1 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:08,262 Welcome to the research culture Uncovered podcast, where in 2 00:00:08,318 --> 00:00:12,030 every episode we explore what is research culture 3 00:00:12,142 --> 00:00:15,790 and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from 4 00:00:15,822 --> 00:00:19,598 a range of contributors to help you change research culture 5 00:00:19,686 --> 00:00:21,514 into what you want it to be. 6 00:00:23,694 --> 00:00:27,322 Hi, it's Nick Open research advisor, based in the 7 00:00:27,338 --> 00:00:31,170 library here at the University of Leeds. For this episode of the research 8 00:00:31,242 --> 00:00:34,722 Culture Uncovered podcast, I'm very pleased to be joined by not one, 9 00:00:34,858 --> 00:00:38,666 not two, but three colleagues, Benjamin Tendler, Maddy Welland 10 00:00:38,730 --> 00:00:42,466 and Karla Miller from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the 11 00:00:42,490 --> 00:00:45,770 University of Oxford. We're talking about their Lab Handbook 12 00:00:45,842 --> 00:00:49,594 initiative, which, as we'll hear, is a flexible document that outlines the ethos 13 00:00:49,634 --> 00:00:53,156 of a research lab or group. I've linked their article for 14 00:00:53,180 --> 00:00:56,524 elife in the show notes below, but before you download 15 00:00:56,564 --> 00:00:58,676 that over to Ben, Maddy and 16 00:00:58,700 --> 00:01:02,404 Karla.So I'll ask them to introduce 17 00:01:02,444 --> 00:01:06,260 themselves first. I'll start with you, Benjamin, if that's okay, and 18 00:01:06,452 --> 00:01:10,244 perhaps give me a quick introduction of who you are and what you do 19 00:01:10,284 --> 00:01:13,684 at WIN, and perhaps also exactly what is integrative 20 00:01:13,764 --> 00:01:16,996 neuroimaging. Bearing in mind I'm a layperson and don't really know what that involves. 21 00:01:17,884 --> 00:01:21,542 Yeah, sure, I'd be delighted to do that. So, my official 22 00:01:21,598 --> 00:01:25,334 role at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging is as 23 00:01:25,374 --> 00:01:29,070 a research fellow. So more officially, my current title is a Sir 24 00:01:29,102 --> 00:01:32,702 Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellow, which effectively means that I've been 25 00:01:32,718 --> 00:01:36,518 provided with some funding and resources in order to establish my 26 00:01:36,606 --> 00:01:39,830 own independent research program. So, with respect to my 27 00:01:39,862 --> 00:01:43,550 research, my background is in physics and I currently use my 28 00:01:43,582 --> 00:01:47,284 background and experience in physics within the field of neuroscience. 29 00:01:47,454 --> 00:01:51,136 So currently my research focuses on developing methods to 30 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,896 image the brain using magnetic resonance imaging or MRI. These 31 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:58,712 are scanners, which you'll find dotted in hospitals and research settings across 32 00:01:58,768 --> 00:02:02,320 the UK and globally as well. From 33 00:02:02,432 --> 00:02:05,984 the perspective of things outside of my research, 34 00:02:06,104 --> 00:02:09,560 something which I'm really interested in is trying to improve the environment in which research 35 00:02:09,632 --> 00:02:13,400 is performed, and that's what has led me to get involved 36 00:02:13,432 --> 00:02:17,164 with the lab handbook initiative itself. So, 37 00:02:17,664 --> 00:02:20,688 with respect to interpretive neuroimaging, 38 00:02:20,736 --> 00:02:24,520 the way which I think about this is typically about how we 39 00:02:24,592 --> 00:02:28,328 can perform investigations of the brain across multiple different domains and 40 00:02:28,376 --> 00:02:31,944 scales. So from my perspective, if we think about 41 00:02:32,064 --> 00:02:34,324 how a typical or canonical 42 00:02:36,224 --> 00:02:39,872 neuroscience or brain investigation is done, you might have a 43 00:02:39,928 --> 00:02:43,488 research question of interest about the brain, and you might go about this 44 00:02:43,536 --> 00:02:47,240 investigation by performing a study involving, say, 45 00:02:47,312 --> 00:02:50,840 one modality. And if you're doing imaging, say, one imaging modality or 46 00:02:50,872 --> 00:02:54,084 performing an investigation in one domain, be that, say, in a human 47 00:02:54,464 --> 00:02:57,544 study or perhaps in a species. Now, one of the 48 00:02:57,664 --> 00:03:01,024 really powerful things at the Wellcome center for Interactive 49 00:03:01,064 --> 00:03:04,408 Neuroimaging is that we have access to a wide variety of different 50 00:03:04,536 --> 00:03:08,144 methods to image the brain. So this includes things such as magnetic resonance 51 00:03:08,184 --> 00:03:11,684 imaging, in addition to other methods to image the brain, such as 52 00:03:11,724 --> 00:03:15,316 magnetic encephalography, and also many different 53 00:03:15,380 --> 00:03:19,100 domains in which we can perform these types of investigations. So we can, for example, 54 00:03:19,132 --> 00:03:22,644 for investigations living people, we also have access to 55 00:03:22,764 --> 00:03:26,316 methods to perform investigations in species and also in things such as post mortem 56 00:03:26,340 --> 00:03:29,836 tissue using microscopy techniques as well. 57 00:03:30,020 --> 00:03:33,412 So when I think of integrative neuroimaging, what I really think is the idea that 58 00:03:33,468 --> 00:03:37,300 rather than just using a single modality or investigative domain, we can actually 59 00:03:37,332 --> 00:03:40,944 leverage information across multiple different domains. So we can combine information, 60 00:03:41,354 --> 00:03:45,050 say, different species, across different scales, across perhaps different populations, 61 00:03:45,162 --> 00:03:48,906 in order to address the questions which 62 00:03:48,930 --> 00:03:52,134 you want to answer with respect to neuroscience, with 63 00:03:52,634 --> 00:03:56,002 really a more comprehensive approach to being able to answer them. 64 00:03:56,178 --> 00:03:59,426 Wow. So that sounds fascinating, and I'd love to talk to you in more detail 65 00:03:59,490 --> 00:04:01,754 about all that stuff, but of course, we're not here to talk about that today. 66 00:04:01,834 --> 00:04:05,594 That is correct. More about the handbook, which we'll come on to in a 67 00:04:05,594 --> 00:04:09,256 moment, but if I can ask you, Maddie, to introduce yourself. So 68 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:13,088 this is Maddy Welland. Hello. So 69 00:04:13,136 --> 00:04:16,984 I am the Wellcome EDI officer. I've been at the WIN 70 00:04:17,024 --> 00:04:20,696 for three years, but I technically work across all of Oxford's 71 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:24,528 three Wellcome centres. So I'm connected 72 00:04:24,576 --> 00:04:27,888 to this lab handbook initiative through 73 00:04:27,976 --> 00:04:31,816 our inclusive leadership program, which we've been piloting for a couple 74 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:35,510 of years, and we'll be working on within the medical 75 00:04:35,582 --> 00:04:39,214 sciences division for the next two. Yeah, 76 00:04:39,294 --> 00:04:43,062 I'll keep it short and sweet. Okay, thanks, Maddie. Thanks. And welcome to the podcast. 77 00:04:43,118 --> 00:04:46,694 And last but not least, Karla Miller. If you could introduce 78 00:04:46,734 --> 00:04:50,582 yourself, please. Yeah. Hi, my name is Karla Miller. 79 00:04:50,638 --> 00:04:54,222 I'm a professor of biomedical engineering. So I run a research 80 00:04:54,278 --> 00:04:58,014 group, relatively large research group of about 81 00:04:58,134 --> 00:05:00,994 30 people. And so maybe later we might talk a bit about 82 00:05:01,904 --> 00:05:05,464 why having such a large research group led me to want to 83 00:05:05,544 --> 00:05:09,344 take on this lab handbook initiative. But that's not my only 84 00:05:09,424 --> 00:05:12,832 role in Oxford. I am associate director 85 00:05:12,968 --> 00:05:16,712 of the WIN, as we call it, the Wellcome center 86 00:05:16,728 --> 00:05:19,968 for Integrative Neuroimaging. And I also have a role 87 00:05:20,096 --> 00:05:23,304 within Oxford more broadly. So in the medical sciences 88 00:05:23,344 --> 00:05:26,760 division, I am the academic lead for 89 00:05:26,832 --> 00:05:30,616 equality, diversity and inclusion, or EDI. And so this is 90 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,336 something that, again, it's a longstanding interest of 91 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,152 mine that intersects strongly with initiatives like the lab handbook that 92 00:05:38,248 --> 00:05:41,832 might initially not seem to have so much to do with equality, diversity and 93 00:05:41,848 --> 00:05:45,632 inclusion. But as we'll talk about later, actually, I think it's one of the more 94 00:05:45,688 --> 00:05:49,112 impactful kinds of projects that we can do to promote positive research 95 00:05:49,168 --> 00:05:52,952 culture, which enables people, regardless of their background or 96 00:05:52,968 --> 00:05:56,592 whether they might initially feel comfortable in a place like Oxford. 97 00:05:56,688 --> 00:06:00,478 It enables them to really flourish and do their best work 98 00:06:00,566 --> 00:06:04,398 because they actually feel included and understood and seen. 99 00:06:04,526 --> 00:06:07,566 Right. No, thank you. And we'll certainly get onto that. And I'm glad you call 100 00:06:07,590 --> 00:06:11,230 it the win, because that means I can as well. I hope you practice 101 00:06:11,262 --> 00:06:14,206 saying integrative neuroimaging because it took all of us a long time for that to 102 00:06:14,230 --> 00:06:17,542 roll off the top. Well, no, as I was saying, I was just. I think 103 00:06:17,558 --> 00:06:21,086 it came out okay. So. No, that's great. You did great. So, no, that's 104 00:06:21,110 --> 00:06:24,422 great. Thanks to you all for those introductions. 105 00:06:24,478 --> 00:06:28,254 And so, Ben, perhaps start with you, really, in terms of 106 00:06:29,514 --> 00:06:33,250 perhaps a quick overview of the Hamburg. You've already given us a crash course 107 00:06:33,322 --> 00:06:37,122 on integrative neuroimaging. I won't say it again, that's 108 00:06:37,138 --> 00:06:40,498 the last time I'll try and say it, but yeah, so perhaps just give us 109 00:06:40,506 --> 00:06:44,154 a quick overview of the handbook, a little bit about its history and 110 00:06:44,194 --> 00:06:47,674 development. Sure, sounds great. So, to us, the lab 111 00:06:47,714 --> 00:06:51,562 handbook is effectively a document which is written at 112 00:06:51,578 --> 00:06:55,300 the research group level by a research group which is 113 00:06:55,332 --> 00:06:59,044 aiming to outline the culture and ethos that the group is 114 00:06:59,084 --> 00:07:02,868 aiming to create. So different groups might approach 115 00:07:02,916 --> 00:07:06,668 the lab handbook initiative in different ways, and they might have things which are 116 00:07:06,716 --> 00:07:10,252 valuable for them, for what they think should be included in a 117 00:07:10,268 --> 00:07:13,932 handbook. But broadly, what I'd say is that a typical lab handbook 118 00:07:13,988 --> 00:07:17,700 would provide information about the roles and expectations of different researchers 119 00:07:17,732 --> 00:07:21,456 within the group at different career stages, the culture that the 120 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:25,216 research group is able to create, and how the research group supports the 121 00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:28,720 development of individual members from a career's 122 00:07:28,752 --> 00:07:32,464 perspective. So broadly, what I can say is that by doing this, 123 00:07:32,544 --> 00:07:35,784 what we're really aiming to do is to address the many challenges that can often 124 00:07:35,824 --> 00:07:39,480 arise in a research group settings that are due to poor communication 125 00:07:39,552 --> 00:07:43,256 between individual group members and a lab handbook aims to do this by 126 00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:46,894 explicitly defining expectations. So giving everybody an insight 127 00:07:46,934 --> 00:07:50,006 into what you can expect from me and what I can expect from you in 128 00:07:50,030 --> 00:07:53,390 return, providing a consistent and explicit message on 129 00:07:53,422 --> 00:07:57,222 exactly how the lab operates, and by virtue of doing 130 00:07:57,278 --> 00:08:01,126 this, provide accountability for everybody. Within a group, including 131 00:08:01,270 --> 00:08:04,886 people within senior management positions. Okay, great. Thank 132 00:08:04,910 --> 00:08:08,686 you. And just to come to you, Karla, and 133 00:08:08,710 --> 00:08:11,994 ask you, you've already just alluded to this, I think, in your previous 134 00:08:12,464 --> 00:08:15,936 answer, but why did you feel that handbook 135 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:19,896 was needed? And I suppose interested in your role as in leadership, 136 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:23,336 as the PI, and you've already sort of said a little bit about that. We 137 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:26,164 can go say a bit more about why you thought it was needed? 138 00:08:26,864 --> 00:08:30,440 Yeah, so I think. I think...so I've always felt 139 00:08:30,472 --> 00:08:34,104 very strongly that one of the most important things, as a 140 00:08:34,144 --> 00:08:37,444 principal investigator or a lab group leader, 141 00:08:38,184 --> 00:08:41,902 that you have a very important duty to the people in 142 00:08:41,918 --> 00:08:45,702 your group. I do kind of believe that I work for the people in my 143 00:08:45,718 --> 00:08:49,350 group as much as they work for me. Right. We work together, but that there 144 00:08:49,382 --> 00:08:52,622 are different roles that people have. And one of the things that I 145 00:08:52,718 --> 00:08:56,422 realized, although I take my role, I have always 146 00:08:56,478 --> 00:08:58,754 taken my role very seriously. But as I became 147 00:09:00,054 --> 00:09:03,862 a bit, as I took on more responsibility, one of the things that 148 00:09:03,878 --> 00:09:07,234 I realized is that I was not, 149 00:09:07,704 --> 00:09:11,456 I wasn't living up to my own standards in the way that I wanted to. 150 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:15,328 And that came in a few ways. The most important to me 151 00:09:15,376 --> 00:09:18,960 was I didn't feel like I was achieving consistency of communication 152 00:09:19,072 --> 00:09:22,776 with people when they would join the group. I would start to realize that although 153 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:26,336 I wanted to have certain conversations with people when they joined, to 154 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:30,152 be clear with people about my expectations, what I 155 00:09:30,168 --> 00:09:33,008 think they needed to feed back to me, all of that kind of stuff, that 156 00:09:33,056 --> 00:09:36,054 creates a good culture, I was not doing that 157 00:09:36,354 --> 00:09:40,082 consistently. And a lot of that was about the fact that I was just 158 00:09:40,138 --> 00:09:43,610 becoming more and more busy. I just had many, many, many things on my plate 159 00:09:43,642 --> 00:09:47,098 every day. So a big motivation was achieving 160 00:09:47,146 --> 00:09:50,866 consistency of communication. But then along 161 00:09:50,930 --> 00:09:54,690 with that came a lot of other things that the handbook enabled. 162 00:09:54,722 --> 00:09:58,506 So it encouraged people that I wanted 163 00:09:58,530 --> 00:10:01,442 to receive feedback. And we can talk a bit about some of the feedback that 164 00:10:01,458 --> 00:10:05,210 came out of it that I found incredibly helpful, realizing that sometimes 165 00:10:05,242 --> 00:10:08,804 I was communicating a different message than I intended to, 166 00:10:09,704 --> 00:10:13,364 it was really helpful for empowering accountability. 167 00:10:13,864 --> 00:10:17,632 So one of the challenges with running a large group, and in 168 00:10:17,648 --> 00:10:21,288 particular, as you start to get more senior, is people don't...you actually 169 00:10:21,336 --> 00:10:25,184 stop receiving feedback. Or maybe sometimes in a given role, you never receive 170 00:10:25,224 --> 00:10:28,736 feedback, and yet feedback is incredibly helpful, 171 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:32,284 provided you really are open to it. And so 172 00:10:33,234 --> 00:10:36,314 it would kind of empower people to hold me 173 00:10:36,354 --> 00:10:39,954 accountable to the standards that I hold 174 00:10:39,994 --> 00:10:43,666 myself to. And then I guess the final thing that it 175 00:10:43,690 --> 00:10:47,494 enabled me to do is it enabled me to, in a setting where 176 00:10:47,994 --> 00:10:51,746 it was outside of the context of a problem or 177 00:10:51,930 --> 00:10:55,714 frustration from someone, it enabled me to explain my 178 00:10:55,754 --> 00:10:59,366 working reality, what it's like to actually be a 179 00:10:59,390 --> 00:11:02,950 principal investigator in modern science, which is not something that 180 00:11:03,062 --> 00:11:06,894 people who are earlier in their career within my group will have 181 00:11:06,934 --> 00:11:10,494 experience. And so it's kind of difficult for them to understand certain 182 00:11:10,574 --> 00:11:14,350 aspects of my own behavior, which stems from 183 00:11:14,542 --> 00:11:18,134 what it is like to actually be a modern principle 184 00:11:18,174 --> 00:11:21,814 investigator. That's really interesting. Just sort of that 185 00:11:21,894 --> 00:11:25,566 sense of transparency, I suppose, in terms of 186 00:11:25,630 --> 00:11:29,190 your own expectations and expectations of the 187 00:11:29,342 --> 00:11:33,166 colleagues in the lab. Yeah. And I think oftentimes with 188 00:11:33,190 --> 00:11:36,926 transparency, I think there's sometimes 189 00:11:37,030 --> 00:11:40,558 a bit of a fear from people who are leading groups 190 00:11:40,686 --> 00:11:44,358 that transparency is somehow going to undermine them. 191 00:11:44,486 --> 00:11:48,246 If there are aspects of what it's like to be a PI 192 00:11:48,310 --> 00:11:52,120 that you think people won't necessarily like to 193 00:11:52,152 --> 00:11:55,736 hear. So, for example, the fact that sometimes I am going to take long to 194 00:11:55,760 --> 00:11:59,344 answer an email or I am going to take 195 00:11:59,384 --> 00:12:03,152 longer to return a paper to people than I would like 196 00:12:03,208 --> 00:12:06,952 to do. But I think because it's the reality, just being 197 00:12:07,008 --> 00:12:10,768 open and transparent about why those things happen and how it is that people 198 00:12:10,816 --> 00:12:14,648 can help me to do my job better, I think I found that to be 199 00:12:14,656 --> 00:12:18,456 a really powerful thing. For example, not sending really long emails, I 200 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:22,304 struggle to get through them, read them, and respond to them. Even just 201 00:12:22,344 --> 00:12:25,974 explaining some of that has helped people to get more out of 202 00:12:26,014 --> 00:12:29,782 me and when they need it, because they understand how we 203 00:12:29,798 --> 00:12:33,646 can communicate and work effectively together. No, that's really great. I'm going to come 204 00:12:33,670 --> 00:12:36,834 to you in a moment, Maddie... I was going to hop on that point. 205 00:12:38,094 --> 00:12:41,710 So Karla is my line manager and has been for the past three 206 00:12:41,782 --> 00:12:45,574 years. And this is a really valuable aspect 207 00:12:45,654 --> 00:12:49,254 of the lab handbook, I think, because what happened when I joined 208 00:12:49,334 --> 00:12:52,374 is that I didn't know that. I didn't know that actually 209 00:12:52,454 --> 00:12:55,656 emailing, you know, because that's, that's how you expect 210 00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:59,160 to converse with people if you're not seeing them in 211 00:12:59,192 --> 00:13:02,880 person. And I would send lots of emails. I would send 212 00:13:02,912 --> 00:13:06,456 lots of long emails. And it got to a point where Karla had 213 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:09,564 to be like, right, listen, 214 00:13:10,464 --> 00:13:14,064 let's have a conversation. You may not like it. And, you know, I'm, I'm 215 00:13:14,104 --> 00:13:17,784 robust. And I was like, oh, right, okay, cool. You're not criticizing me. You're just 216 00:13:17,824 --> 00:13:21,594 clarifying, um, your expectations. But that's probably 217 00:13:21,634 --> 00:13:25,442 a conversation she's had to have 30 times, you know, and 218 00:13:25,458 --> 00:13:29,090 now it's written down now she doesn't have to 219 00:13:29,122 --> 00:13:32,706 wait until a crisis point until someone new joins and 220 00:13:32,730 --> 00:13:36,226 annoys her so much that she has to take them aside and 221 00:13:36,250 --> 00:13:39,930 say, please stop. But, yeah, yeah, no, that's 222 00:13:39,962 --> 00:13:43,094 great. And just to follow on with you, Maddie. So 223 00:13:43,714 --> 00:13:47,138 perhaps tell us a little bit about how the handbook relates to 224 00:13:47,226 --> 00:13:50,966 your role. Not, you know, in that particular context of personal experience, 225 00:13:51,150 --> 00:13:54,622 but, you know, in terms of your role now as EDI officer, I think, is 226 00:13:54,638 --> 00:13:58,294 your role? Yes. It's sort of transitioning 227 00:13:58,334 --> 00:14:01,966 to something slightly different, but I don't know what my new title will be. 228 00:14:02,150 --> 00:14:05,558 So part of my role has been to take some of the 229 00:14:05,606 --> 00:14:09,166 initiatives that the WIN has created, and the lab handbook is one of 230 00:14:09,190 --> 00:14:12,974 them, to basically disseminate it 231 00:14:13,014 --> 00:14:15,434 across the division, across the university. 