Helen Lees describes how setting up as a company helped her take back control of her research career.
I’m sitting at my desk surrounded by little piles of receipts, half-completed accountancy forms, an article about employee wellbeing torn out of HR magazine and notes from a conversation with the intellectual-property office about a trademark application. Just after breakfast, I learned that a client wants repeat work. I have my eye on the army as a prospect. At some point, I need to shepherd 30 authors for an edited book, revise a paper, answer an invitation to speak at an event, read a policy report on Swedish free schools and get my head around conscientisation.Six months ago, as a researcher, I was made redundant at the end of a three-year contract. This was a devastating blow to my academic development and career progression. I got angry at the mismatch between the concordat-style promises offered to contract researchers and the reality. So I decided to create my own structures, with a little help.
I started a company limited by guarantee. Supported by my PhD alma mater and regional development funding from the European Union, I got access to start-up training with a grant of £1,000 to help pay for initial costs. Another university closer to home then adopted me as a small business in its region through the same EU fund. In total I’m getting mentoring advice, training, product design and other help to the tune of £7,000.
After six months of preparation, trading began this month with my first consultancy commission. My core business works with various educational organisations. Based on my research, it helps them to embed practices of positive silence and helps leaders to develop their democratic interaction skills. I also offer workshops and presentations about my spinout journey to universities.
My status allows me to develop true interdisciplinary diversity. For example, I am working with a design institute at a university to develop a healthcare product I have invented, which involves talk of patenting, intellectual property, nondisclosure agreements, prototypes, moulding and licensing.
Alongside all this, I’m carrying on with the usual things that academics do: editing books, running a journal, submitting articles and speaking at conferences. I’m in discussion with a research organisation to be a partner for a bid, and a government department wants to discuss my research ideas.
Every skill I’ve ever developed is in play. I was an artist before becoming a researcher, for example, and a gallery in London is now interested in an exhibition I am working on called Naked Academics. It’s a busy life, but it’s as pressured as I make it, and this is the first time since the start of my PhD seven years ago that I have had a healthy work-life balance.
There have been worries, of course. Money from savings has passed out of my bank account without cash coming in. And the entrepreneurial life requires particular skills and attributes, such as a thick skin. For every job you win, you have to be willing to suffer a lot of rejection.
I’ve had to acquire skills and learn about factors that weren’t in the PhD prospectus: accounting, fiduciary responsibility, sales cycles, forecasting, business plans, professional indemnity insurance, office business rate rebates, VAT registration, corporation tax and value propositions. My business mentor recently sat me down and explained the beauty of spreadsheets.
But the admin is not too bad, and I get a kick out of being totally in charge. I’m less driven by ego now and more client-focused, which requires a useful humility. My research serves society, rather than empty university assessment protocols. And I’m making money from the work because it meets a need.
Because I’m employed by my company, it’s cheaper for universities to hire me than it is to take on an employee, and there are no university overheads. If work is regular—and I am confident it will be within the next six months—it’s also better paid for me. I keep my intellectual property and remain a union member in the self-employed branch.
Others following the same path have been in touch; I’m now developing projects with two researcher spinouts. Only last month, the careers organisation Vitae organised an online panel offering advice to researchers about being an entrepreneur. One panel member was a researcher of theology who had started a soap business. All of us believe that researcher training has made us ready and able to trade commercially.
‘Going Ltd’ empowers researchers, enabling them to work on their own terms, and undermines the casualisation of the research workforce. It also creates diverse careers. It’s not an ivory tower; it’s a flexible fortress. But it needs support—some kind of university affiliation is valuable, for both researcher and institution. The long-term future of the employment model I’m pursuing looks interesting and promising. Especially if more researchers take the same route.
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Helen Lees is a visiting research fellow at York St John University and managing director of Other Consulting. See more at www.otherconsulting.com.