Having ideas is a great thing and makes up the foundation of scientific research.

It can be difficult to identify risks and the impact they might have on your project because you don’t know what you don’t know!

The first step in risk planning and management is identifying the risks.

It is important to have key messages for your research ready to go so that you can effectively communicate your work in a way that it is easy for most people to understand.

Scientific experiments need to be replicable, otherwise the credibility of any results you get may become questionable if no one else can demonstrate what you did.

Once you’ve identified your risks you can then set about putting things in place to minimise or avoid negative risks, increase chances of an opportunity arising or its impact, and working out which risks should just be accepted.

The scope of your project is what you are contracted or obliged to do with the time and funding provided, this is what is considered ‘in scope’ for your project.