232 00:14:16,454 --> 00:14:20,174 There's definitely more 233 00:14:20,214 --> 00:14:24,062 of a fit towards the medical sciences and the physical 234 00:14:24,118 --> 00:14:27,638 sciences, and maybe it would need further adaptation to be a great fit 235 00:14:27,686 --> 00:14:31,294 for, you know, the social sciences or humanities. But currently I'm 236 00:14:31,334 --> 00:14:34,822 working on disseminating it across the division, and 237 00:14:34,998 --> 00:14:38,718 there's lots of interest. You know, it's so 238 00:14:38,766 --> 00:14:42,230 amazing to work in a place where you can create something amazing and then just 239 00:14:42,262 --> 00:14:45,938 sort of share it, and people are, there's such an appetite for it. So 240 00:14:45,986 --> 00:14:49,134 that's part of my role, but it also fits 241 00:14:49,514 --> 00:14:53,362 really neatly within the inclusive leadership program that we've been 242 00:14:53,418 --> 00:14:57,250 piloting. So in the first year, we were 243 00:14:57,282 --> 00:15:00,786 able to help participants pursue a 244 00:15:00,810 --> 00:15:04,402 project, and basically that was, you know, a project 245 00:15:04,458 --> 00:15:08,178 related to any diversity and inclusion goal 246 00:15:08,226 --> 00:15:11,890 that they had locally. But the lab handbook was something we offered 247 00:15:11,922 --> 00:15:15,562 alongside that, which was a sort of IKEA flat pack, 248 00:15:15,658 --> 00:15:19,456 ready to go project. And actually, I would say at least 249 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:22,936 half of the people on the, on the program took it up because they could 250 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:26,344 see the value in it, and they were all senior 251 00:15:26,384 --> 00:15:29,444 PIs. And again, this year, when we've been piloting it, 252 00:15:30,424 --> 00:15:34,208 yeah, people, people have had things come up, and 253 00:15:34,376 --> 00:15:38,120 every time people go, oh, well, you know, I've got this problem in this 254 00:15:38,152 --> 00:15:41,808 area, or I don't know how to talk about this. It just seems like 255 00:15:41,856 --> 00:15:45,510 such a useful vehicle for handling or 256 00:15:45,542 --> 00:15:49,278 bringing up an issue in a, in a sensitive way that isn't, 257 00:15:49,406 --> 00:15:52,974 you know, overpowering, really. And what's the history of the initiative? How 258 00:15:53,054 --> 00:15:56,678 long has it been sort of active? And it's a living 259 00:15:56,726 --> 00:16:00,150 document, I think, perhaps come on to what that exactly means. But when was, was 260 00:16:00,182 --> 00:16:03,742 it actually written and sort of rolled out? I'm trying to 261 00:16:03,758 --> 00:16:06,534 remember what year we actually began. It was 262 00:16:06,614 --> 00:16:10,342 2021, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, was it? I thought it was 263 00:16:10,358 --> 00:16:14,186 pre pandemic. I think it started, perhaps it 264 00:16:14,210 --> 00:16:17,226 was late 2020, but then I think we returned to it in the beginning of 265 00:16:17,250 --> 00:16:21,074 2021, after we had the pause for a bit due to 266 00:16:21,154 --> 00:16:24,254 the start of the pandemic. Yeah, so it began. 267 00:16:25,874 --> 00:16:29,578 And if you go to the resources that we have, which hopefully we can include 268 00:16:29,626 --> 00:16:32,866 a link to. Yeah, I'll put any links I can put in the show notes. 269 00:16:33,010 --> 00:16:36,694 Yeah. So there was a Twitter thread that 270 00:16:37,114 --> 00:16:40,770 where. And I can't remember who it was, but they did a brilliant 271 00:16:40,802 --> 00:16:44,386 job of going through similar documents, sort of these ethos or 272 00:16:44,410 --> 00:16:47,254 culture documents for research groups in STEM, 273 00:16:47,674 --> 00:16:51,506 and they read a number of these and they distilled 274 00:16:51,530 --> 00:16:55,298 it down to a series of topics that one might want to cover. 275 00:16:55,346 --> 00:16:58,266 And I read that thread and I thought, this is brilliant. This is what I 276 00:16:58,290 --> 00:17:02,050 need. Because it came at a point where I could tell that 277 00:17:02,082 --> 00:17:05,680 my responsibilities were increasing, my group was growing, 278 00:17:05,832 --> 00:17:09,592 and I was really starting to realize that I 279 00:17:09,608 --> 00:17:13,280 was dropping balls with respect to people in my group in terms of communication 280 00:17:13,352 --> 00:17:16,724 and expectations and all of that. And so at that point, 281 00:17:18,024 --> 00:17:21,712 I just said to this broader research group, which is, it's not 282 00:17:21,728 --> 00:17:25,448 just all under me, it's an amalgamation of. I think there's now about seven of 283 00:17:25,456 --> 00:17:28,912 us PIs in one large group. And I just, at a group meeting, I just 284 00:17:28,928 --> 00:17:32,444 said, why don't we try to do this? And anybody who's interested, let's 285 00:17:32,624 --> 00:17:36,220 just have a series of sessions where we sit down and we try to write 286 00:17:36,252 --> 00:17:39,076 this thing, and we use this Twitter thread as a guide to what we might 287 00:17:39,100 --> 00:17:42,228 put in it. And then we just, as a group, we wrote it. So I 288 00:17:42,236 --> 00:17:46,060 think a really important point is, with lab handbooks, all of us, 289 00:17:46,092 --> 00:17:49,676 our overwhelming experience is, this is not something that a PI writes on behalf of 290 00:17:49,700 --> 00:17:53,436 their group. It's something that you co create together. And there's a number of 291 00:17:53,460 --> 00:17:57,292 reasons why that's important. It achieves buy in. 292 00:17:57,428 --> 00:18:00,730 It ensures that when you write 293 00:18:00,762 --> 00:18:04,562 it, you create something that everyone agrees that they're happy to 294 00:18:04,578 --> 00:18:08,346 sign up to. And also, critically, really, really importantly, 295 00:18:08,490 --> 00:18:12,266 as a PI, one of the things that comes out of 296 00:18:12,290 --> 00:18:16,002 it is, I learned a very valuable lesson. You 297 00:18:16,018 --> 00:18:19,546 find out about things that you have been trying to communicate, but which you have 298 00:18:19,570 --> 00:18:23,106 been miscommunicating. So I'll give you the example that came up for me. 299 00:18:23,250 --> 00:18:26,906 I've always been very keen that people have good work life balance. I don't think 300 00:18:26,930 --> 00:18:30,592 it's healthy for people to work excessive hours and so what I 301 00:18:30,608 --> 00:18:34,272 would tell people is, I don't care how many hours 302 00:18:34,328 --> 00:18:38,000 you work, I just want you to be productive. Now, about half of my 303 00:18:38,032 --> 00:18:41,752 group, it turns out when I said that was hearing, I want you to 304 00:18:41,768 --> 00:18:45,408 have work life balance, and I want you to find the flexibility of working in 305 00:18:45,416 --> 00:18:49,136 a way that works for you. But maybe as much as 306 00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:52,776 half of them heard, I don't care how many hours you have to work, 307 00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:56,656 you work until you produce, which is exactly the opposite message from what I was 308 00:18:56,680 --> 00:19:00,268 trying to communicate. And if I had sat down and written this handbook 309 00:19:00,316 --> 00:19:03,996 myself, I would have written what I've been saying for years. But 310 00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:07,724 what came out was, I can tell from Karla