The fine art of acromancy

Acro-monious

A sure sign of having gone native in any profession is when you start talking in acronyms. ‘Yeah, I’ve been helping a PI on a GCRF application,’ you might casually explain to colleagues round the water cooler,  ‘but it turns out they’re not paying fEC. Worse still, it breaks all GDPR requirements, and it’s not even ODA-compliant! Nightmare!’
Everyone nods in sympathy. Some make a mental note to avoid either GCRF or water coolers in the future. Possibly both. Others, however, go back to their desks and feverishly Google the terms. Federal Election Commission? Are they responsible for the Geocentric Celestial Reference Frame? If so, how the hell did the Oregon Department of Agriculture get involved? And isn’t π pronounced pi rather than PI?

RCUK Scrabble

It's holiday season, even for the good folks at Death Star Avenue. Now read on.

A holiday cottage on the west coast of Wales. Rain is lashing against the windows, and the casements are rattling. It's August. A group of RCUK apparatchiks are huddled around a game of Scrabble. It's clear they're playing an unusual variant of this family favourite in which only acronyms can be used.

Acro-monious

I've come to realise that, in order to get ahead in research administration, the most important skill to possess is an ability to master acronyms. It's an unwritten rule that, whenever two or more research administrators are gathered, each must shoehorn as many acronyms as possible into a sentence, so that to any outsider they sound like Russians gargling nails. Thus, a typical exchange would run something like this:

'Judith! I've not seen you since the ARMA conference.'
'Good to see you Maureen. I've been away at EARMA in Dublin. I stayed around for ESOF, too.'
'How was it?'
'Brilliant. Some of the INORMS lot were there, you know, from SRA, CAURA, ARMS, SARIMA and WARIMA.'
'Not NCURA?'
'Oh yes. NCURA, naturally. Oh, and ACU. Good times! So how are things with the REF at UCL?'
'OK, but the 3A, 3Bs and 4 are proving difficult. Much harder than the RAE. I don't know what HEFCE were thinking. How about KCL?'
'The same. The VC and PVC think things will be easier if the JISC RMAS system ever gets off the ground. The HoDs are less sure.'
'I hear the problem with that is individual researcher IDs. HR has concerns. But if they take on board the lessons from CERIF-CRIS...'
'Hopefully ORCID will do that.'
'Yes. But the ResID lot will need to pull their finger out first.'
'True. But then is RCUK going to accept it? And what about HESA? It'll affect ROS. And e-VAL.'
'Hmm'
[general sucking of teeth]
'Oh, did you hear? We got that big EPSRC grant!'
'Was that the joint call with the MRC and NIHR?'
'No, the one with NERC and AHRC. The PI and Co-I are ecstatic!'
'I imagine there's a raft of RAs and PhDs?'
'Of course! But the SSC has cocked up the award announcement.'
'No!'
'Yes. Gave the wrong amount via JeS!'
'It wasn't fEC?'
'No!'
'So much for TRAC!!'
[both laugh, and wipe tears from their eyes]

Ah, you had to be there.