143 – The Impact Activation Book

[00:00:07] George: Hello and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I am George Simmons, a Postdoctoral Impact Activation Fellow at IDEMS. And today I am joined by David Stern, founding director. Hello David. 

[00:00:19] David: Hi, George. This is your first time to host an episode. 

[00:00:22] George: Yeah. So that was fun reading off that intro. So, the purpose of this podcast, or maybe the podcast series to follow is to take a much deeper dive into the idea of impact activation. And this follows on from a workshop that IDEMS gave at the ICMS, the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh, at the end of February this year.

And part of that workshop obviously was working with the participants to kind of guide them, open their minds, give them ideas and all that kind of thing. But another part of it was really introspection from us at IDEMS over what we mean by impact activation, what we mean by impact, what we mean by activation, who we’re thinking about activating, and how you can go about that, thinking about examples and case studies that we’ve done. 

So there’s been a lot of thinking and discussion, and the idea of this series is to really start to dive into each of those parts and hopefully then start to write up that information in a form. Our current working form is aiming for some kind of book around impact activation. And I wanted to kind of start by getting your thoughts, David, on why are we feeling that we’re aiming for a book in this situation? 

[00:01:22] David: Well, this wasn’t my idea. From the workshop, it was clear to me that we should write something up. And I was thinking of a paper. And I discussed this with the director of ICMS and he challenged me because he said that, well, the really exciting and interesting part of what you’ve got are these stories. You’ve got the people, the case studies. This doesn’t sound like a paper, it sounds more like a book where you might have three sections if you want. 

The first section being a set of chapters about people. These are impact activation fellows, the people whom we’ve defined the concept around. The second thing he pointed out was we have these case studies, these areas where impact activation fellows have contributed and what that looks like and what that means. And then we’ve got these ideas, which is what I was thinking of the paper form, which we’re trying to sort of concretise for ourselves, of actually some of the theory behind what we think of as impact activation of mathematical scientists and why we think it is something concrete, which can be, formalised is the wrong word, but can be structured, it can be a framework about how to do this and principles about it. And that can be the theory component if you want, of the book. 

And so he challenged me to say, this sounds more like a book than it does a paper. And I had to confess that I agreed with him. So that’s where the idea of actually getting this into a book came from and working towards that. That’s not gonna happen anytime soon. This is going to be a long-term project for us as a team, working towards this. And I’m delighted that you’ve taken on the challenge of actually being part of structuring that.

[00:04:00] George: Yeah, it is really interesting how that’s come about and, one of my thoughts is when we are together, this is kind of being developed as a paper, and one of my questions there was, when you’re writing a paper, the emphasis is on the evidential record, when you’re going into a paper.

And I suppose what a book does is it kind of gives you a little bit more freedom, where you can write parts of it from an evidential record, but there’s also this space to go into, I don’t like the word opinion in this context, but from story, so kind of a storytelling based approach. 

[00:04:00] David: Well, this was exactly what he pointed out, which really resonated with me, is that we do have enough experience that we can, we have something concrete to say. But it really is the storytelling, which is powerful. That’s where I think there’s something really concrete which resonates I think,with other people when some of those stories are told.

So I think part of what he opened my eyes to is that actually thinking of this book more as a storytelling process, as a way, and I suppose the key thing is if it’s a book, who’s going to read it and why? 

 [00:05:18] George: This is my next question because we have certain ideas of who we want to be activated or who can be activated in this way, but presumably that’s more narrow than the target audience for this book in a way.

[00:05:13] David: I think who should we should be activating? That’s a whole nother story and what that looks like and so on is a different story. So let’s focus on, well, who could this book be for and why would it be worth putting in the effort to make a book on this?

And I believe broadly, there’d be three audiences that I would like to reach through this book, and it’s the reason I think it’s worth us putting the effort into the book. I would like to reach an audience of collaborators, the sort of people who are working, let’s say, in social impact areas, in international development, who actually could benefit from what we would see as activated mathematical scientists in the room. 

