National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2024 Leading a lab

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2024) On leading a lab: strengthening scientific leadership in responsible research: Proceedings of a workshop. National Academies Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.17226/27935.

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2024) National Academies Press

Abstract: Research leaders overseeing laboratories, centers, and collaborations have an opportunity to build and promote a culture of research excellence, integrity, and trust. At the same time, the conduct of science becomes more complex, societal demands become more explicit, and the challenges facing these leaders are myriad. Beyond the complexities of overseeing and executing innovative science, they must navigate an expanding set of roles, responsibilities, and expectations, including managing the evolving landscape of research integrity, data management, open science, mentorship, and technology.

• Bioblast editor: Gnaiger E

Selected quotes

RCR

• p 1: .. training in responsible conduct of research (RCR) has long focused on the duties of individual researchers, with few resources developed for research leaders who may also lead or participate in collaborations.
• p 7: .. a team that strives to meet its goals is headed for trouble if it does not pay attention to reproducibility and replicability, the duties to humans and animals involved in the research, ethical attribution, and respect and inclusion.
• p 10: .. it is important to not set up a hierarchy with two classes of employees: scientists and non-scientists. Instead, the goal is to operate as one laboratory with one culture.
• p 12: .. it takes years to develop a good reputation but not much time to lose it. If their name is on any lab output (i.e., papers), they must feel comfortable with it and should talk to another faculty member if they have concerns.

P 14: if people are doing the right thing, more formalized policies are not needed, but if there is variability, then practices that reinforce good decision-making around ethical issues must be instituted.

p 47: “We want researchers to have all the creativity of an artist but all the detail and discipline of an accountant.” They need to be invested in discovery and translation like an entrepreneur, yet also acknowledge that, in most cases, their institution owns all the data and IP they produce. They are expected to be productive but not overly extended. And they are expected to delegate and be egalitarian in the lab but also, as principal investigators (PIs), be responsible for all science, budget, and reporting, regardless of the source.

• p 64: .. institutions, including funders and universities, should develop coherent policies, processes, and education to empower researchers on the RCR.
• .. career advancement should be based not solely on citations, publications, and grant funding but also on such points as RCR, being a strong curator and peer reviewer, and helping colleagues.
• p 68: .. RCR education includes discussion of collaboration, authorship disputes, and expectations of professionalism.
• p 69: Bouter highlighted two supervision scales: supervision for survival and supervision for responsible research.9 Learning to supervise for survival may mean learning how to cut corners to get more funding and citations. Those who supervise in this way are more involved in questionable research practices, he said. In contrast, supervision for responsible research involves learning how to be a good scholar, be helpful to others, curate data, not fall under academia’s current perverse incentives, and be a good mentor.

Team work

• p 36: Teams are characterized by multiple information sources and intensive communication, task-relevant knowledge with meaningful task interdependencies, affective and attitudinal factors that influence group dynamics, and coordination among members with specialized roles.
• p 36: Task work refers to what needs to be accomplished to meet goals and complete objectives, or .. the scientific work of the team. Team work, in contrast, refers to how they accomplish the task and refers to the attitudinal, behavioral, and cognitive factors to function as a team. Scientists have spent their entire careers learning and becoming better at task work, but it is important to help them become better at team work.
• p 37: Task-based conflict should be cultivated, as it provides the intellectual give and take to hone ideas and build knowledge. Team-based interpersonal conflict, which is what most people think of when thinking about conflict, can lead to intolerance or problematic relationships that can harm RCR.
• p 41: Interdisciplinary teams require a “translator” who can communicate across disciplines, which is known as multivocality.

Journals and publications

• p 4: .. surveying journal policies related to authorship guidelines
• p 22: Affiliation with an interdisciplinary research center has been shown to be more detrimental to junior than senior staff (Sabharwal and Hu, 2013); it can take them longer to be tenured. She labeled it a high-risk, high-reward endeavor in which they may become prominent but less productive in terms of publications and other measures (Leahey et al., 2017).
• p 24: .. the need to take time at the beginning of a collaboration to discuss differences in authorship guidelines among members and to revisit the issue throughout the collaboration.
• p 39: As such, the quest for novel findings, grant funding, and prestigious publications can undermine the motivation to dedicate time to leadership training that would support ethical management and capacity building of work units.
• p 64: .. career advancement should be based not solely on citations, publications, and grant funding but also on such points as RCR, being a strong curator and peer reviewer, and helping colleagues.

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