the research team leader

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What does a Research Team Leader do?

A research team leader assists the project directors in defining the objectives, strategies, responsibilities, and tasks for the team members. They also guarantee that all the research is done correctly and promptly to ensure objectives are met. They also ensure all the activities are limited to the annual or project budget.

• Responsibilities
• Skills And Traits
• Comparisions
• Types of Research Team Leader

Research team leader responsibilities

A research team leader plays a crucial role in guiding the team's research efforts and ensuring the successful completion of projects. According to Jeffrey Knopf , Professor and Program Chair of Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at Middlebury College, "Good communication skills are still number one. The ability to write well and communicate clearly will always help you." A research team leader must also possess strong qualitative research skills and be able to "learn from history or understand other cultures." Furthermore, expertise in data analytics or imagery analysis is increasingly in demand. In addition to these responsibilities, Giovanna Percontino, Communication Career Coach, M.Ed., advises research team leaders to "Take a salary negotiation workshop at U Career Success. Research the current trends and salaries." to increase their earning potential.

Here are examples of responsibilities from real research team leader resumes:

• Develop and implement strategic merchandising plans to achieve revenue objectives and reduce expenditures while ensuring payroll remains within budget.
• Prepare agenda for IRB meeting.
• Conduct research for FDA and FDA associate companies.
• Utilize SPSS to analyze survey data and gain meaningful insights for new and existing EDMC program and product strategy.
• Recode variables collect and analyze data on SPSS to determine if there are significant correlations
• Provide continuous service by assisting customers to troubleshoot voice and data communications equipment and support of contingency planning for service interruptions.
• Assist in writing NIH grants and animal research protocols.
• Participate in grant application preparation which are accepted/funded fund by the NIH.
• Manage expanding mouse colony including genotyping.

Research team leader skills and personality traits

We calculated that 14 % of Research Team Leaders are proficient in Data Analysis , Data Collection , and R . They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills , Communication skills , and Detail oriented .

We break down the percentage of Research Team Leaders that have these skills listed on their resume here:

Manage and train a team of analysts in research best practices, supervising and advising their data analysis and presentation.

Guide interviewing staff and provide feedback on data collection and administrative quality for the successful completion of data collection activities.

Coached undergraduate members to identify data sources, analyze feasibility of project and use R programmingand Excel basically.

Co-composed Institutional Review Board (IRB) proposal.

Trained and experienced in FDA QSR 21, Part 11 related to medical devices.

Supervised interviewers conducting market research.

"data analysis," "data collection," and "r" are among the most common skills that research team leaders use at work. You can find even more research team leader responsibilities below, including:

Analytical skills. One of the key soft skills for a research team leader to have is analytical skills. You can see how this relates to what research team leaders do because "market research analysts must evaluate large amounts of data and information related to market conditions." Additionally, a research team leader resume shows how research team leaders use analytical skills: "directed 5 researchers in a cognitive science laboratory experiment, overseeing theoretical strategy, experimental procedure, data collection, and analysis"

Communication skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling research team leader duties is communication skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "market research analysts must be able to clearly convey information when gathering material, interpreting data, and presenting results to clients." According to a research team leader resume, here's how research team leaders can utilize communication skills in their job responsibilities: "engaged with clients utilizing strong communication skills to perform market research. "

Detail oriented. research team leaders are also known for detail oriented, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to research team leader responsibilities, because "market research analysts must pay attention to minutiae to evaluate data." A research team leader resume example shows how detail oriented is used in the workplace: "identified relative-value and capital structure arbitrage opportunities through detailed financial models and in-depth analysis of companies and related industries. "

All research team leader skills

The three companies that hire the most research team leaders are:

• Charles River Labs 3 research team leaders jobs
• Wells Fargo 3 research team leaders jobs
• Charles River Center 3 research team leaders jobs

Choose from 10+ customizable research team leader resume templates

Compare different research team leaders

Research team leader vs. marketing consultant.

A marketing consultant is responsible for utilizing their extensive retail expertise to develop strategies on how to strengthen client base and achieve better sales. Furthermore, a marketing consultant must perform research and analysis to determine opportunities for financial gains, devise plans to improve client satisfaction, assess the competition, look out for any risks, and develop its brand and image. They should also ensure that all steps taken adhere to the policies and regulations of the organization.

There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, research team leader responsibilities require skills like "data analysis," "data collection," "r," and "institutional review." Meanwhile a typical marketing consultant has skills in areas such as "customer service," "web content," "media sales," and "digital marketing." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.

Research team leader vs. Marketing specialist

A marketing specialist's primary responsibility revolves around conducting thorough market research and analysis to acquire extensive knowledge and understanding of a brand and how it will work in the consumer market. They must determine and come up with strategies and utilize this to develop various programs or campaigns that would be vital in bringing more awareness to the brand, thus boosting sales and improving client base. Furthermore, a marketing specialist must also use their expertise to figure out new opportunities and trends that will work for the company.

