Episode 5

full
Published on:

3rd Jul 2024

(S8E5) Promoting Positive Research Culture: Why Every Lab Needs a Handbook

In our Research Culture Uncovered conversations we are asking what is Research Culture and why does it matter? In this episode, our host Nick Sheppard talks to Benjamin Tendler, Maddie Welland and Karla Miller about their Lab Handbook initiative at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging in Oxford.

We discuss how they have pioneered the implementation of a lab handbook within the WIN physics group to promote a positive research culture, interdisciplinary communication and inclusion.

The main points include:

  • Purpose and concept of the lab handbook to outline the ethos and culture of a lab or research group.
  • Benefits of the initiative such as promoting positive research culture and inclusion, clarifying expectations and preventing misunderstandings, and supporting mental health and wellbeing.
  • The value of collaboration in all areas of research culture from the development of a handbook, to the practice of science itself and the dissemination of research results and data.

In this episode we mention several links including:

This episode of Research Culture Uncovered © 2024 by Research Culturosity is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0 

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Transcript
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Welcome to the research culture Uncovered podcast, where in

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every episode we explore what is research culture

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and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from

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a range of contributors to help you change research culture

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into what you want it to be.

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Hi, it's Nick Open research advisor, based in the

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library here at the University of Leeds. For this episode of the research

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Culture Uncovered podcast, I'm very pleased to be joined by not one,

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not two, but three colleagues, Benjamin Tendler, Maddy Welland

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and Karla Miller from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the

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University of Oxford. We're talking about their Lab Handbook

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initiative, which, as we'll hear, is a flexible document that outlines the ethos

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of a research lab or group. I've linked their article for

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elife in the show notes below, but before you download

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that over to Ben, Maddy and

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Karla.So I'll ask them to introduce

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themselves first. I'll start with you, Benjamin, if that's okay, and

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perhaps give me a quick introduction of who you are and what you do

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at WIN, and perhaps also exactly what is integrative

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neuroimaging. Bearing in mind I'm a layperson and don't really know what that involves.

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Yeah, sure, I'd be delighted to do that. So, my official

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role at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging is as

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a research fellow. So more officially, my current title is a Sir

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Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellow, which effectively means that I've been

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provided with some funding and resources in order to establish my

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own independent research program. So, with respect to my

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research, my background is in physics and I currently use my

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background and experience in physics within the field of neuroscience.

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So currently my research focuses on developing methods to

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image the brain using magnetic resonance imaging or MRI. These

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are scanners, which you'll find dotted in hospitals and research settings across

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the UK and globally as well. From

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the perspective of things outside of my research,

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something which I'm really interested in is trying to improve the environment in which research

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is performed, and that's what has led me to get involved

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with the lab handbook initiative itself. So,

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with respect to interpretive neuroimaging,

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the way which I think about this is typically about how we

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can perform investigations of the brain across multiple different domains and

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scales. So from my perspective, if we think about

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how a typical or canonical

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neuroscience or brain investigation is done, you might have a

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research question of interest about the brain, and you might go about this

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investigation by performing a study involving, say,

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one modality. And if you're doing imaging, say, one imaging modality or

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performing an investigation in one domain, be that, say, in a human

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study or perhaps in a species. Now, one of the

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really powerful things at the Wellcome center for Interactive

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Neuroimaging is that we have access to a wide variety of different

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methods to image the brain. So this includes things such as magnetic resonance

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imaging, in addition to other methods to image the brain, such as

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magnetic encephalography, and also many different

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domains in which we can perform these types of investigations. So we can, for example,

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for investigations living people, we also have access to

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methods to perform investigations in species and also in things such as post mortem

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tissue using microscopy techniques as well.

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So when I think of integrative neuroimaging, what I really think is the idea that

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rather than just using a single modality or investigative domain, we can actually

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leverage information across multiple different domains. So we can combine information,

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say, different species, across different scales, across perhaps different populations,

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in order to address the questions which

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you want to answer with respect to neuroscience, with

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really a more comprehensive approach to being able to answer them.

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Wow. So that sounds fascinating, and I'd love to talk to you in more detail

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about all that stuff, but of course, we're not here to talk about that today.