that you're trying 311 00:19:07,764 --> 00:19:11,596 to encourage work life balance, but that is not how I interpret this thing 312 00:19:11,620 --> 00:19:15,324 that you wrote. So even the process, and this is something that Maddie often 313 00:19:15,364 --> 00:19:18,820 talks about, she sometimes says, and I encourage her not to say this, but she 314 00:19:18,852 --> 00:19:22,460 sometimes says, write the thing and then throw it away and write it again. Because 315 00:19:22,492 --> 00:19:26,210 the process, and I do believe this, the process is by far the most 316 00:19:26,282 --> 00:19:30,042 important part of it. It's useful to have the thing written down, but 317 00:19:30,098 --> 00:19:33,882 creating it together, you learn an awful lot about each other, what 318 00:19:33,898 --> 00:19:37,506 people want, what they need in a way that you don't. If it's a one 319 00:19:37,570 --> 00:19:41,106 way communication stream. Well, and there's that issue of 320 00:19:41,130 --> 00:19:44,970 collaboration again, which gives me an opportunity perhaps just to try and crowbar 321 00:19:45,002 --> 00:19:48,698 in some open research, because I was just looking through before we came on 322 00:19:48,746 --> 00:19:52,226 the headings, etcetera. And obviously you've got the roles and 323 00:19:52,250 --> 00:19:56,002 expectations, and then you've got developing researchers 324 00:19:56,058 --> 00:19:59,522 and career development. And that includes explicitly open and responsible 325 00:19:59,578 --> 00:20:03,346 science. Collaborating is actually in there as well, as well as public 326 00:20:03,410 --> 00:20:07,218 engagement. So I was just really interested. I mean, first 327 00:20:07,266 --> 00:20:10,334 of all, I'm not that sure of the structure of the 328 00:20:10,874 --> 00:20:14,594 Wellcome. I mean, do you have a library there? Do you have other 329 00:20:14,674 --> 00:20:18,506 departments within that that support research, dissemination or open access 330 00:20:18,570 --> 00:20:22,398 and all that kind of thing? So we, we don't have a, we 331 00:20:22,406 --> 00:20:25,942 don't have a library within our department per se, but we do have something which 332 00:20:26,118 --> 00:20:29,694 we refer to as the open WIN community. And the open WIN community 333 00:20:29,814 --> 00:20:33,126 are actively involved in our department in making 334 00:20:33,270 --> 00:20:37,046 our studies and the data which we produce from our studies as open as 335 00:20:37,070 --> 00:20:40,782 possible. So the way which they're going about this 336 00:20:40,798 --> 00:20:44,630 is a variety of different means. So they're thinking about, for example, you know, building 337 00:20:44,702 --> 00:20:47,798 what kind of infrastructure do we need to be able to, to share the data 338 00:20:47,846 --> 00:20:51,582 which we produce? This perhaps might involve producing things in house in 339 00:20:51,598 --> 00:20:55,114 addition to resources which are available elsewhere, 340 00:20:55,414 --> 00:20:59,126 there's also ethical considerations with respect to how 341 00:20:59,150 --> 00:21:02,670 we can go about sharing data, in particular, sensitive data, which is 342 00:21:02,702 --> 00:21:06,110 involved often with newer imaging studies. But 343 00:21:06,142 --> 00:21:09,774 also the community is quite involved in a cultural 344 00:21:09,814 --> 00:21:13,526 shift as well, trying to promote the values and importance 345 00:21:13,590 --> 00:21:17,314 of open science to the researchers 346 00:21:17,394 --> 00:21:21,242 within our center, which is a really imperative thing to get us to 347 00:21:21,378 --> 00:21:24,586 what I would say as maximizing the most that we can get out of the 348 00:21:24,610 --> 00:21:28,442 data which we produce. You know, that's good. And I'm really interested in this sort 349 00:21:28,458 --> 00:21:32,242 of what we're trying to do at Leeds as well. I think this holistic approach 350 00:21:32,298 --> 00:21:35,814 to research culture, of which, you know, my role in the library, 351 00:21:36,194 --> 00:21:39,426 is an aspect of that, but obviously, it intersects with so many other aspects of 352 00:21:39,450 --> 00:21:43,134 that. I don't know if Maddie or Karla have any other thoughts on 353 00:21:43,794 --> 00:21:46,826 how it relates to other parts of the organization 354 00:21:46,970 --> 00:21:50,626 or. When you're talking about collaboration, 355 00:21:50,730 --> 00:21:54,354 do you mean collaboration scientifically? Do you mean just how 356 00:21:54,474 --> 00:21:58,138 we work with each other? Well, I think. I suppose I mean everything around 357 00:21:58,186 --> 00:22:01,874 that. I'm just really interested. I mean, I was just talking to colleagues 358 00:22:02,034 --> 00:22:05,714 on campus recently, so at Leeds this week we've been having Africa 359 00:22:05,794 --> 00:22:09,626 week. So that's a. It's been a big initiative with colleagues 360 00:22:09,650 --> 00:22:13,294 from Africa and different organizations, etcetera. And I was just having 361 00:22:13,334 --> 00:22:17,118 lunch with colleagues there and talking to a 362 00:22:17,126 --> 00:22:19,846 colleague I haven't met before. We were talking about the power of collaboration and the 363 00:22:19,870 --> 00:22:23,430 value of that in all sorts of ways. You know, whether it's research, culture, or 364 00:22:23,462 --> 00:22:26,870 science itself, or writing a handbook. You know, 365 00:22:26,902 --> 00:22:30,630 that, to me, is such an underpinning principle that 366 00:22:30,662 --> 00:22:34,062 perhaps we can all be better at, and culturally, we need to 367 00:22:34,158 --> 00:22:37,456 develop. Yeah. Okay, well, so I think one of the 368 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:39,724 defining features of WIN 369 00:22:41,504 --> 00:22:44,392 is exactly collaboration. So I think one of the 370 00:22:44,408 --> 00:22:47,032 most....WIN is one of 371 00:22:47,048 --> 00:22:50,844 the....It's one of the world leading centers in this field 372 00:22:51,184 --> 00:22:54,648 of neuroimaging, where we're specifically talking 373 00:22:54,776 --> 00:22:58,512 about, in particular, the kinds of imaging that you would be able to perform in 374 00:22:58,528 --> 00:23:02,314 humans. So, MRI and MEG, as Ben mentioned, um, 375 00:23:02,474 --> 00:23:06,114 one of the things that has really set this center apart from other 376 00:23:06,154 --> 00:23:09,374 similar places, um, uh, is 377 00:23:09,674 --> 00:23:12,866 the, not just that collaboration is valued, but the 378 00:23:12,890 --> 00:23:16,290 interdisciplinarity of the center is valued. So oftentimes 379 00:23:16,362 --> 00:23:20,082 in, um, in imaging centers, what ends up emerging is a kind 380 00:23:20,098 --> 00:23:23,706 of hierarchy, scientifically. So oftentimes what ends up 381 00:23:23,730 --> 00:23:27,204 happening is, is that you have, um, a higher value 382 00:23:27,354 --> 00:23:30,936 placed, for example, oftentimes in clinical departments, there's a 383 00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:34,752 perception that the clinical end, as opposed to the methodological 384 00:23:34,808 --> 00:23:38,440 end, is sort of the real science. And 385 00:23:38,472 --> 00:23:41,984 where people are working on methodology, that's sort of a second 386 00:23:42,024 --> 00:23:45,560 class citizen. And this sort of thing plays itself out 387 00:23:45,672 --> 00:23:49,064 in many aspects of interdisciplinary research 388 00:23:49,184 --> 00:23:53,032 across many, many, many disciplines. But one of the things that's most remarkable, I 389 00:23:53,048 --> 00:23:56,532 think, about, WIN, is that from the outset, there was this ethos 390 00:23:56,708 --> 00:24:00,436 that all of this science is really valuable, and that actually, we do the best 391 00:24:00,460 --> 00:24:04,004 science when we genuinely approach it collaboratively. 