, diplomat, and advocate,
\nA project manager, compliance chief, and policy bureaucrat,
\nAnd though the title “Principal Investigator” sounds quite adequate,
\nIt’s very far from what I thought I’d be when first I started at it!<\/p>\n
For I am the very model of a modern Principal Investigator,<\/strong>
\nA scientist, administrator, and data navigator!<\/strong>
\nWhose greatest skill is somehow keeping all the moving pieces straight,<\/strong>
\nWhile everybody else insists the forms can simply wait!<\/strong><\/p>\n