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That is correct. More about the handbook, which we'll come on to in a

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moment, but if I can ask you, Maddie, to introduce yourself. So

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this is Maddy Welland. Hello. So

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I am the Wellcome EDI officer. I've been at the WIN

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for three years, but I technically work across all of Oxford's

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three Wellcome centres. So I'm connected

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to this lab handbook initiative through

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our inclusive leadership program, which we've been piloting for a couple

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of years, and we'll be working on within the medical

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sciences division for the next two. Yeah,

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I'll keep it short and sweet. Okay, thanks, Maddie. Thanks. And welcome to the podcast.

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And last but not least, Karla Miller. If you could introduce

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yourself, please. Yeah. Hi, my name is Karla Miller.

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I'm a professor of biomedical engineering. So I run a research

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group, relatively large research group of about

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30 people. And so maybe later we might talk a bit about

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why having such a large research group led me to want to

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take on this lab handbook initiative. But that's not my only

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role in Oxford. I am associate director

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of the WIN, as we call it, the Wellcome center

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for Integrative Neuroimaging. And I also have a role

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within Oxford more broadly. So in the medical sciences

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division, I am the academic lead for

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equality, diversity and inclusion, or EDI. And so this is

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something that, again, it's a longstanding interest of

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mine that intersects strongly with initiatives like the lab handbook that

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might initially not seem to have so much to do with equality, diversity and

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inclusion. But as we'll talk about later, actually, I think it's one of the more

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impactful kinds of projects that we can do to promote positive research

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culture, which enables people, regardless of their background or

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whether they might initially feel comfortable in a place like Oxford.

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It enables them to really flourish and do their best work

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because they actually feel included and understood and seen.

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Right. No, thank you. And we'll certainly get onto that. And I'm glad you call

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it the win, because that means I can as well. I hope you practice

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saying integrative neuroimaging because it took all of us a long time for that to

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roll off the top. Well, no, as I was saying, I was just. I think

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it came out okay. So. No, that's great. You did great. So, no, that's

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great. Thanks to you all for those introductions.

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And so, Ben, perhaps start with you, really, in terms of

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perhaps a quick overview of the Hamburg. You've already given us a crash course

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on integrative neuroimaging. I won't say it again, that's

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the last time I'll try and say it, but yeah, so perhaps just give us

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a quick overview of the handbook, a little bit about its history and

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development. Sure, sounds great. So, to us, the lab

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handbook is effectively a document which is written at

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the research group level by a research group which is

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aiming to outline the culture and ethos that the group is

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aiming to create. So different groups might approach

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the lab handbook initiative in different ways, and they might have things which are

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valuable for them, for what they think should be included in a

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handbook. But broadly, what I'd say is that a typical lab handbook

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would provide information about the roles and expectations of different researchers

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within the group at different career stages, the culture that the

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research group is able to create, and how the research group supports the

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development of individual members from a career's

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perspective. So broadly, what I can say is that by doing this,

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what we're really aiming to do is to address the many challenges that can often

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arise in a research group settings that are due to poor communication

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between individual group members and a lab handbook aims to do this by

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explicitly defining expectations. So giving everybody an insight

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into what you can expect from me and what I can expect from you in

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return, providing a consistent and explicit message on

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exactly how the lab operates, and by virtue of doing

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this, provide accountability for everybody. Within a group, including

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people within senior management positions. Okay, great. Thank

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you. And just to come to you, Karla, and

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ask you, you've already just alluded to this, I think, in your previous

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answer, but why did you feel that handbook

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was needed? And I suppose interested in your role as in leadership,

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as the PI, and you've already sort of said a little bit about that. We

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can go say a bit more about why you thought it was needed?

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Yeah, so I think. I think...so I've always felt

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very strongly that one of the most important things, as a

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principal investigator or a lab group leader,

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that you have a very important duty to the people in

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your group. I do kind of believe that I work for the people in my

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group as much as they work for me. Right. We work together, but that there

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are different roles that people have. And one of the things that I

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realized, although I take my role, I have always

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taken my role very seriously. But as I became

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a bit, as I took on more responsibility, one of the things that

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I realized is that I was not,

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I wasn't living up to my own standards in the way that I wanted to.