392 00:24:04,124 --> 00:24:07,380 And so, as an engineer in a clinical neurosciences 393 00:24:07,412 --> 00:24:11,116 department, I'm not. We 394 00:24:11,140 --> 00:24:14,628 do have a lot of engineers and physicists, and that makes a huge difference 395 00:24:14,676 --> 00:24:18,444 to creating critical mass 396 00:24:18,524 --> 00:24:22,300 so that we can do really cutting edge methodological work. But we're 397 00:24:22,332 --> 00:24:25,596 also rubbing elbows every day with the people who have the 398 00:24:25,620 --> 00:24:29,396 problems. And so we actually understand the problems, and we get to 399 00:24:29,420 --> 00:24:32,844 see our methods being used in real 400 00:24:32,924 --> 00:24:36,372 world, what we would refer to as applications of the 401 00:24:36,388 --> 00:24:39,796 methodological research in real world 402 00:24:39,860 --> 00:24:43,412 neuroscience problems. And that is hugely valuable. And I think 403 00:24:43,508 --> 00:24:46,988 the fact that neither of these things is seen as being of higher 404 00:24:47,036 --> 00:24:50,796 importance. It's the synergy between the two that 405 00:24:50,820 --> 00:24:52,824 is what makes us such 406 00:24:54,684 --> 00:24:58,340 able to achieve really impactful work in that 407 00:24:58,372 --> 00:25:01,956 space. So, really, it's all about collaboration. But collaboration only 408 00:25:02,020 --> 00:25:04,544 works when everybody really, truly values 409 00:25:05,724 --> 00:25:08,524 the breadth of expertise and 410 00:25:08,564 --> 00:25:11,876 backgrounds that we have in the 411 00:25:11,900 --> 00:25:15,090 center. And a different version of that that isn't 412 00:25:15,172 --> 00:25:18,918 interdisciplinary is the breadth of backgrounds that people bring 413 00:25:18,966 --> 00:25:22,710 personally... ...they may have been trained in different countries, they have different life experiences, 414 00:25:22,742 --> 00:25:26,382 and all of that, if you have a supportive atmosphere, if people 415 00:25:26,398 --> 00:25:29,902 feel like they can really bring that into the science that they're doing, all 416 00:25:30,078 --> 00:25:33,830 of that makes our science better, but only, only if you're able 417 00:25:33,862 --> 00:25:37,646 to create an environment where everyone, if they 418 00:25:37,670 --> 00:25:39,834 may be coming at it from a slightly different perspective, 419 00:25:40,814 --> 00:25:44,246 if everyone feels like they have something to contribute. 420 00:25:45,006 --> 00:25:48,500 Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I suppose. I was thinking about 421 00:25:48,532 --> 00:25:52,364 that...I read your paper, obviously, why every lab leads a handbook. That, again, 422 00:25:52,404 --> 00:25:56,060 I'll link in the show notes, and there's an example you 423 00:25:56,092 --> 00:25:59,196 mentioned in there where I'll just quote, actually, "an experienced technician 424 00:25:59,220 --> 00:26:03,012 is frustrated because they were not included as an author on a paper to 425 00:26:03,108 --> 00:26:06,844 which they feel they made a substantial contribution". So I'm guessing you're familiar 426 00:26:06,884 --> 00:26:10,692 with the CRediT taxonomy, which is 427 00:26:10,708 --> 00:26:13,940 a bit of a library thing. So that's exactly one of the things that we're 428 00:26:13,972 --> 00:26:17,690 trying to promote here, at least for example, to ensure that, well, 429 00:26:17,722 --> 00:26:20,834 people like myself, for example, in terms of the data management work that I do 430 00:26:20,874 --> 00:26:24,426 are credited on a paper or a technician or whatever. So that's, 431 00:26:24,490 --> 00:26:28,014 again, an area where it sort of intersects with the 432 00:26:28,474 --> 00:26:32,146 open agenda more generally. Absolutely. And I think 433 00:26:32,330 --> 00:26:35,786 there's so many different people who bring expertise into the studies that we 434 00:26:35,810 --> 00:26:39,034 do, and yet we still have this kind of 435 00:26:39,074 --> 00:26:42,876 archaic way of, of indicating who 436 00:26:42,900 --> 00:26:46,436 has done what, which is in this massively 437 00:26:46,500 --> 00:26:50,292 constraining thing of what order are you listed on a 438 00:26:50,308 --> 00:26:52,804 piece of paper? And, I mean, it's obviously not even a piece of paper anymore. 439 00:26:52,844 --> 00:26:56,316 Right. So, yeah, so we're very keen on that. In our space, for 440 00:26:56,340 --> 00:27:00,092 example, there are people called radiographers. So they are the 441 00:27:00,108 --> 00:27:03,900 people who actually run the scanners. So they would be the equivalent of 442 00:27:03,972 --> 00:27:07,660 a wet lab technician. And often they might have a 443 00:27:07,692 --> 00:27:10,942 huge influence on how good the data quality is setting up the study, 444 00:27:10,998 --> 00:27:14,726 etcetera. And yet very rarely are they actually included. 445 00:27:14,830 --> 00:27:18,310 And so having a way of indicating their 446 00:27:18,342 --> 00:27:22,190 contribution, we feel is enormously helpful and it clearly makes a massive 447 00:27:22,222 --> 00:27:25,590 difference to them. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Thank you. 448 00:27:25,782 --> 00:27:28,674 Just a little conscious of time. But I just want to raise, 449 00:27:29,574 --> 00:27:33,078 just ask you, Ben, really, if you have any insight on this, because this, I 450 00:27:33,086 --> 00:27:36,492 suppose just from a personal perspective as well. I'm just interested in how 451 00:27:36,678 --> 00:27:40,448 a handbook such as this can help with personal challenges. I 452 00:27:40,456 --> 00:27:44,128 mean, for example, I'm quite open now, again, being a little bit older and 453 00:27:44,136 --> 00:27:47,800 longer than the tooth and comfortable in my own skin of mental health problems 454 00:27:47,832 --> 00:27:51,504 I've had in the past and anxiety or whatever. And that's something, 455 00:27:51,544 --> 00:27:55,232 again, that's explicitly mentioned. So I think that's an important area of transparency, 456 00:27:55,288 --> 00:27:58,952 again, that perhaps enables people to engage with these issues on their 457 00:27:58,968 --> 00:28:02,464 own terms? Perhaps, yeah, I mean, I think a lab handbook 458 00:28:02,544 --> 00:28:06,336 is a really fantastic document to help support people with respect to 459 00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:09,592 their mental health and wellbeing. There's probably a 460 00:28:09,608 --> 00:28:12,952 few...there's a few kind of different ways that it can achieve that. 461 00:28:13,008 --> 00:28:16,696 So one of the things which I think is that by having a document where 462 00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,176 you explicitly describe your commitment to the wellbeing of 463 00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,904 individuals within a group and describing how you're going about doing that, 464 00:28:24,024 --> 00:28:27,200 you're going to encourage people within the group to feel 465 00:28:27,312 --> 