Now, looking back on my project and towards the development of a topic for my Reflective Research Report, I find myself stepping back to determine which parts of my experience were the most significant for me.

One of the most significant parts of my experience was definitely the learning curve I faced as a student who has never developed and conducted a full research study before. I faced a lot of challenges in doing do that I never anticipated – particularly in relation to how much time certain tasks would take. Ultimately, I was not as satisfied with my final output as I had hoped to be because certain aspects of the project had to be unexpectedly rushed in order to meet the industry deadline. However, I do hope that I’ve learned to be prepared for such learning curves in the future, and that I’ve learned enough to do better on my next research project.

I also experienced a number of industry lessons. I lost approximately 7 weeks of my work timeline to numerous obstacles including a necessitated topic change, a communication error, and lack of responses to my emails. I also had recurring difficulties navigating the different instructions I got from different agents who were party to the project and trying to satisfy each of them. These obstacles taught me the necessity of flexibility in a convoluted industry like humanitarian research, and the challenges of satisfying multiple stakeholders – both of which I foresee being ongoing challenges in the future.

Since my most significant experiences related to my status as a student who has met new and unfamiliar academic and industry challenges over the course of this IDRP, I thought I could link these lessons to one of the most significant lessons that emerged from the actual data of my research study: humanitarian practitioners must adapt to a new and unfamiliar technological era, yet clearly aren’t yet prepared. Could I equate this experience to my own experiences during this IDRP? Do practitioners simply need to be given the opportunity to learn and adapt and try to satisfy the demands of the industry? After all, shouldn’t we – a community of humanitarian practitioners – always be willing students?

The past few weeks have presented real challenges to me a student working with industry partners. On the 11^th of April, RedR sent out emails to its roster members inviting them to participate in my study as interviewees. My research partner (an industry professional who initiated the project) advised me that responses to the invitation could take up to 2 weeks – particularly since many roster members are working in such remote environments.

I suspected something was definitely amiss when we had received absolutely no responses after a week and a half. I met with my research partner a few days later to discuss the issue, and I mentioned that it could be possible that the invitations were not actually sent out to roster members. While I was CC’d in the emails which went out, I could not personally view who the emails were sent to if they were BCC’d into the email thread. My research partner agreed that I should double-check this with RedR.

It took approximately two more weeks for RedR to respond to my query – which I suspect was attributable to the high number of public holidays at the time, the sheer workload of RedR workers, and perhaps even partially because I am only a student and likely less of a priority. However, after some correspondence with the roster coordinator, we realised that there was a miscommunication. I had informed my industry supervisor that I needed to acquire up to 20 participants for research interviews, but somewhere between telling her this and the request making its way to the roster coordinator, the assumption changed: they assumed I only intended to contact up to 20 people. We rectified this matter immediately and 394 invitations were emailed out, resulting in a much higher response rate.

This matter has severely delayed my project. However, I do wonder whether I would have done things differently if I could have. I waited an appropriate amount of time before contacting RedR about a potential problem, but I was hesitant to press for a response to my queries when it took 2 weeks to receive a response. This was largely because I’m a student, wanting to make a good impression, and didn’t want to pester the organisation to cater to me. Perhaps I was too quick to assume that this would irritate anyone though, and I will definitely be working towards bettering my approach to handling such relationships in the future.

My IDRP concerns a collaboration between RMIT and RedR Australia to produce an academic research publication which investigates the role of humanitarian practitioner’s attitudes in the development of blockchain technologies for the humanitarian sector. After several months of ambiguous planning and approximately three weeks of orientating my IDRP, I will finally be in a position to begin real work on the project after I receive ethical clearance. Thus far, I have already learned much about the real context of humanitarian research.

Firstly, adaptability and patience were essential to my success in securing a placement. The placement I had initially secured was in place as early as September 2018. Knowing that I had to write my Proposal prior to enrolling in the 24cp IDRP, I spent the following months occasionally checking in with my RMIT supervisor (Dr. Vandra Harris) as to whether she could provide me with enough information on the project for me to do this. Despite months of her trying to organise this information from RedR, however, the project was inevitably dropped due to issues with facilitating its completion the week before Semester 1. Luckily, Vandra was able to secure me a potential placement by Week 1 of the semester, and I had completed my Proposal by Week 2. The final proposal was certainly not the controlled, well-organised output I had hoped for when I had months to complete it, but having to adapt to changing circumstances was a lesson in itself.

Another lesson I quickly learned was the requirement of having to cater to a number of parties. For instance, the IDRP requirements and industry requirements have a tendency to vastly differ. My Proposal for the IDRP was primarily focussed on my development as a humanitarian practitioner and was not capable of doubling as a proposal for the academic study received by RedR. I also often found myself receiving different advice or instructions from different parties. One instance of this was when my Project Leader instructed me to propose three sample groups for interviews. Alternately, my RMIT supervisor advised against so many interviews in my limited timeframe, and my Industry Supervisor advised against a third sample group which did not align with her original understanding of the project. In this case, I presented the Project Leader with the competing instructions and currently await his input as well so we can all come to a compromise.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton