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?

It’s all so confusing. So here’s Fundermental's cut out and keep guide to surviving in the acronym-rich world of RMA.

• Moving between sectors can be embarrassing - or hilarious. If you come from the world of retail, RMAs will always be returned merchandise authorisations. If you work in research management and administration, however, it’s beyond comprehension that it can be anything but shorthand for your own profession. 
• It’s okay to ask. Surprisingly, not everyone was born with EPSRC tattooed across their forehead. We’ve all had to learn what they mean, and people won’t sneer if you ask whether an ORCID really is just a misspelt flower. Well, if they do that’s their problem, not yours. 
• 3 letters good, 4+ better. It’s a truth universally acknowledged, that a phrase, in want of a good acronym, must be in search of one with three letters. It might be true, but it doesn’t help you. The longer the acronym, the more likely it is to mean just one thing. That makes it easier for you to work it out if there’s no one around to ask. According to Wikipedia, ERC can mean 28 other things apart from European Research Council. For GCRF you’re down to four. For BBSRC there’s only one candidate, and it’s not the Baltimore Ballistics and Security Resilience Centre.
• Spell it out. Once you’re familiar with the alphabet soup of the sector’s acronyms, don’t assume everyone else is. If you’re talking to, or writing for, a mixed audience of RMA professionals and others, always spell out an acronym - or even explain it - the first time you use it. 
• Be careful if you want to invent your own. When you’ve mastered the trickiest of RMA TLAs (three letter acronyms), it may be tempting to start forging your own. Before you do, make sure that it’s not already taken. Having a hub for enterprise and innovation might just mean you are constantly having to explain that no, you aren’t responsible for the whole higher education institution, and no, you can’t sign off on that multi-million pound bid on behalf of the university. Unless that was your cunning plan all along. In which case I salute you and you clearly no longer need my help in mastering acronyms.

(This was first published in ARMA's Protagonist, and is reproduced with kind permission)