杏吧原创

GREGARIOUS, fun, easily bored yet businesslike, while admitting a weakness for shopping: Nancy Rothwell is not your stereotypical scientist. She dropped biology at age 14, flirted with a career in art, and says her choice of where to study for a degree in 1970s London 鈥渨as completely driven by being enamoured with Kensington High Street鈥�. Yet this professor, dame and fellow of the Royal Society excels in every aspect of her career.

Rothwell heads a hugely successful neuroscience research lab at the University of Manchester, focusing on the role of inflammation in brain disease and injury. She also fills a weighty administrative role as vice-president, overseeing the university鈥檚 academic research and the nearly 拢270 million budget that goes with it. She is a trustee of Cancer Research UK, a member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, a non-executive director of AstraZeneca, and holds a string of other qualifications and accolades (see below). Given this wide experience, Rothwell is a source of sound advice about a career in science 鈥� from the first steps of a PhD to management tips for the most senior administrator.

One of her first pieces of advice is perhaps not surprising from a woman who didn鈥檛 start out as the 鈥渢ypical鈥� scientist. 鈥淭here are so many different sorts of scientists,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou shouldn鈥檛 imagine you have to be a specific type.鈥� Lots of scientists worry that they are nothing like their supervisor, but that does not necessarily mean that you will not have a fulfilling and successful career, she says. 鈥淵ou have to be passionate, that鈥檚 probably the most important thing.鈥� And passionate she is, whether explaining how the brain works to schoolchildren, addressing her peers at the Royal Society or briefing a science minister.

Discovering this love for your subjectcan take time. You shouldn鈥檛 fret if you have no career path mapped out from the start, she says. The closest Rothwell ever came to making a career plan, apparently, was some schoolwork written at age 6 describing an ambition to be a famous scientist. Instead of great ambitions or fixed goals, her success seems to have come by embracing the unexpected.

As a young scientist, she had studied physiology and fell into obesity research. But an unforeseen discovery during an experiment into the body鈥檚 immune response after a stroke changed everything. Rothwell had correctly predicted that blocking a protein involved in inflammation (interleukin-1) would prevent the changes in metabolic rate that usually follow a stroke in rats. In 1991, towards the end of the investigation, she asked a student to run a control experiment to check that the treatment had no effect on the brain damage caused by a stroke. To Rothwell鈥檚 surprise, blocking the protein reduced cellular damage dramatically. This result still shines as a career highlight, closely followed by hearing she had been elected to the Royal Society.

After publishing the find, Rothwell faced a tough decision. Pursuing this new lead would mean leaving behind an international reputation in the field of obesity and metabolism, and launching into a study of neuroimmunology and brain disease, which she knew little about. Her adviser at the time told her to follow her heart, which she still considers great advice. With hindsight, she describes her choice to follow the lead as naive rather than brave, but she has no regrets. Too many researchers are reluctant to break from their discipline because it looks too difficult, she says. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 have any qualms about changing to another field again if something exciting came along.鈥�

Changing research areas isn鈥檛 the only thing that makes Rothwell鈥檚 career stand out. Take her success as an administrator. This side of the job is feared and loathed by many academics, and as a young scientist Rothwell was no exception. She recalls relishing the reduced administrative load that came with a Royal Society research fellowship early in her career. These days, her administrative duties equal her academic ones. 鈥淚鈥檓 not sure how it happened really,鈥� she says. In 1996, she was asked to become dean of research for the University of Manchester鈥檚 school of biological sciences. She agreed, partly because she had never done anything like it before. 鈥淪omehow it didn鈥檛 seem to me to be an administrative job,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut gradually there are committees and extras that people ask you to do, and you think either 鈥榯hat would be interesting鈥� or that you probably shouldn鈥檛 say no.鈥� So began her collection of positions on research councils, trusts and committees.

One job she did turn down at first was her current post as university vice-president for research. It wasn鈥檛 for lack of confidence in her ability (the only thing that has ever truly terrified her enough to refuse was appearing on BBC鈥檚 Question Time). She was simply afraid of neglecting her research. University president Alan Gilbert persisted, and she finally accepted as long as she could retain her full responsibilities as an academic and head of a laboratory. Rothwell still sits in a small office among her postdocs and students 鈥渟o I can lean out of the window and shout at them鈥�.

As a vice-president of the university she is involved in its day-to-day running, covering everything from setting pay scales to deputising for the president, alongside her specific research responsibilities. A big part of this is to oversee the UK government鈥檚 research-assessment exercise at the university, the outcome of which affects a department鈥檚 reputation and funding for the following five years.

When it comes to managing academics, 鈥渋t helps to be one of them鈥�, Rothwell says. When chasing people to submit their grant applications, for example, it comes in handy to point out that she has to do it too. It is also important to know what motivates researchers 鈥� she says that scientists need a sense of autonomy and independence, even if this is sometimes illusory. Carrots work better than sticks with academics, she says. 鈥淭elling researchers what to do is a recipe for them doing the opposite.鈥� It鈥檚 a case of encouraging, nurturing and enthusing. 杏吧原创s also need the freedom to pursue blue-sky research. 鈥淚f universities don鈥檛 do it, who will?鈥�

聯Telling academics what to do is a recipe for them doing the opposite聰

Rothwell is keen that Manchester鈥檚 young scientists have the same opportunities to learn as she did, so has introduced some valuable guidance into the usual PhD itinerary. Graduate students at the university now participate in formal mentoring schemes and take part in seminars on writing, teaching, public speaking and management.

The obvious final question is about what comes next for Rothwell: becoming a vice-chancellor, perhaps? That鈥檚 certainly what many people expect, she says, but she鈥檚 undecided. 鈥淚 enjoy what I鈥檓 doing now,鈥� she admits. 鈥淏ut I鈥檝e never known what I鈥檓 going to do next.鈥