Long-term goals, concerning the group's output
- Produce the next generation of creative, knowledgeable, independent, honest and trustworthy researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, team players and leaders, with successful careers in their areas of choice.
- Uncover and explain new and unexpected scientific beauty, by exploring the fascinating world of soft matter physics with the curiosity of a child and the analytical tools and critical thinking of a world-class scientist.
- Build a ground for a new generation of applications of liquid crystals and other soft matter, filling key functions in the technologies and materials of the future.
Continuous short-term goal (for ourselves)
Each group member should feel that her/his work is worth getting out of bed for in the morning, thanks to a friendly, open and sharing environment, thanks to a feeling of being valued, and thanks to stimulating challenges.
Your own goals
The above goals constitute a kind of vision statement (the first three goals) and a mission statement (the fourth, internal, goal), which I hope will give you a clear idea of what the group as a whole is striving for, why our research and training activities matter, and what my intentions for the group are, now and on a long-term perspective. They should act as a guiding principle and help you to fit in your own activities with the targeted achievements of the group. In this context, it is important that you also have a clear idea of what your individual goals are. These must be of two types:
- Which are your personal goals on a long-term perspective? Why did you choose to do a Ph.D. or a post-doc? What do you hope that this experience will help you to achieve? Where are you heading afterwards? Where do you see yourself in 10 years from now? This is something you must come up with yourself. I am very happy to discuss it with you, or any fraction of it that you want to share with me, but fundamentally it is your responsibility and opportunity to formulate these goals. The clearer you describe them to me, the more I can help you in achieving them.
- Which are the goals with the research project in which you are working? This can be my, your or someone else's responsibility, depending on how your project is funded. Even if you are on a project where you are not the PI, you of course have considerable freedom to influence the goals. The important thing is that you, I and all other team members have a clear and unified idea of what the project goals are, and how we should achieve them.
Please think through your current understanding of your individual goals. If they are not clear, then you need to think about them, and we need to discuss them. I am always happy to have this type of discussion.
Having a clear idea of why you are here and why you do what you do is important. I hope the above helps in providing such an idea, and I am always grateful for suggestions to improve the clarity.
Yours
Jan
