One of the most amazing facets of academia is the degree of freedom that tenured researchers and principal investigators (PIs) may enjoy. This freedom entails a huge responsibility with respect to non-tenured researchers and students, who do most of the science above thiner —sometimes inexistent— safety nets. Given the diversity of goals, backgrounds and mindsets that coexist in neuroscience teams, it is vain to hope for an optimal one-size-fits-for-all solution. Creating and maintaining the best possible environment requires attention, flexibility and consideration for the specificities of each group member. Yet, because the quality of social interactions depend on the intentions and capacities of everyone, we also need a set of intelligible ethical principles to guide everyday operations, prevent unfair, toxic or dishonest behaviors, and foster scientific discovery.
Ideally, such principles should help keeping the balance between three key motivations:
1. making rapid progress on the main research projects for which the group has received funding
2. staying at the edge of knowledge by promoting innovation and creativity
3. providing a good environment to stimulate the intellectual growth and maximize the future successes of group members.
The group welcomes members of any social, economic, national or ethnic background. Sexual, political and cultural preferences are irrelevant to science. Every member must adopt a tolerant attitude with respect to any identity that may be represented in the group, and avoid referring to others using attributes that are irrelevant to science.
Expressions of disrespect, undermining statements and sabotage of any form are incompatible with group membership. Moreover, social status and academic achievements should not be associated to gross asymmetries of attention within the group. Science is a place where everyone should have an opportunity to grow, express views and ask questions.
Because it operates at the frontiers of human knowledge and capacities, science is hard. Much like professional team sports, it confronts everyone to a variety of individual and collective limits. It entails high failure rates. Consequently, what is possible one day may not be possible the next day, thereby requiring everyone —starting with the PIs— to maintain simultaneously: (i) a high capacity to persist in front of uncertainty and (ii) a high level of flexibility whenever an unexpected outcome calls for a change of plan. This tension is not sidestepped but instead acknowledged and integrated within the group dynamics.
The group is fully committed to European ethical standards regarding experimentation with humans and rodents. We value the work of local ethics committees that must give their approval when necessary, as well as the exchanges that take place in this process. But ethical thinking should not end once official approvals are obtained. First, experimenters may be confronted with unexpected situations, events or feelings that do not fall into any preexisting category but still trigger ethical concerns that require the availability and arbitration of the PI. Second, good research practices do not only require following preestablished rules: they also require training, dedication and empathy with research subjects. Third, societies allow biologists to experiment with living organisms because they expect experimentation to increase collective knowledge and, eventually, benefit society, which simply means that doing poor science is often unethical. To minimize ethical concerns, it is therefore essential to ensure that the training and supervision of every experimenter are adequate and provide the resources needed otherwise (e.g. summer schools, experimentation courses, etc.).
The issue of credit in academia is a difficult one. It is not always easy to determine who ought to be amongst the authors of a publication. Fractionating technical contributions as proposed by the CRediT system (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is certainly useful but it does not solve all problems. In this matter, PIs are often confronted with a dilemma:
by refusing to provide a clear perspective on future authorship positions, PIs maintain a high level of flexibility that may allow fairer recognition of contributions at the end of a project. But, by doing so, they may create a sense of insecurity, and fail to engage group members or incentivize leadership.
by providing instead a very clear perspective on future authorship positions from the start, PIs may communicate explicitly their expectations regarding the management and the collective construction of a project. But, by doing so, they open the path to freeriding and undue claims of ownership in the future, hence complicating project management and social relationships.
As a result, there are no golden rules that would systematically prevent frustration; only principles that can be applied to reduce tensions and promote fair credit assignment.
Awareness. Many conflicts arise from poor awareness regarding the actual work performed by different group members, and the work that remains to be done to reach publication. The PIs have a major role to play here. First, they must be sufficiently connected to their group and to the science being done to be in a position of evaluating accurately the contribution of everyone. Second, they must define clear objectives and milestones for the project, and make sure that everyone is aware of the huge effort required by the publication process (which explains for example why first authors must draft manuscripts and rebuttal letters).
