As a researcher, it isn't how long you've held the title for, or how senior a title you've got, or how big the brand is, that defines you as researcher. Great researchers aren't defined by any of these things.

What they are defined by is how much cumulative time that they've spent in research sessions, how many different contexts that they've researched in, any research specialities that they have, their fundamental ability to generate valuable insight (aka 'the gold'), knowing what to do and when. These are some of the things that define a great researcher.

Quite simply, to become a better researcher means getting more research hours under your belt

Much like a pilot, who needs X amount of flying time to qualify for a professional flying license, researchers are the same in principal

However, you don't just stick a junior pilot in the plane and wish them the best of luck, obviously it doesn't turn out well

The junior pilot starts off in simulators, and then learns to fly in a real plane accompanied by a experienced qualified pilot

What we're seeing today are junior being put in planes, flying solo without any instruction or support - and it's incredibly stressful and unreasonable

This is one of the new unethical norms that has been establishing in the past few years - practitioners without any support for learning and growth

If you're not generating value, if you don't have the support needed to teach you how to generate value, your role will be at threat by AI. Not scaremongering, simple logic.

THE SOLUTION: 

- Get more research hours under your belt
- Volunteer for the difficult sessions, the early and late ones 
- Travel if it's an option - go to your users if you can, especially if you're in Retail or any other physically-based sectors
- Try constant recruitment so that you have a constant stream of participants
- Go rogue: do what you need to do to get the first hand experience, just do it legally, ethically and morally - do not wait for permission to do the right thing for your users, yourself or your practice

It's not fair or right that you're being made to learn to fly solo, but doing these things will help reduce the impact and help you to grow independently. It's not ideal but nothing ever is, so just get more and different research hours under your belt and you'll quickly start to see and feel the benefits.