00:28:31,056 empowered to have conversations with their principal investigator 466 00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,936 or their group, lead on how things within their personal lives, such as, 467 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,696 say, child care responsibilities, care responsibilities, or perhaps personal 468 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,898 disability, interact with their work 469 00:28:41,946 --> 00:28:45,626 responsibilities. Now, by having these kind of things written out explicitly 470 00:28:45,690 --> 00:28:49,106 in a lab handbook document, you can begin to open up those conversations 471 00:28:49,290 --> 00:28:52,690 between different members of the group to try to identify 472 00:28:52,762 --> 00:28:56,338 places where perhaps adjustments can be made in terms of how they work to 473 00:28:56,466 --> 00:29:00,186 promote healthy work life balance, and by virtue of that, 474 00:29:00,210 --> 00:29:04,002 promote their wellbeing. Another thought, and this kind of links back to 475 00:29:04,018 --> 00:29:07,530 what Karla was saying a bit earlier with respect to working 476 00:29:07,602 --> 00:29:11,364 hours. So one of the things which is often quite challenging in terms 477 00:29:11,434 --> 00:29:15,136 of defining how people work within research settings is 478 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,736 working hours. And by being really explicit about 479 00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,272 working hours within a document such as the lab handbook, and really communicating in a 480 00:29:22,288 --> 00:29:26,136 clear way what your expectations are, you can prevent people 481 00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,008 arriving to the group with their own interpretation of how they believe 482 00:29:30,056 --> 00:29:33,872 that they're supposed to work. ...and that can often arise from...that could arise from, 483 00:29:33,928 --> 00:29:37,352 for example, stereotyped expectations of what it means to perhaps be a 484 00:29:37,368 --> 00:29:40,966 researcher within a research setting. Or alternatively, it could be that they've 485 00:29:40,990 --> 00:29:44,750 perhaps worked in a previous lab environment where it's been, where the culture has 486 00:29:44,782 --> 00:29:47,710 been perhaps a bit more negative, and there's been an expectation of working long hours 487 00:29:47,742 --> 00:29:51,542 and presenteeism. So by writing those things down, I think you can prevent 488 00:29:51,598 --> 00:29:55,318 challenges such as burnout from arising. People know from day one how 489 00:29:55,366 --> 00:29:59,206 they can be expected to work with respect to hours, and preventing things such 490 00:29:59,230 --> 00:30:02,998 as burnout will be enormously helpful with respect 491 00:30:03,046 --> 00:30:06,866 to mental health and personal wellbeing. If you 492 00:30:06,970 --> 00:30:10,514 talk in your lab handbook about inclusivity, and you talk about how you 493 00:30:10,594 --> 00:30:13,722 promote yourself as an inclusive lab and give examples of that, 494 00:30:13,818 --> 00:30:17,514 you'll make people feel empowered to bring their whole 495 00:30:17,554 --> 00:30:21,146 selves to work. If that's something which they want to do, which I think can 496 00:30:21,170 --> 00:30:24,698 also be really important for people in their individual 497 00:30:24,746 --> 00:30:28,394 personal lives. You can also just provide general 498 00:30:28,474 --> 00:30:32,142 information to just signpost people through resources that perhaps 499 00:30:32,198 --> 00:30:35,686 might not be available within the actual... ...within the 500 00:30:35,710 --> 00:30:39,366 actual group itself. So I, for example, I am not an expert on mental 501 00:30:39,390 --> 00:30:42,878 health and wellbeing, but I certainly know that there are resources, perhaps at a departmental, 502 00:30:42,886 --> 00:30:46,734 university level, or perhaps even externally, which can 503 00:30:46,814 --> 00:30:50,154 be...which people in our center, in 504 00:30:50,934 --> 00:30:54,326 our group, can have access to, which perhaps can help them navigate their personal lives 505 00:30:54,390 --> 00:30:58,126 if perhaps they don't necessarily want to have these conversations with their colleagues 506 00:30:58,150 --> 00:31:01,366 surrounding them, and want to speak to people who have more professional insights. 507 00:31:01,430 --> 00:31:05,102 The other thing, though, which I say is probably even more 508 00:31:05,158 --> 00:31:08,990 critical with all of this, is that everything which I've said so far more relates 509 00:31:09,022 --> 00:31:12,854 to people who perhaps want to have support with respect to their own mental 510 00:31:12,894 --> 00:31:16,606 health and well being. But something else is also actually speaking to people 511 00:31:16,630 --> 00:31:20,274 who don't necessarily consider these things a challenge for themselves. And 512 00:31:20,574 --> 00:31:24,390 I think what you're really doing with the lab handbook is by talking about topics 513 00:31:24,422 --> 00:31:27,774 such as well being, mental health and inclusivity, 514 00:31:27,854 --> 00:31:31,300 you're communicating with people that may not necessarily be directly 515 00:31:31,332 --> 00:31:35,092 impacted by these challenges and giving them information and insights in terms 516 00:31:35,108 --> 00:31:38,884 of how they can support their colleagues who may be having challenges within 517 00:31:38,924 --> 00:31:42,052 this space. And there are really simple ways that you can do this. You know, 518 00:31:42,068 --> 00:31:45,732 you can think about just respecting the preferences or the needs of others within 519 00:31:45,788 --> 00:31:49,476 the group, and doing that in a natural way, 520 00:31:49,500 --> 00:31:53,264 which doesn't necessarily require people to have to have conversations to 521 00:31:53,604 --> 00:31:56,796 justify why they want things to be done in a certain way, which can be 522 00:31:56,820 --> 00:32:00,646 often quite difficult to do. And I think just by making these things really transparent 523 00:32:00,700 --> 00:32:04,386 and clear, it will benefit. It really benefits 524 00:32:04,530 --> 00:32:08,186 people. Everybody within the group. Yeah, we'll come back to that transparency 525 00:32:08,250 --> 00:32:11,978 issue. So Ben mentioned the value 526 00:32:12,026 --> 00:32:15,370 in signposting to resources. One of the things that I would encourage people to do 527 00:32:15,442 --> 00:32:18,954 is to take advantage of your 528 00:32:18,994 --> 00:32:22,454 institution's administrative teams that can help you with it. 529 00:32:22,994 --> 00:32:26,394 You can't suddenly become an expert on mental health or 530 00:32:26,474 --> 00:32:30,322 necessarily understand how best to 531 00:32:30,338 --> 00:32:33,936 help people when things become really challenging. But we 532 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,600 engaged our HR team and some of the people who had expertise in mental 533 00:32:37,632 --> 00:32:41,080 health in order to make sure that we got those sections right, and we found 534 00:32:41,112 --> 00:32:44,544 them to be incredibly willing to help us on those sections. 