And there’s two things that I hope this book would help them with. One is to help them to see some of the potential value that such an activated collaborator could provide for them. But actually that’s not the main thing that I think they get out of it because when I talk to people in international development, in social impact spaces, they kind of know the value that mathematical scientists or mathematical minds could bring. 

But what they can’t do is differentiate. They kind of assume that, well, anyone who’s good at maths will be able to do this ’cause this is so easy. And that recognition that maybe it’s true that anyone with the mathematical mind could do this, but if they haven’t been activated, they won’t know how to, or they won’t even know they should. They won’t understand the role they could be playing and so you could have someone who could be really useful but isn’t. 

And that’s actually the experience I’ve seen quite often that, you know, especially within academia, people in the social sciences, they say, I really need a mathematician to help me with this. And they go and they talk to people in the maths department, and it falls flat. I have one very concrete story of this, which apparently happened in Covid. 

I wasn’t in the room at the time, but apparently there were some medical doctors in this sort of discussion about the mathematical modelling around Covid who were saying we have all the data from our hospital and we have all these issues, we have all these questions. Can you help us? Ah, no, that’s not the modelling we are doing. And this is, as researchers, these mathematicians were moving the field forward. And so it’s correct, their mathematical research was moving the field forward in a specific way, and the data and the questions the medical counterparts had, they didn’t correspond to mathematics research, certainly not that was studied by that community.

But this element that an activated, well, you know, somebody who we would consider has been impact activated would never respond in that way, because it is not about your research, it’s about making yourself useful and that you’ve just been offered that opportunity to be useful. And that’s a big part of it, is using the implicit skills you have to be useful. 

[00:09:31] George: That’s very interesting. Yeah, I really like that story. And I think it’s a very good representation of, yeah, the difference between I’m good at maths ’cause I’m good at my research or I’m good at maths so I have good skills.

So that was kind of the first audience you suggested is looking at collaborators and potentially how you maybe not train a mathematician for impact, but certainly how you can be looking for the right kind of skillset. 

[00:10:00] David: Exactly. Just because a mathematician has the skills that mean they could help you doesn’t mean that they’re in the right mindset or mind frame to be ready to help you. And that differentiation is I think the heart of really why I feel the impact activation is an important framing. 

The second group, of course, is those mathematicians themselves, you know, the actual established mathematical scientists who are experts in their own right. And I find when I interact with mathematicians, you know, there’s two sorts of reactions, which tend to be the common ones. One is the one that actually the thought of being put in that situation where you’re not working on what you know, but you’re solving other people’s problems, and you are supposed to bring your skills to solve their problems. 

That is so alien that they can’t imagine themselves in that position, in that situation. Their research is really actually, it’s important, it’s framed around them, but it’s framed in structures they can understand. And this is very comforting to a mathematician. I know this for myself. Going out of a framework you understand into this unknown where, why should I be useful at that? Why can’t they do that themselves? You know, is a framework, which I find very common. 

And so for that audience and for that sort of set of people, it’s this idea that, well, it really is the answer to why can’t they do that for themselves, is that there are skills that you have and that we hold as mathematical mind as mathematical scientists, which if we position ourselves in the right way, even if we are not the experts, if we collaborate in the right way, our minds have value as part of a team of people thinking about and working on many other problems. 

Now, that doesn’t mean that you need to leave your comfort zone or your academic research and so on, because we want people to be moving the fields of mathematics forwards. But the idea, and I would love more mathematicians to recognize that, actually there is a process to go through, which is what we call this impact activation, where I believe just being present in the room in a lot of contexts, you will be able to add value. 

And so if you care about something, start by just being present, putting yourself in the room is the first step. And that’s part of what I would hope to achieve with that is the people who feel, I don’t see how I can do that, I’m an expert at this, I want to work in my domain, I don’t see how to contribute elsewhere, I would hope that this would actually just sort of say, well, the first rule is to be present. 

