• Question: What are the qualities that distinguish successful scientists from less successful scientists?

    Asked by shreedesai to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 14 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ruth Mitchell

      Ruth Mitchell answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      Communication skills are one of the top qualities that distinguish successful scientists from less successful ones: it is about all about communicating your science. Firstly, you listen or read about good science, take it in and apply it to your area of research. Then, after performing experiments, you communicate your science to others. This is also how you get known in you field of research.

      Thinking for yourself is another big one – thinking outside the box: being able to think up new and exciting experiments that answer a relevant question. This is done by reading around the subject, understanding what other people have done and why and then applying that knowledge to your area of research.

    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      Luck sometimes. Being in the right lab at the right time when something is discovered. But being there in the first place is down to hard work and perseverance, Gary Player (the golfer) said “the harder I work the luckier I get”. That is true for science (and everything else).
      Also, you have to be able to communicate and convince others that what you’ve found is both interesting and important. If you can’t sell it they won’t buy it.

      The best scientists are first and foremost storytellers, it’s just that their stories are a wee bit specialised!

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      I’m going to quote a famous scientist I once spoke to (Sir Michael Berridge), and he had an interesting way of looking at this question which I’ve taken to heart. Every scientific question, he said, is like a dandelion – there’s a big puffy layer of ‘fluff’, which represents all the small issues which you could pursue, getting more details, working out more numbers, and so on. Then there is the ‘core’ in the middle, which represents the real, big important question that you should be asking. Once the big question is answered all the fluff naturally falls away. So as a scientist it is important to keep a big-picture perspective on what you are doing – are you getting caught up in all the ‘fluff-wiping’, or do you have a clear idea of the ultimate question?

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      I think it’s very important to want to push yourself – to keep trying new things and including them in your work and looking for different ways to share your work with other people. It is easy to get stuck using the same familiar methods, but this is often not as successful.

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Occasionally, being in the right place at the right time has a lot to do with it, combined with a lot of hard work- an example of this would be Alexander Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin. You could say that this was accidental, but without a keen eye and a willingness to question what he was seeing, Sir Alex might have missed this important discovery. He published his discovery in a scientific journal, and this aspect- communicating what you have found- is crucial. After all, what is the point of discovering something if no-one is going to know about and benefit from it? so, some of the qualities you need are:
      – an ability to be observant
      – a readiness to think for yourself and ask the right questions
      – an ability to communicate your knowledge
      – as with anything, a willingness to work hard!

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