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And that came in a few ways. The most important to me

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was I didn't feel like I was achieving consistency of communication

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with people when they would join the group. I would start to realize that although

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I wanted to have certain conversations with people when they joined, to

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be clear with people about my expectations, what I

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think they needed to feed back to me, all of that kind of stuff, that

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creates a good culture, I was not doing that

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consistently. And a lot of that was about the fact that I was just

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becoming more and more busy. I just had many, many, many things on my plate

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every day. So a big motivation was achieving

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consistency of communication. But then along

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with that came a lot of other things that the handbook enabled.

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So it encouraged people that I wanted

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to receive feedback. And we can talk a bit about some of the feedback that

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came out of it that I found incredibly helpful, realizing that sometimes

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I was communicating a different message than I intended to,

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it was really helpful for empowering accountability.

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So one of the challenges with running a large group, and in

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particular, as you start to get more senior, is people don't...you actually

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stop receiving feedback. Or maybe sometimes in a given role, you never receive

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feedback, and yet feedback is incredibly helpful,

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provided you really are open to it. And so

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it would kind of empower people to hold me

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accountable to the standards that I hold

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myself to. And then I guess the final thing that it

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enabled me to do is it enabled me to, in a setting where

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it was outside of the context of a problem or

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frustration from someone, it enabled me to explain my

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working reality, what it's like to actually be a

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principal investigator in modern science, which is not something that

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people who are earlier in their career within my group will have

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experience. And so it's kind of difficult for them to understand certain

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aspects of my own behavior, which stems from

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what it is like to actually be a modern principle

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investigator. That's really interesting. Just sort of that

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sense of transparency, I suppose, in terms of

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your own expectations and expectations of the

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colleagues in the lab. Yeah. And I think oftentimes with

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transparency, I think there's sometimes

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a bit of a fear from people who are leading groups

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that transparency is somehow going to undermine them.

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If there are aspects of what it's like to be a PI

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that you think people won't necessarily like to

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hear. So, for example, the fact that sometimes I am going to take long to

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answer an email or I am going to take

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longer to return a paper to people than I would like

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to do. But I think because it's the reality, just being

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open and transparent about why those things happen and how it is that people

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can help me to do my job better, I think I found that to be

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a really powerful thing. For example, not sending really long emails, I

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struggle to get through them, read them, and respond to them. Even just

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explaining some of that has helped people to get more out of

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me and when they need it, because they understand how we

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can communicate and work effectively together. No, that's really great. I'm going to come

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to you in a moment, Maddie... I was going to hop on that point.

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So Karla is my line manager and has been for the past three

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years. And this is a really valuable aspect

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of the lab handbook, I think, because what happened when I joined

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is that I didn't know that. I didn't know that actually

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emailing, you know, because that's, that's how you expect

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to converse with people if you're not seeing them in

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person. And I would send lots of emails. I would send

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lots of long emails. And it got to a point where Karla had

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to be like, right, listen,

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let's have a conversation. You may not like it. And, you know, I'm, I'm

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robust. And I was like, oh, right, okay, cool. You're not criticizing me. You're just

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clarifying, um, your expectations. But that's probably

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a conversation she's had to have 30 times, you know, and

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now it's written down now she doesn't have to

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wait until a crisis point until someone new joins and

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annoys her so much that she has to take them aside and

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say, please stop. But, yeah, yeah, no, that's

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great. And just to follow on with you, Maddie. So

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perhaps tell us a little bit about how the handbook relates to

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your role. Not, you know, in that particular context of personal experience,

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but, you know, in terms of your role now as EDI officer, I think, is

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your role? Yes. It's sort of transitioning

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to something slightly different, but I don't know what my new title will be.

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So part of my role has been to take some of the

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initiatives that the WIN has created, and the lab handbook is one of

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them, to basically disseminate it

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across the division, across the university.

