Ever since I came to work at my first ever and still current workplace, our team has been more into developing information systems and sometimes enterprise resource planning software (ERP). This involves having working knowledge of the current technologies, methods, frameworks and programming languages which we can use in developing software. Basically, we are more into the development side of R&D (note that our institute is a research and development institute) When I decided to take my graduate studies I became aware of the possibilities of doing research in my workplace. Taking graduate studies has broadened my perspective on what I can impart into our institute when it comes to doing research. It was not that easy to just propose doing research in my division though. My workmates are more inclined to sticking with the vanilla projects of developing software probably due to the fact that their current skill set may be limiting them from exploring research work. I personally can tell that it is not trivial to do research work. It takes a different skill set and mindset and those can only be acquired through focused and guided practice.
Just this year there has been a major shift with the leadership of our institute. The new director comes from the premier university of the country and he is very much involved with doing research in the engineering field. The current leadership is now pushing each division of the institute to incorporate research work into their projects. This implies some changes to the organizational structure of each division to accommodate the instructions of the new director. In our division, one possibility is to create a team which will specifically handle the research work while the other team handles the development work. The output of the research team should serve as input to the development group. Good thing is that there are already several of us in our division currently taking their graduate studies and being exposed to doing research work. As I have mentioned before in one of our division meetings, taking graduate studies will prepare our division for what is currently being demanded from us by the leadership. Nevertheless, I am much excited about what opportunities will come now that we will be exerting more effort as an institution in doing research and not just developmental work.
Musings of an Ever-Thinking Man 