Renegotiation. In our group, all projects start with a clear perspective regarding (co)leadership and contributions, as well as a few milestones at which these perspectives can be rediscussed with all contributors based on various factors: what work has been performed, who can commit to performing the remaining tasks in a given timeframe, what are the unexpected needs of the project, etc.
Researchers do not fully control what societies do with their work, which does not mean that the question does not matter and that nothing can be done to influence end outcomes. Public outreach is an important activity as it contributes to informing and empowering citizens and policymakers. But other activities are important too. For example, our group encourages teaching, public engagement under all its forms and even interactions with industry to turn key findings into scalable alternatives for health care. Yet, none of these activities is mandatory and focusing only on science is fine too.
It is rare nowadays to hear anyone object to the idea that science should be more open, but the meaning and the extent of this openness varies dramatically from one lab to another. Openness is sometimes limited to a few final steps occurring at the end of an otherwise conventional research process: papers are uploaded on a preprint server to circumvent paywalls, scripts and data are shared online, and authors facilitate the transmission of their findings to the general public. But openness can go even further and enter everyday research practice thanks to powerful new technologies that greatly facilitate collaboration and transparency. Within the group, data and codes are shared (on private servers) from day one to accelerate collective problem-solving, facilitate supervision and stimulate creativity.
There are a few essential skills that group members are expected to bring or acquire during their stay in the group, that are meant to ensure cohesiveness and fluid collaboration.
English is de facto the lingua franca of science and it is therefore needed to strive towards good written and verbal English levels. A strong accent or a slow pace should never be perceived as reasons not to engage with the group. Even native or fluent English speakers must do efforts to embrace globalized science by being tolerant and helpful with those whose English is still improving!
Computer programming grants the ability to develop behavioral tasks, models, data analysis pipelines and even write papers! Therefore, to the exception of lab managers and technicians, every group member will be expected to engage in this activity. Common languages used by the group are Matlab, Python, Javascript/HTML5, Bonsai RX, Arduino, but the list can be extended!
Monitoring, reading and criticizing the literature is an integral part of any research activity. Every group member is thus expected to be proactive in this domain and to stay up to date with their field(s) of inquiry. Regular journal clubs provide the opportunity to share the latest significant news and to progress together in our understanding of the research performed in other institutions.
Writing is one of the main bottlenecks of the whole scientific process. Videoconferencing and in-person chats are great to brainstorm and communicate ideas rapidly, but writing cannot be postponed indefinitely. Besides publications (e.g. thesis, articles, etc.), group members are expected to use the written form frequently to express their ideas in depth, lay down their plans clearly, describe the methods they use, transfer the know-how to other members, etc.
Collaborating is key to doing great science and we are lucky to live in an era where collaboration is greatly facilitated by technology. More specifically, the group relies on Visual Code (+Liveshare), Github and Discord. Tutorials and help to set up are provided for all newcomers.
Because our group aims at breaking grounds and doing cutting edge research, all its members are invited to be creative and audacious. Indeed, the role of the PI is to provide a vision, outline a roadmap and define objectives, but neuroscience so moves fast that a single human cannot stay at the edge forever, especially when tons of administrative tasks are waiting… Therefore, all members will have the opportunity to deepen their insights, squelch their curiosity and test hypotheses by running side-projects in collaboration with the PI (and potentially other scientists inside or outside the group). The objective of these projects is to allow group members to expand the horizon of the group while allowing them to grow scientifically and to project themselves in their future positions. Of course, continued support for these side projects shall also depend on the advancement of the main project and the conceptual distance between a side project and the main research of the group will play a role in the financial support it may receive, but the scope of the group is sufficiently broad to encompass many interests. Similarly, the fraction of working time that a master student or a senior postdoc may dedicate to such projects will not be the same.
On the other hand, the ambition of our research program and our commitment to foster creativity implies that failures might be more frequent than in more “incremental" labs. To circumvent this problem, all incoming group members (except those staying for less than 6-8 months) will be offered the possibility to perform a low-risk “starter” project matching the skills they already have (e.g. analyzing a dataset previously acquired, writing a review, running simulations, etc.) to avoid extensive delays in the first publication.