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There's definitely more

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of a fit towards the medical sciences and the physical

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sciences, and maybe it would need further adaptation to be a great fit

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for, you know, the social sciences or humanities. But currently I'm

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working on disseminating it across the division, and

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there's lots of interest. You know, it's so

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amazing to work in a place where you can create something amazing and then just

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sort of share it, and people are, there's such an appetite for it. So

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that's part of my role, but it also fits

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really neatly within the inclusive leadership program that we've been

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piloting. So in the first year, we were

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able to help participants pursue a

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project, and basically that was, you know, a project

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related to any diversity and inclusion goal

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that they had locally. But the lab handbook was something we offered

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alongside that, which was a sort of IKEA flat pack,

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ready to go project. And actually, I would say at least

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half of the people on the, on the program took it up because they could

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see the value in it, and they were all senior

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PIs. And again, this year, when we've been piloting it,

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yeah, people, people have had things come up, and

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every time people go, oh, well, you know, I've got this problem in this

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area, or I don't know how to talk about this. It just seems like

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such a useful vehicle for handling or

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bringing up an issue in a, in a sensitive way that isn't,

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you know, overpowering, really. And what's the history of the initiative? How

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long has it been sort of active? And it's a living

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document, I think, perhaps come on to what that exactly means. But when was, was

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it actually written and sort of rolled out? I'm trying to

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remember what year we actually began. It was

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2021, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, was it? I thought it was

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pre pandemic. I think it started, perhaps it

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was late 2020, but then I think we returned to it in the beginning of

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2021, after we had the pause for a bit due to

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the start of the pandemic. Yeah, so it began.

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And if you go to the resources that we have, which hopefully we can include

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a link to. Yeah, I'll put any links I can put in the show notes.

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Yeah. So there was a Twitter thread that

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where. And I can't remember who it was, but they did a brilliant

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job of going through similar documents, sort of these ethos or

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culture documents for research groups in STEM,

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and they read a number of these and they distilled

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it down to a series of topics that one might want to cover.

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And I read that thread and I thought, this is brilliant. This is what I

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need. Because it came at a point where I could tell that

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my responsibilities were increasing, my group was growing,

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and I was really starting to realize that I

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was dropping balls with respect to people in my group in terms of communication

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and expectations and all of that. And so at that point,

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I just said to this broader research group, which is, it's not

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just all under me, it's an amalgamation of. I think there's now about seven of

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us PIs in one large group. And I just, at a group meeting, I just

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said, why don't we try to do this? And anybody who's interested, let's

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just have a series of sessions where we sit down and we try to write

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this thing, and we use this Twitter thread as a guide to what we might

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put in it. And then we just, as a group, we wrote it. So I

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think a really important point is, with lab handbooks, all of us,

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our overwhelming experience is, this is not something that a PI writes on behalf of

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their group. It's something that you co create together. And there's a number of

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reasons why that's important. It achieves buy in.

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It ensures that when you write

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it, you create something that everyone agrees that they're happy to

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sign up to. And also, critically, really, really importantly,

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as a PI, one of the things that comes out of

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it is, I learned a very valuable lesson. You

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find out about things that you have been trying to communicate, but which you have

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been miscommunicating. So I'll give you the example that came up for me.

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I've always been very keen that people have good work life balance. I don't think

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it's healthy for people to work excessive hours and so what I

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would tell people is, I don't care how many hours

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you work, I just want you to be productive. Now, about half of my

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group, it turns out when I said that was hearing, I want you to

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have work life balance, and I want you to find the flexibility of working in

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a way that works for you. But maybe as much as

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half of them heard, I don't care how many hours you have to work,

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you work until you produce, which is exactly the opposite message from what I was

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trying to communicate. And if I had sat down and written this handbook

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myself, I would have written what I've been saying for years. But

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what came out was, I can tell from Karla that you're trying

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to encourage work life balance, but that is not how I interpret this thing

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that you wrote. So even the process, and this is something that Maddie often

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talks about, she sometimes says, and I encourage her not to say this, but she

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sometimes says, write the thing and then throw it away and write it again. Because

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the process, and I do believe this, the process is by far the most

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important part of it. It's useful to have the thing written down, but

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creating it together, you learn an awful lot about each other, what

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people want, what they need in a way that you don't. If it's a one

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way communication stream. Well, and there's that issue of

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collaboration again, which gives me an opportunity perhaps just to try and crowbar

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in some open research, because I was just looking through before we came on

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the headings, etcetera. And obviously you've got the roles and

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expectations, and then you've got developing researchers

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and career development. And that includes explicitly open and responsible

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science. Collaborating is actually in there as well, as well as public

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engagement. So I was just really interested. I mean, first

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of all, I'm not that sure of the structure of the

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Wellcome. I mean, do you have a library there? Do you have other

