My name is Ben Mortishire-Smith and I’m a chemical biologist from the University of Cambridge. Although I’ve only been working as an Associate with Outsmart for a few months now, it has already been a worthwhile way to keep my scientific brain active and hone new types of skills - not to mention a way to earn some extra cash while I consider my next steps after my PhD.
Although I admit to a degree of initial scepticism at the concept of “crowd-sourced consulting”, this quickly gave way to interest as I discovered the opportunities to make my own meaningful contributions to real-world projects. I had no prior experience of this sort of commercial science work, but it wasn’t long before I had been able to engage with a wide range of topics - from forecasting technologies for nuclear waste management to researching technologies and experts in conservation ecology.
For me, a major appeal of the work is the variety of fields to which we are asked to bring our scientific eye. That said, a personal highlight so far was a pair of Trend Foresight projects that looked at methods to detect and characterise environmental DNA and organic matter - topics that matched my personal interests in organic chemistry and chemical biology. With my particular background in genetic sequencing, I was given the chance to offer my own perspective on the findings of the team, and to draft a report for the client based on our insights. It was rewarding to apply my specialist knowledge in a novel and unusual ecological context, and to discover new ways that my academic experience could come in useful outside of the lab.
Although I am planning to stick with practical research jobs for a while yet, my time at Outsmart has brought opportunities to develop many skills that will come in useful in the future and round out my CV. Most projects begin with a search phase which requires us to evaluate unfamiliar technical information as we scour the landscape of startups, experts and technologies for relevant signals amidst the noise. Next, summarising the findings, collating information and producing reports for commercial clients who may not have a relevant technical background requires good scientific writing skills. Finally, it helps to have good time management in order to fit this work around everything else we have going on in life.
To new Associates or people who are on the fence about getting involved, my advice would be to throw yourself in at the deep end! The time commitment is extremely flexible, and even if the work would be outside of your existing comfort zone, the Project Managers are friendly and helpful and will have you working on all sorts of projects before you know it. In terms of the compensation, I’ve heard that other Associates seem to put it towards exotic holidays - while in my case the financial boost has enabled a crippling board game addiction. Overall I hope you’ll see that, regardless of the career path that I follow after my PhD, I’ll have plenty to show for my time as an Associate with Outsmart Insight.