535 00:32:44,584 --> 00:32:48,096 So it may sound a bit daunting to people, the idea that you have to 536 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,608 write about some of these issues, but there are people, there will be people at 537 00:32:50,616 --> 00:32:53,964 your institution who would be delighted to help you do it, I'm sure. 538 00:32:54,624 --> 00:32:57,764 Yeah. And when we've been trying to introduce these 539 00:32:58,804 --> 00:33:02,624 initially to a department and then sort of cascading it throughout the department, 540 00:33:03,444 --> 00:33:07,252 it's been quite helpful to raise that point for 541 00:33:07,308 --> 00:33:10,884 people to not have to continually search for those 542 00:33:10,924 --> 00:33:14,476 resources again and again, but to have the admin teams be part of the 543 00:33:14,500 --> 00:33:18,348 process so that you can, you know, where those 544 00:33:18,396 --> 00:33:21,824 sort of central signposting things are, and you can have that. 545 00:33:22,604 --> 00:33:26,426 You can share it more easily. That's great. And again, it all 546 00:33:26,450 --> 00:33:29,218 comes back to transparency for me. I think. I think that's what I'm really hearing, 547 00:33:29,266 --> 00:33:33,058 that sort of transparent approach in all sorts of aspects. But 548 00:33:33,066 --> 00:33:36,634 I suppose just a question for all of you, really, in terms 549 00:33:36,674 --> 00:33:40,214 of future plans and where can people find out more? 550 00:33:40,594 --> 00:33:44,226 So there's kind of two aspects, I think, with respect to our future directions, with 551 00:33:44,250 --> 00:33:48,034 respect to our own lab handbook within the WIN physics 552 00:33:48,074 --> 00:33:51,534 group that we've created, and speaking to other people in terms of how they've 553 00:33:51,574 --> 00:33:55,382 utilized the lab handbook within their group. The general idea 554 00:33:55,438 --> 00:33:58,934 is that people will be returning to this document periodically to 555 00:33:58,974 --> 00:34:02,662 update it, have a discussion as a group, and see where improvements and changes can 556 00:34:02,678 --> 00:34:06,310 be made more broadly. With respect to our initiative, 557 00:34:06,382 --> 00:34:10,094 we're very keen to promote the use of lab handbooks more generally 558 00:34:10,134 --> 00:34:12,874 to a wider audience than just within our. 559 00:34:13,694 --> 00:34:16,904 Just within our lab or just within our...our 560 00:34:17,024 --> 00:34:20,712 center. And so we've been...our initiative, which we've 561 00:34:20,728 --> 00:34:24,472 been really promoting over the past few years, is 562 00:34:24,488 --> 00:34:27,512 really trying to push the idea of lab handbooks to other, other 563 00:34:27,568 --> 00:34:31,232 departments, both within and also outside 564 00:34:31,288 --> 00:34:34,928 of Oxford, and try to get more, a larger fraction of the research community 565 00:34:35,016 --> 00:34:38,288 really engaged with what we believe is a really powerful tool 566 00:34:38,336 --> 00:34:41,408 to improve positive research culture. 567 00:34:41,576 --> 00:34:45,321 So what we're currently doing in terms of future directions is 568 00:34:45,337 --> 00:34:49,161 just continuing to engage with those different departments, both within and outside 569 00:34:49,257 --> 00:34:52,921 of Oxford, to not only promote the initiative, but also seeing where we 570 00:34:52,937 --> 00:34:56,297 can provide some resources and some 571 00:34:56,425 --> 00:34:59,529 support from our side in order to be able to do this, to make this 572 00:34:59,601 --> 00:35:03,413 something which has a more broader impact on 573 00:35:03,993 --> 00:35:07,401 higher education and research settings in 574 00:35:07,417 --> 00:35:11,030 general. We published a feature article on this. 575 00:35:11,182 --> 00:35:14,454 We published an article on this last year, and 576 00:35:14,494 --> 00:35:18,102 essentially, so the article, anyone can find it by searching 577 00:35:18,158 --> 00:35:22,006 lab handbooks elife or I'll make sure it's linked. 578 00:35:22,030 --> 00:35:24,342 I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes as well, but, yeah, Sounds perfect. 579 00:35:24,358 --> 00:35:27,634 And within this. Within 580 00:35:28,574 --> 00:35:32,078 this document, within this article, we basically describe what a lab handbook is, 581 00:35:32,126 --> 00:35:35,942 why they're beneficial, how to go about writing one, and we also 582 00:35:35,958 --> 00:35:39,438 provide a series of different resources to help labs build their own. So 583 00:35:39,566 --> 00:35:43,158 anybody who's interested in finding it more can look into that and they can 584 00:35:43,206 --> 00:35:46,854 get access to those resources and gain a bit of another insight into 585 00:35:46,894 --> 00:35:50,566 why this is such a valuable document to have. That's brilliant. Thanks very much. 586 00:35:50,630 --> 00:35:54,454 Anything to add from Maddie or Karla? Yeah, I was just going to add 587 00:35:54,494 --> 00:35:57,474 that in the short term, 588 00:35:59,054 --> 00:36:02,526 I'm really hoping to capitalize on the interest from professional services 589 00:36:02,630 --> 00:36:06,282 teams because they are 590 00:36:06,378 --> 00:36:09,874 part of the culture of our departments, but may not see 591 00:36:09,914 --> 00:36:13,586 themselves within lab handbook specifically. But it's a really 592 00:36:13,650 --> 00:36:17,354 flexible tool and, you know, the bones of it will apply 593 00:36:17,394 --> 00:36:20,994 to any team. So, actually, 594 00:36:21,154 --> 00:36:24,522 my short term plans are to work with the teams within the medical 595 00:36:24,578 --> 00:36:28,346 sciences divisional office, of which there are many, you 596 00:36:28,370 --> 00:36:31,946 know, finance, comms, HR, all of these kinds of 597 00:36:31,970 --> 00:36:35,732 teams, and just kind of look at how we can adapt 598 00:36:35,828 --> 00:36:39,236 the resources that we have to be able to fit into a more professional 599 00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:43,084 services style team. Yeah, well, I'd be really 600 00:36:43,124 --> 00:36:46,652 interested in that because obviously interested in how I 601 00:36:46,668 --> 00:36:50,332 might relate to the teams and that I'm in 602 00:36:50,428 --> 00:36:53,972 a big academic library. I think there's well over 200 people in our library and 603 00:36:54,108 --> 00:36:57,684 even in my local team there's 25 people. So again, we have 604 00:36:57,724 --> 00:37:00,700 obviously similar challenges in that sort of team. So now that's great. Thank you very 605 00:37:00,732 --> 00:37:03,756 much. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for coming on to the 606 00:37:03,780 --> 00:37:07,306 podcast and just say 607 00:37:07,370 --> 00:37:10,586 goodbye to you all and if you want, say goodbye as well. Thank you. Thanks 608 00:37:10,610 --> 00:37:14,454 very much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. 609 00:37:16,514 --> 00:37:20,162 Thanks for listening to the research culture Uncovered podcast. 610 00:37:20,338 --> 00:37:23,450 Please subscribe so you never miss out on our brand new 611 00:37:23,482 --> 00:37:27,098 episodes. And if you're enjoying the discussions, give us some 612 00:37:27,146 --> 00:37:30,766 love by dropping a five star rating and written review you as it 613 00:37:30,790 --> 00:37:34,102 helps other research culturists find us. And 614 00:37:34,198 --> 00:37:37,914 please share with a friend and show them how to subscribe. 615 00:37:38,374 --> 00:37:41,694 Thanks for listening and here's to you and your research culture.