FAIL LIVE: Encouraging failure freedom within PGR communities
Ursula Kate Hurley
Davina Whitnall
10.17866/rd.salford.10510895.v1
https://salford.figshare.com/articles/presentation/FAIL_LIVE_Encouraging_failure_freedom_within_PGR_communities/10510895
<p>The presentation addresses the following themes:<br>
* Strategic opportunities and challenges for organisations in creating and
sustaining environments where researchers can flourish<br>
* Innovative and practical approaches to the professional and career
development of researchers across all career stages and institutional contexts<br>
<br>
What
do Post-It Notes and Penicillin have in common? They were both the results of
research “gone wrong”, and may easily have ended up in the bin, had the
researcher not understood the value of their apparent mistake. Failure is
often a considered a negative but looking at it differently can open routes to
success. As Foucault pointed out, ‘Error
is the permanent contingency [alea] around which the history
of life and the development of human beings are coiled’ (Foucault 1998, 477). And yet traditional academic structures may not value mistakes and do not allow
time for trial and error as they find it difficult to accommodate this
unpredictable process (Naray-Davey and Hurley 2014). We argue that perceptions of risk and failure can be re-positioned as
part of a discovery process in which we can explore without fear of the consequences.
As Jackson (2003, 7) puts it, to ‘recognize emergent unanticipated
outcomes’ with calm curiosity rather than dismay at a plan going awry.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This session explores a series of
strategies, case studies and researcher support interventions to encourage
researcher resilience, positive wellbeing behaviours and the development of reflective practice. The
information presented is based on recent institutional case studies and
evaluations. During this practical and hands on session, participants
contributions help to form and develop a sectoral consultation paper on the
concept of failure freedom to initiate further discussion and research into the
approach. Throughout the workshop, we encourage participants to think about
failure differently and to embrace failure as a key milestone to success.<br>
<br>
Session aims:<br>
- Exploration of case studies and experiences focussed on failure<br>
- Applications of 'failure freedom' in reflective practice for teaching and
demonstrating <br>
- Strategies for developing a positive narrative about failure<br>
- Examples of failure freedom practice such as Failure Friday, action learning
sets focussing on failure<br>
- Implications of identifying personal or professional unconscious bias to
avoid failure <br>
- Participants discover the power of their first 100 fails!<br>
<br>
</p>
2019-11-20 15:37:04
mental health
wellbeing
resilience
researcher development
failure