Dr Lisa Golds

Aileen Appleyard: I'm Aileen Appleyard, Director of Business Transformation at Edinburgh Innovations. Today, I'm here with Lisa Golds, one of our Innovation Fellows, and we're going to be talking about her experiences. 

Dr Lisa Golds: Thank you for having me here today. I'm excited about being in this new cohort of Innovation Fellows. I'm looking forward to creating real impact with translational research. 

Aileen: One of the things that might be interesting to hear about is your research area and what took you into that particular space. 

Lisa: I am looking at developmental psychology within health and social science. I mostly focus on parental smartphone use and how that impacts relational processes between parents and their infants. I've just come off the back of my PhD, and the PhD focus was on maternal smartphone use. So, mums using their smartphones, how it impacted their relationships with their infants, especially when their babies were just below one years old. What I'm hoping, with the support from Edinburgh Innovations, is to broaden the scope of that and look at a wider range of parents and caregivers and how their smartphone use affects the relationships that they're having with their babies. 

Aileen: That's great. And your career to get to that point, could you say a little bit about that? 

Lisa: I came to research quite late. I worked in kindergartens and nurseries in the UK and in Hong Kong for a while. I've always been around babies and their parents, and I've spent a lot of time looking at how those relationships develop in the real world. Then, from that, I wanted to get into research a bit more. For me, smartphone use is something that's contemporary research that we do need to look at. 

Aileen: That sounds interesting. When we spoke about this a number of months ago, one of the things I found really attractive was the idea that something that could be potentially controversial with people is something that you're looking to make easier to understand and look at the potential benefits and impacts of it. 

Lisa: I think that’s important because I do think smartphone use is a sensitive topic. I think that parenting is a sensitive topic. I think a lot of people have an opinion about how parenting should occur. There's a lot of misinformation around smartphone use and a lot of moral panic around technology in general. I think whenever new technology comes out, people worry about how it is going to impact relationships. Looking at smartphone use from a balanced and reflective point of view is important as we start to understand more about how it's impacting relationships. 

Aileen: One of the things that might be interesting to talk about is what being an Innovation Fellow means. It's got the word innovation. So, we're expecting perhaps something new, novel, and creative. But if you can, say a bit about what your innovation is and how you came up with it. 

Lisa: At this point in the fellowship, I have a couple of pathways that I'm following for the innovation. One of them is that we're hoping to build a network in Scotland of service providers who are interested in smartphone use and making sure that they are equipped to empower parents to make good choices about their smartphone habits. All the resources that we're hoping to make will be in co-production with parents. The end goal of that is a digitised platform where parents can come, they can get information about smartphone use, and can get access to alternative ways that they can use their phones. So, it becomes a tool for connection. 

Aileen: If you were to sum up where you would like this to go and how you would like to describe the final impact of this project, what would it be? 

Lisa: I would like to reach as many parents as we can. We are hoping to build a platform that is equitable, that can reach every parent in Scotland, if possible, would be the end goal for this. 

Aileen: You have mentioned the way of engaging with parents and you've talked about it being equitable. I wonder if you could share a bit about parents' reaction when you start to engage with them on the topic.

Lisa: It's interesting because it's at the front of many parents' minds. It's in the media all the time, and people are talking about smartphone use all the time. Parents are genuinely worried about whether their smartphone use is affecting the relationships they have around them, and parents are worried if it's affecting the relationships they have with their infants. So, I've found that any time I talk about my research, particularly to parents, they're interested in getting involved, helping with the research, and taking part. It feels like we're on the cusp of something very exciting and that parents can get involved in. 

Aileen: That sounds fantastic. One of the things that would also be interesting to hear about is how you became connected with Edinburgh Innovations and what sort of support you've had. 

Lisa: I think I was very lucky that I saw the fellowship position on an email, and it resonated with me, this idea of making the research translation. A lot of the fellowships and positions  I was looking at were very academic-based, whereas when I was reading about the innovation fellowship, it did seem much more translational-based, and much more of the foundation was in impact. The support that Edinburgh Innovations has given me already has been phenomenal, making sure that I am situated in a place where I am hearing about grants, funding opportunities that are coming up, and training opportunities that are coming up, and helping me to engage with stakeholders in and around Scotland. Even after a few months of being in the position, there have been countless opportunities from Edinburgh Innovations.

Aileen: So, you touched there on funding opportunities. That's always an interesting topic and something that can be quite challenging to actually think about and to attract the right level of funding. Could you share a bit with us about what funding might support you as you move forward with this project in the future? 

Lisa: Edinburgh Innovations has helped explain different seed-funding pots. I was provided with a seed fund at the beginning of the fellowship. Since then, we've been working through some different funding applications for small pots, and those kinds of seed funds have been useful for me to think about how I will set up pilot studies. We're working through it to look for some larger external and major funding pots later. 

Aileen: So hopefully, if we speak again in six to nine months, we'll have more detail on that topic. And I guess now that you've had this experience, what advice would you give to other academics considering an Innovation Fellowship? 

Lisa: Look into the Innovation Fellowship. I've been talking to people from my school, from my college. It's not necessarily something that people from my school would look at immediately to look at those different options that are out there and think about how your research can become translational, how your research can create real-world resources that are going to help the people that you're trying to help. It makes a lot of sense to me to look in this direction at this point because working alongside academics and working alongside the third sector with commercialisation makes a lot of sense to me. 

Aileen: It's been interesting to hear you bring your own innovation journey to life. Maybe if I could just ask one final question. What's next for your project? 

Lisa: At this point, we've got a couple of pathways that I'm working on. We are looking to create some new stakeholder events where we'll invite some service providers to come in and talk more about the research around effective smartphone use and get their opinion about where they see that going. We're also looking into some on-the-ground research in the next couple of months where we do start talking to parents and getting to understand their experiences of their smartphone use and how we can use that to translate that experience into resources that are going to be useful for them. 

Aileen: It sounds as if you are beginning to get traction with all of this, and we look forward to hearing more about it in the future. Thank you for sharing your experience, and I'm sure many people will be interested to hear more about your project as it progresses. 

Lisa: Thank you for having me. It's been great to talk about my work. I look forward to catching up with you in a few months to let you know where I am.