The Importance of Timing

It's Friday afternoon, #CVPR2025 rebuttals are almost done thanks to amazing colleagues, and I have a massive backlog of #HackingAcademia topics to get to, both requested and from my own list.

So the first 2025 Hacking Academia video (and the 44th overall) is on:

The Importance of Timing ⏱️ ‼️ 

"Timing is everything" they say, and timing and cycles can play a key role in professional university research careers, from the individual to the organizational to the global.

In this video I go through some common examples across the spectrum, what impact they may have, and some ways to find out where in the timing cycle you are and what you can do (or not do) about it.

Some examples I go over include:

💠 Confused about the polar opposite responses of two colleagues to an invitation to collaborate on a grant proposal, one enthusiastic, one cynical and uninterested? You may have struck them at different stages of the ebb and flow of career success and grant applications.

💠 Proposing a grant in an application domain that is widely perceived to be on the downturn and dying as a sector? You may want to reconsider your timing, or topic. And timing also applies to whether the momentum is currently in the university research sector or in the startup and industry sector...

💠 Enquiring about a faculty job at a specific university? Your prospects will be vastly different "out of round" versus at the start of a major hiring initiative (positions can be created ad hoc but it's typically much rarer)

💠 Wondering why your university is specializing in a narrow number of topics whilst the one just down the road is expanding and generalizing? Sometimes it's not that either uni is inherently different to the other, but rather that they're just at a different point in the cycles that dominate academia... 

💠 Looking for funding support from your organisation? Your chances may go up substantially if it's near the end of their financial year and they've unexpectedly got unspent funds (and you have a compelling suggestion!)

💠 Or seeking funding from the government, for an exciting initiative? Your prospects may change drastically depending on whether they're at the beginning or end of their term, or in caretaker mode leading up to an election.

💠 And finally, I talk about how deliberately proceeding even when the timing is bad can be worthwhile: to get your name, ideas and interest out there, so that when in future the timing "turns good", you're the first person that comes to mind...

The first 15 minutes of the video is in this post, but you can see the full video on YouTube, and listen to the full audio on the podcast:

💻 Video: https://lnkd.in/d7WMMnAQ

#academia #academic #university #career #careeradvice #cycles #strategy #tactics #jobs #promotion #grants #fellowships #funding #government #politics #research #disciplines #fields #sectors #domains #downturn #boom