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departments within that that support research, dissemination or open access

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and all that kind of thing? So we, we don't have a, we

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don't have a library within our department per se, but we do have something which

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we refer to as the open WIN community. And the open WIN community

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are actively involved in our department in making

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our studies and the data which we produce from our studies as open as

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possible. So the way which they're going about this

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is a variety of different means. So they're thinking about, for example, you know, building

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what kind of infrastructure do we need to be able to, to share the data

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which we produce? This perhaps might involve producing things in house in

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addition to resources which are available elsewhere,

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there's also ethical considerations with respect to how

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we can go about sharing data, in particular, sensitive data, which is

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involved often with newer imaging studies. But

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also the community is quite involved in a cultural

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shift as well, trying to promote the values and importance

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of open science to the researchers

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within our center, which is a really imperative thing to get us to

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what I would say as maximizing the most that we can get out of the

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data which we produce. You know, that's good. And I'm really interested in this sort

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of what we're trying to do at Leeds as well. I think this holistic approach

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to research culture, of which, you know, my role in the library,

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is an aspect of that, but obviously, it intersects with so many other aspects of

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that. I don't know if Maddie or Karla have any other thoughts on

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how it relates to other parts of the organization

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or. When you're talking about collaboration,

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do you mean collaboration scientifically? Do you mean just how

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we work with each other? Well, I think. I suppose I mean everything around

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that. I'm just really interested. I mean, I was just talking to colleagues

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on campus recently, so at Leeds this week we've been having Africa

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week. So that's a. It's been a big initiative with colleagues

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from Africa and different organizations, etcetera. And I was just having

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lunch with colleagues there and talking to a

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colleague I haven't met before. We were talking about the power of collaboration and the

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value of that in all sorts of ways. You know, whether it's research, culture, or

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science itself, or writing a handbook. You know,

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that, to me, is such an underpinning principle that

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perhaps we can all be better at, and culturally, we need to

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develop. Yeah. Okay, well, so I think one of the

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defining features of WIN

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is exactly collaboration. So I think one of the

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most....WIN is one of

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the....It's one of the world leading centers in this field

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of neuroimaging, where we're specifically talking

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about, in particular, the kinds of imaging that you would be able to perform in

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humans. So, MRI and MEG, as Ben mentioned, um,

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one of the things that has really set this center apart from other

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similar places, um, uh, is

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the, not just that collaboration is valued, but the

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interdisciplinarity of the center is valued. So oftentimes

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in, um, in imaging centers, what ends up emerging is a kind

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of hierarchy, scientifically. So oftentimes what ends up

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happening is, is that you have, um, a higher value

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placed, for example, oftentimes in clinical departments, there's a

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perception that the clinical end, as opposed to the methodological

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end, is sort of the real science. And

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where people are working on methodology, that's sort of a second

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class citizen. And this sort of thing plays itself out

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in many aspects of interdisciplinary research

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across many, many, many disciplines. But one of the things that's most remarkable, I

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think, about, WIN, is that from the outset, there was this ethos

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that all of this science is really valuable, and that actually, we do the best

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science when we genuinely approach it collaboratively.

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And so, as an engineer in a clinical neurosciences

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department, I'm not. We

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do have a lot of engineers and physicists, and that makes a huge difference

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to creating critical mass

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so that we can do really cutting edge methodological work. But we're

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also rubbing elbows every day with the people who have the

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problems. And so we actually understand the problems, and we get to

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see our methods being used in real

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world, what we would refer to as applications of the

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methodological research in real world

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neuroscience problems. And that is hugely valuable. And I think

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the fact that neither of these things is seen as being of higher

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importance. It's the synergy between the two that

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is what makes us such

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able to achieve really impactful work in that

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space. So, really, it's all about collaboration. But collaboration only

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works when everybody really, truly values

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the breadth of expertise and

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backgrounds that we have in the

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center. And a different version of that that isn't

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interdisciplinary is the breadth of backgrounds that people bring

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personally... ...they may have been trained in different countries, they have different life experiences,

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and all of that, if you have a supportive atmosphere, if people

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feel like they can really bring that into the science that they're doing, all

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of that makes our science better, but only, only if you're able

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to create an environment where everyone, if they

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may be coming at it from a slightly different perspective,

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if everyone feels like they have something to contribute.