[00:13:24] George: Sorry, the structure of this book is then to structure those kind of case studies, those stories in a way that is accessible to lots of different mathematicians, lots of different backgrounds, so they can pick out what resonates with them as a background and then see…

[00:13:39] David: Let me finish with the second audience, but this takes me to the third audience. But the second audience, the second part of the second audience is that other mathematicians I know are actually very good at working with partners on things which are outside their domains of expertise and being useful in a way which uses their expertise.

And what I tend to find there is that then partners and collaborators become a search for where your specific expertise add value. And a lot of mathematics is so useful in so many areas that many mathematical scientists are working on problems which have direct applications in specific areas.

But what I’m hoping to be able to articulate is this element that working with partners on something where your research is able to then contribute to impact is one thing. But it is not the same as what we are defining as this impact activation. We’re not saying it’s not valuable, of course it’s valuable and of course we encourage it. But being activated is something else.

And my desire for some of those people already working in that way on things which are impactful is to encourage them to embrace being activated as well, because I believe that will make them even more valuable. This is the thing, and I think particularly for mathematicians who are in that collaborative space, I feel the idea of being, and I would argue in some languages, this is the difference between being interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, making that jump to actually being really transdisciplinary and going out of your comfort zone of your discipline in a way where you are not even trying to bring it back to your expertise. You’re just trying to contribute in that transdisciplinary way. 

I believe for many of the more applied mathematical scientists that jump would be, well, from my personal experience, it’s not only that it’s extremely valuable, it’s liberating in certain ways as well, because it frees you from worrying about whether the expertise you are bringing is the right expertise. Because that’s not what you’re trying to do, you are not trying to bring your expertise. And so yes, your expertise comes along with you because it’s part of you, but it actually frees you in certain ways.

Now I am conscious, and this is something which will come back, I’m sure later in our discussions, that broadly this process that we are describing of impact activation, I know that we are not the first people to go through these processes. I know other people who have gone through this. I know that certain people have tried to articulate some of this in the past. 

But whenever I’ve listened to this and listened to people describe this or describe a process like this, it might resonate with me, but it feels very personal and it doesn’t feel generalisable. And so really the aim of the book for this audience is to try to both get that personal part, but also to try to get something in there which feels generalisable.

And maybe I just very quickly mention the third audience that I have in mind, because the third audience I have in mind is really the participants of this workshop that we were at. The third audience is those young, early career researchers, you know, PhD students. It is the mathematical minds in making, if you want, who are passionate about social issues, whatever they may be, and who love the maths in whatever form it might be, but want to be able to use those skills for the things they’re passionate about. 

And my hope is that this book will be most important for them because it will say, yes, you are not alone. There are others like you, and it may not be a well trodden path, it may not be easy, but there are ways you can follow, that you can stay true to who you are as a mathematical scientist while actually contributing to the things you care about.

[00:18:54] George: Yeah. And I think that’s a very important realisation because a lot of, as you say, the people who actually signed up to our workshop in February were much more aware than I guess, the average mathematical science student of at least some social issue. And there was a lovely range of issues that people cared about from education, political issues, war, social justice, climate, biodiversity. There was this lovely range between people and I think in some ways that’s, yeah, how to harness that passion into actually breaking down that first door. 

[00:19:35] David: Absolutely. And this is the thing that fundamentally, if the book succeeds at making, you know, at least just being there for that third audience, making them feel seen that they’re not alone, this would be huge. Because it is something we know from the people who were there, we know from the people who have been through the impact activation fellowship, and from broadly personal experiences and colleagues who we’ve seen, that it’s a lonely route at the moment. 

Yes, we’re a small team, trying to build up these skills in a particular way and to follow this, but at the moment, it is not what you would find if you are in a maths department as a PhD student talking to your peers. You are the outlier in this if this is what you are really passionate about. And I think that’s what we found with the participants as well, that even the fact that they were with other people who in their home context are outliers, there are other kindred spirits, you know, wrestling with these same issues.

