I still do. I drifted away from doing research myself for two reasons. Selfishly, even though I enjoy doing research, I never wanted to specialise. I always wanted to try to understand things as widely as possible. And more generally, in a very competitive field, it was never clear to me that my own research was adding much additional value beyond what would be added by anyone else in the same job. Overall, the research community would be unchanged.

I tried instead to find some paths where I can still spend my time immersed in fundamental research, but where I would feel like I was also adding real value.

Most research is not easily translated to someone who is not an active researcher in the same field. We give public talks and write ‘popular’ articles but that doesn’t really share a genuine understanding of the research. I wanted to find ways to bring that genuine understanding, and therefore genuine value, to non-researchers. They are the people ultimately funding most fundamental research and therefore they should own some of the value it generates too.

Although the methods we use to do research are always improving, the format of papers, talks and conferences hasn’t changed much for decades, if not nearly a century. However, research progress thrives when ideas are widely shared, understood and scrutinised. So, I wanted to play a part in finding better ways for researchers to communicate with each other.

These paths led me to start Effective Research Sharing.