Going on a research visit is challenging, but Line Stattau Bisgaard would do it again

Last year, Line Stattau Bisgaard went abroad with her family on a research visit. She encountered numerous obstacles, but she is in no doubt that she will set off again if she has the opportunity.

In January 2020, Line Stattau Bisgaard boarded a plane with her partner and her two children, aged 3 and 5. Ahead of them lay 3 months in Singapore, where she was to carry out research at the National University of Singapore (NUS). There, it is possible to conduct large-scale analyses of fat molecules in the blood, and Bisgaard’s plan was to do just that using patient samples.

Or rather, that was the original plan. Because, when you go abroad, things don’t always turn out as expected. This applies to researchers, too. Because of European data protection law, the patient samples had not yet been sent when we spoke to Line Stattau Bisgaard in late 2020.

Her advice to others is therefore to start working well in advance on getting your patient samples dispatched, if you intend to use such samples in your work. She herself began six months before she was due to leave.

‘Actually, you should begin more than a year ahead. That’s well before you’re due to start, before you know whether you’ll be going at all. And that’s the problem. You’re dependent on the place you’re going to. Their IT and security systems have to be checked and approved. There’s a lot of machinery to be set in motion before you know whether you’re going’, says Line Stattau Bisgaard.

In the end, she herself analysed mouse samples. But, although the samples were rather different to what had been planned, the set-up and analysis were the same. By her own account, Line Stattau Bisgaard therefore got the same out of the visit as she would have otherwise.

‘Fortunately, I’m in a group where we also do mouse experiments, and we were permitted to send those without so much paperwork. The GDPR doesn’t apply so much to mice’, says Line Stattau Bisgaard with a laugh.

She adds that the aim is still to get approval to send the patient samples to be analysed at the laboratory in Singapore.

Financial worries

Research methods are not the only thing Line Stattau Bisgaard learned on her foreign research visit, though. She also picked up input that may help other researchers dreaming of setting off on research visits.

If it’s a short trip, it can be a good idea to find out in advance whether there are compulsory courses or induction programmes that you have to attend before you can start work in the lab. You should also ensure that you can start the courses when you arrive. Otherwise, you risk wasting valuable time waiting for the courses. That was Line Stattau Bisgaards’s experience.

You should also start looking for funding early on in the process. On a practical level, the financial aspect was what loomed largest for Line Stattau Bisgaard.

‘It’s not that you should be making money out of being abroad in any way, but it was also very important to me that being away should not come as a financial blow to my family. I thought about that a lot. A visit abroad is a great experience for your family too, but at the same time you’ve asked your partner to put their own career on hold, and you’ve taken your children out of their usual environment, so I don’t think it should land you with a huge bill afterwards as well’, says Line Stattau Bisgaard.

She says that she had to get the grant money from the DDA first, before she could apply for bursaries. And, as many bursaries have a six-month response time, it was a financially uncertain situation for Bisgaard and her family. The rent alone in Singapore would be as much as DKK 25,000 per month for a flat outside the city that was found through the university.

Help from the network

Line Stattau Bisgaard also advises reaching out for help, as she did to an ex-classmate who had recently been on a visit to the USA.

‘I got in touch with her and her colleague, and then I exchanged emails with some foundations. That was a help, but ultimately I would have liked to have a place or an office that I could turn to and get a checklist’, says Line Stattau Bisgaard.

She also recounts the experience of falling between two stools when it came to checklists and assistance, because she was going as a postdoc. In spite of the corona virus, the missing patient samples and the lack of help, though, Line Stattau Bisgaard does not regret her research visit:

‘If someone came and asked me whether they should go, I would say: “You should just think about it. It’s a lot of work”. But, then again, my family and I would definitely go again. In spite of corona and everything else, it was worth it’, insists Line Stattau Bisgaard.

Photo text: Here you see Line Stattau Bisgaard at the laboratory in Singapore, but as she points out herself this picture could have been taken in any lab in the world.

By Nanna Bach Andersen, Student Assistant, DDA