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Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I suppose. I was thinking about

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that...I read your paper, obviously, why every lab leads a handbook. That, again,

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I'll link in the show notes, and there's an example you

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mentioned in there where I'll just quote, actually, "an experienced technician

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is frustrated because they were not included as an author on a paper to

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which they feel they made a substantial contribution". So I'm guessing you're familiar

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with the CRediT taxonomy, which is

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a bit of a library thing. So that's exactly one of the things that we're

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trying to promote here, at least for example, to ensure that, well,

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people like myself, for example, in terms of the data management work that I do

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are credited on a paper or a technician or whatever. So that's,

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again, an area where it sort of intersects with the

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open agenda more generally. Absolutely. And I think

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there's so many different people who bring expertise into the studies that we

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do, and yet we still have this kind of

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archaic way of, of indicating who

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has done what, which is in this massively

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constraining thing of what order are you listed on a

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piece of paper? And, I mean, it's obviously not even a piece of paper anymore.

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Right. So, yeah, so we're very keen on that. In our space, for

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example, there are people called radiographers. So they are the

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people who actually run the scanners. So they would be the equivalent of

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a wet lab technician. And often they might have a

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huge influence on how good the data quality is setting up the study,

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etcetera. And yet very rarely are they actually included.

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And so having a way of indicating their

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contribution, we feel is enormously helpful and it clearly makes a massive

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difference to them. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Thank you.

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Just a little conscious of time. But I just want to raise,

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just ask you, Ben, really, if you have any insight on this, because this, I

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suppose just from a personal perspective as well. I'm just interested in how

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a handbook such as this can help with personal challenges. I

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mean, for example, I'm quite open now, again, being a little bit older and

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longer than the tooth and comfortable in my own skin of mental health problems

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I've had in the past and anxiety or whatever. And that's something,

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again, that's explicitly mentioned. So I think that's an important area of transparency,

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again, that perhaps enables people to engage with these issues on their

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own terms? Perhaps, yeah, I mean, I think a lab handbook

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is a really fantastic document to help support people with respect to

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their mental health and wellbeing. There's probably a

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few...there's a few kind of different ways that it can achieve that.

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So one of the things which I think is that by having a document where

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you explicitly describe your commitment to the wellbeing of

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individuals within a group and describing how you're going about doing that,

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you're going to encourage people within the group to feel

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empowered to have conversations with their principal investigator

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or their group, lead on how things within their personal lives, such as,

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say, child care responsibilities, care responsibilities, or perhaps personal

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disability, interact with their work

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responsibilities. Now, by having these kind of things written out explicitly

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in a lab handbook document, you can begin to open up those conversations

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between different members of the group to try to identify

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places where perhaps adjustments can be made in terms of how they work to

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promote healthy work life balance, and by virtue of that,

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promote their wellbeing. Another thought, and this kind of links back to

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what Karla was saying a bit earlier with respect to working

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hours. So one of the things which is often quite challenging in terms

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of defining how people work within research settings is

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working hours. And by being really explicit about

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working hours within a document such as the lab handbook, and really communicating in a

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clear way what your expectations are, you can prevent people

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arriving to the group with their own interpretation of how they believe

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that they're supposed to work. ...and that can often arise from...that could arise from,

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for example, stereotyped expectations of what it means to perhaps be a

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researcher within a research setting. Or alternatively, it could be that they've

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perhaps worked in a previous lab environment where it's been, where the culture has

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been perhaps a bit more negative, and there's been an expectation of working long hours

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and presenteeism. So by writing those things down, I think you can prevent

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challenges such as burnout from arising. People know from day one how

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they can be expected to work with respect to hours, and preventing things such

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as burnout will be enormously helpful with respect

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to mental health and personal wellbeing. If you

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talk in your lab handbook about inclusivity, and you talk about how you

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promote yourself as an inclusive lab and give examples of that,

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you'll make people feel empowered to bring their whole

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selves to work. If that's something which they want to do, which I think can

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also be really important for people in their individual

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personal lives. You can also just provide general

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information to just signpost people through resources that perhaps

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might not be available within the actual... ...within the

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actual group itself. So I, for example, I am not an expert on mental

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health and wellbeing, but I certainly know that there are resources, perhaps at a departmental,

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university level, or perhaps even externally, which can

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be...which people in our center, in

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our group, can have access to, which perhaps can help them navigate their personal lives

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if perhaps they don't necessarily want to have these conversations with their colleagues

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surrounding them, and want to speak to people who have more professional insights.