[00:20:52] George: Yeah, I think that’s a wonderful vision of the audience. And I think it demonstrates why a book is going to be so much more useful to be able to hit all of these different people, with one single piece of effort. So, I think we’re about ready to wrap up this first discussion.

I just wanted to kind of finish by going back over the structure of the topics, really as a way of introducing the rest of the series. So, one thing I’d like to kind of dive a little bit deeper into is you mentioned that kind of this book might have three parts as it looks like, and the first really seems to be about people who have been impact activated and their case studies. The second part is case studies about what people who have been impact activated have worked on and made a difference. Where do you see the line between those two sections? 

[00:21:51] David: That’s a really good question, and I think the line is probably going to be around the exposition aspect. There may even be overlap between the two, but I think there’s enough different areas that it might be that the first one is about having some of these personal stories. And it is this fact that the stories themselves have power partly because there weren’t the structures in place that meant this was a smooth path. 

And so the personal stories often have elements of innovation, elements of surprise is the wrong word, but, you know, movement, however you’d consider that element where leaps of faith were taken. But there were strong reasons behind why those decisions were made. But it is a very personal story. 

And I think some of those personal stories are important to be able to help, well, if we go through the different audiences, I would argue those personal stories are most useful for audiences one and three. They’re useful for audiences three to see, well, could I position, could I see myself making such a leap? Might I build myself up to the point where I take a decision, which puts me into a situation which I would never have expected to find myself out, and then I need to find a way to make it work.

But I think it was also really important for audience one because to understand what individuals had to go through to be able to be now what they can take for granted in some sense, or what can be taken for granted, but that that skill set has come from somewhere, is really important to distinguish it from just expecting anyone to have that.

And so I think for audiences one and three, those personal stories are going to be critical. I see the case studies as being rather different, and I think the case studies are less important for three because if they went on their own journey, it wouldn’t be related to these case studies. They couldn’t really relate to them. But they are going to be important I think, for one and two.

So for audiences one and two, the case studies will be really important. For audience one, for them to be able to see, ah, this is what it could achieve if it was part of a collaboration that I was part of, this is how it might be differentiated. These are some of the differentiators. So to actually dig into what it would mean, you know, what these collaborations are able to do, how they are different, what they lead to. That’s really what I would see the case studies as being able to highlight. 

And if I think about your second audience, the sort of established mathematical scientist, I think they would be able to extract out of that how this is different to a normal collaboration, interdisciplinary collaboration with mathematicians. And so actually trying to differentiate these collaborations from a mathematician coming in with their area of expertise, not because one is better than the other, of course, but just because both are needed. And so to see the value of this alternative approach, however we framed it. 

The third part I think would be for audiences two and three. I don’t think the first audience, they don’t care really about the theory of how, what it is, how you achieve it, and so on so much. Maybe some people will, we have some collaborators who would probably be fascinated by that. But most of audience one would sort of skim over or leave part three. But for the mathematicians and for the early career researchers or however we frame them, that would again, be really insightful I think. And that level of abstraction would speak to that. 

So I think this idea of, thinking of it in terms of these three audiences, in terms of three sections where each audience has probably two sections, which they’d be interested in and one section which they might not care about as much.

And I think that sort of structure, again, it speaks to me because it’s complex. Three is the smallest number where you can have true complexity as a mathematician. This is, there’s something to this that you can start to get some form of complexity once you actually, once you have three.

[00:26:44] George: Yeah, very true, very true. And I think a lot of our conversations in the rest of the series will probably dive a lot into that theory. Whereas, you know, I’m hoping to be holding conversations with both you and other people really diving into those stories, those case studies as well. So I’m really excited about the conversations we’re gonna have next. Are there any final comments from you? 

[00:27:08] David: I am really grateful for you stepping into this role for your role as a driver of this project now, of this episode and yeah, no, thank you and this has been fun. I look forward to our next discussion. 

[00:27:21] George: No, that’s great. It’s been fun for me too. Thank you, David.