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The other thing, though, which I say is probably even more

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critical with all of this, is that everything which I've said so far more relates

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to people who perhaps want to have support with respect to their own mental

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health and well being. But something else is also actually speaking to people

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who don't necessarily consider these things a challenge for themselves. And

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I think what you're really doing with the lab handbook is by talking about topics

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such as well being, mental health and inclusivity,

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you're communicating with people that may not necessarily be directly

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impacted by these challenges and giving them information and insights in terms

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of how they can support their colleagues who may be having challenges within

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this space. And there are really simple ways that you can do this. You know,

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you can think about just respecting the preferences or the needs of others within

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the group, and doing that in a natural way,

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which doesn't necessarily require people to have to have conversations to

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justify why they want things to be done in a certain way, which can be

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often quite difficult to do. And I think just by making these things really transparent

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and clear, it will benefit. It really benefits

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people. Everybody within the group. Yeah, we'll come back to that transparency

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issue. So Ben mentioned the value

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in signposting to resources. One of the things that I would encourage people to do

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is to take advantage of your

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institution's administrative teams that can help you with it.

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You can't suddenly become an expert on mental health or

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necessarily understand how best to

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help people when things become really challenging. But we

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engaged our HR team and some of the people who had expertise in mental

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health in order to make sure that we got those sections right, and we found

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them to be incredibly willing to help us on those sections.

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So it may sound a bit daunting to people, the idea that you have to

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write about some of these issues, but there are people, there will be people at

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your institution who would be delighted to help you do it, I'm sure.

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Yeah. And when we've been trying to introduce these

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initially to a department and then sort of cascading it throughout the department,

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it's been quite helpful to raise that point for

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people to not have to continually search for those

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resources again and again, but to have the admin teams be part of the

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process so that you can, you know, where those

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sort of central signposting things are, and you can have that.

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You can share it more easily. That's great. And again, it all

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comes back to transparency for me. I think. I think that's what I'm really hearing,

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that sort of transparent approach in all sorts of aspects. But

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I suppose just a question for all of you, really, in terms

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of future plans and where can people find out more?

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So there's kind of two aspects, I think, with respect to our future directions, with

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respect to our own lab handbook within the WIN physics

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group that we've created, and speaking to other people in terms of how they've

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utilized the lab handbook within their group. The general idea

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is that people will be returning to this document periodically to

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update it, have a discussion as a group, and see where improvements and changes can

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be made more broadly. With respect to our initiative,

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we're very keen to promote the use of lab handbooks more generally

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to a wider audience than just within our.

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Just within our lab or just within our...our

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center. And so we've been...our initiative, which we've

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been really promoting over the past few years, is

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really trying to push the idea of lab handbooks to other, other

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departments, both within and also outside

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of Oxford, and try to get more, a larger fraction of the research community

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really engaged with what we believe is a really powerful tool

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to improve positive research culture.

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So what we're currently doing in terms of future directions is

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just continuing to engage with those different departments, both within and outside

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of Oxford, to not only promote the initiative, but also seeing where we

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can provide some resources and some

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support from our side in order to be able to do this, to make this

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something which has a more broader impact on

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higher education and research settings in

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general. We published a feature article on this.

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We published an article on this last year, and

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essentially, so the article, anyone can find it by searching

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lab handbooks elife or I'll make sure it's linked.

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I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes as well, but, yeah, Sounds perfect.

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And within this. Within

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this document, within this article, we basically describe what a lab handbook is,

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why they're beneficial, how to go about writing one, and we also

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provide a series of different resources to help labs build their own. So

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anybody who's interested in finding it more can look into that and they can

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get access to those resources and gain a bit of another insight into

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why this is such a valuable document to have. That's brilliant. Thanks very much.

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Anything to add from Maddie or Karla? Yeah, I was just going to add

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that in the short term,

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I'm really hoping to capitalize on the interest from professional services

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teams because they are

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part of the culture of our departments, but may not see

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themselves within lab handbook specifically. But it's a really

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flexible tool and, you know, the bones of it will apply

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to any team. So, actually,

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my short term plans are to work with the teams within the medical

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sciences divisional office, of which there are many, you

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know, finance, comms, HR, all of these kinds of

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teams, and just kind of look at how we can adapt

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the resources that we have to be able to fit into a more professional

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services style team. Yeah, well, I'd be really

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interested in that because obviously interested in how I

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might relate to the teams and that I'm in

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a big academic library. I think there's well over 200 people in our library and

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even in my local team there's 25 people. So again, we have

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obviously similar challenges in that sort of team. So now that's great. Thank you very

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much. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for coming on to the

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podcast and just say

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goodbye to you all and if you want, say goodbye as well. Thank you. Thanks

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very much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

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Thanks for listening to the research culture Uncovered podcast.

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Please subscribe so you never miss out on our brand new

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episodes. And if you're enjoying the discussions, give us some

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About the Podcast

Research Culture Uncovered
Changing Research Culture through conversations
At the University of Leeds, we believe that all members of our research community play a crucial role in developing and promoting a positive and inclusive research culture. Across the globe, the urgent need for a better Research Culture in Higher Education is widely accepted – but how do you make it happen? This weekly podcast focuses on our ideas, approaches and learning as we contribute to the University's attempt to create a Research Culture in which everyone can thrive. Whether you undertake, lead, fund or benefit from research - these are the conversations to listen to if you want to explore what a positive Research Culture is and why it matters.

Unless specified in the episode shownotes, Research Culture Uncovered © 2023 by Research Culturosity, University of Leeds is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. Some episodes may be licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0, please check before use.

About your hosts

Emma Spary

Profile picture for Emma Spary
I moved into development after several years as an independent researcher and now lead the team providing professional and career development for all researchers and those supporting research. I am passionate about research culture and supporting people. I lead our Concordat implementation work and was part of the national Concordat writing group. I represent Leeds as a member of Researchers14, the N8PDRA group and UKRI’s Alternative Uses Group.

Taryn Bell

Profile picture for Taryn Bell
I work as a Researcher Development Adviser at the University of Leeds. My focus is on career development, with a particular focus on supporting funding and fellowships. I previously worked at the University of York as their Fellowship Coordinator, developing and growing the University's community of early career fellows. Get in touch if you'd like to learn more (T.L.Bell@leeds.ac.uk)!

Katie Jones

Profile picture for Katie Jones
I am a Researcher Development and Culture Project Officer at the University of Leeds, where I lead projects within the Researcher Development and Culture Team. My role involves managing projects that enhance the development of researchers and foster a positive research culture across the University and the higher education sector.

Tony Bromley

Profile picture for Tony Bromley
I've worked in the area of the development of researchers for 20 years, including at the national and international level. I was lead author of the UK sector researcher development impact framework charged with evaluating the over £20M per year investment of UK research councils in researcher development. I have convened the international Researcher Education and Development Scholarship (REDS) conference for a number of years and have published on researcher development evaluation and pedagogy. All the details are on www.tonybromley.com !! Also why not take a look at https://conferences.leeds.ac.uk/reds/

Ged Hall

Profile picture for Ged Hall
I've worked for almost 20 years in researcher development, careers guidance and academic skills development. For the last decade I've focused on the area of research impact. This has included organisational development projects and professional development for individual researchers and groups. I co-authored the Engaged for Impact Strategy and am heavily involved in its implementation, across the University of Leeds, to build a healthy impact culture. For 10 years after my PhD, I was a consultant in the utility sector, which included being broker between academia and my clients.

Ruth Winden

Profile picture for Ruth Winden
After many years running my own careers consultancy business I made the transition to researcher development leading our careers provision. My background is in career coaching, facilitation and group-based coaching, and I have a special interest in cohort-based coaching programmes which help researchers manage their careers proactively and transition into any sector and role of their choice.

Nick Sheppard

Profile picture for Nick Sheppard
I have worked in scholarly communications for over 15 years, currently as Open Research Advisor at the University of Leeds. I am interested in effective dissemination of research through sustainable models of open access, including underlying data, and potential synergies with open education and Open Educational Resources (OER), particularly underlying technology, software and interoperability of systems.