Each career also uses different skills, according to real research team leader resumes. While research team leader responsibilities can utilize skills like "data analysis," "data collection," "r," and "institutional review," marketing specialists use skills like "digital marketing," "marketing campaigns," "project management," and "email marketing."

Research team leader vs. Marketing assistant

A marketing assistant's general responsibility is to support the marketing programs and campaigns by sharing recommendations and useful insights to improve the brand's image. Marketing assistants' duties also include reaching out to other personnel for necessary files needed on promotional advertisements, assist the team in creating designs and developing content, publishing brochures for potential clients, analyzing sales reports, and researching the current market trends. A marketing assistant should have excellent organizational and time-management skills to meet deadlines and perform various tasks as required.

The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, research team leaders are more likely to have skills like "data analysis," "data collection," "r," and "institutional review." But a marketing assistant is more likely to have skills like "customer service," "marketing campaigns," "facebook," and "trade shows."

Research team leader vs. Marketing associate

A marketing associate's responsibility is to perform comprehensive market research to identify the latest trends that would provide opportunities to improve the business' marketing strategies. A marketing associate's duties also include creating sales reports and advertising materials, coordinating with the sales team for promotional events, assists with the planning and execution of marketing strategies, evaluating customer satisfaction, and handling administrative tasks as needed. Marketing associates must also have excellent communication skills to help in managing client inquiries and resolve complaints immediately.

Types of research team leader

Team leader, marketing consultant, research manager, research leader.

Updated June 25, 2024

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Research Team Structure

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Table of Contents

A scientific research team is a group of individuals, working to complete a research project successfully. When run well, the research team members work closely, and have clearly defined roles. Every team member should know their role, and how it plays into the project as a whole. Ultimately, the principal investigator is responsible for every aspect of the project.

In this article, we’ll review research team roles and responsibilities, and the typical structure of a scientific research team. If you are forming a research team, or are part of one, this information can help you ensure smooth operations and effective teamwork.

Team Members

A group of individuals working toward a common goal: that’s what a research team is all about. In this case, the shared goal between team members is the successful research, data analysis, publication and dissemination of meaningful findings. There are key roles that must be laid out BEFORE the project is started, and the “CEO” of the team, namely the Principal Investigator, must provide all the resources and training necessary for the team to successfully complete its mission.

Every research team is structured differently. However, there are five key roles in each scientific research team.

1. Principal Investigator (PI):

this is the person ultimately responsible for the research and overall project. Their role is to ensure that the team members have the information, resources and training they need to conduct the research. They are also the final decision maker on any issues related to the project. Some projects have more than one PI, so the designated individuals are known as Co-Principal Investigators.

PIs are also typically responsible for writing proposals and grant requests, and selecting the team members. They report to their employer, the funding organization, and other key stakeholders, including all legal as well as academic regulations. The final product of the research is the article, and the PI oversees the writing and publishing of articles to disseminate findings.

2. Project or Research Director:

This is the individual who is in charge of the day-to-day functions of the research project, including protocol for how research and data collection activities are completed. The Research Director works very closely with the Principal Investigator, and both (or all, if there are multiple PIs) report on the research.

Specifically, this individual designs all guidelines, refines and redirects any protocol as needed, acts as the manager of the team in regards to time and budget, and evaluates the progress of the project. The Research Director also makes sure that the project is in compliance with all guidelines, including federal and institutional review board regulations. They also usually assist the PI in writing the research articles related to the project, and report directly to the PI.

3. Project Coordinator or Research Associate:

This individual, or often multiple individuals, carry out the research and data collection, as directed by the Research Director and/or the Principal Investigator. But their role is to also evaluate and assess the project protocol, and suggest any changes that might be needed.

Project Coordinators or Research Associates also need to be monitoring any experiments regarding compliance with regulations and protocols, and they often help in reporting the research. They report to the Principal Investigator, Research Director, and sometimes the Statistician (see below).

4. Research Assistant:

This individual, or individuals, perform the day-to-day tasks of the project, including collecting data, maintaining equipment, ordering supplies, general clerical work, etc. Typically, the research assistant has the least amount of experience among the team members. Research Assistants usually report to the Research Associate/Project Coordinator, and sometimes the Statistician.

5. Statistician:

This is the individual who analyzes any data collected during the project. Sometimes they just analyze and report the data, and other times they are more involved in the organization and analysis of the research throughout the entire study. Their primary role is to make sure that the project produces reliable and valid data, and significant data via analysis methodology, sample size, etc. The Statistician reports both to the Principal Investigator and the Research Director.

Research teams may include people with different roles, such as clinical research specialists, interns, student researchers, lab technicians, grant administrators, and general administrative support staff. As mentioned, every role should be clearly defined by the team’s Principal Investigator. Obviously, the more complex the project, the more team members may be required. In such cases, it may be necessary to appoint several Principal Administrators and Research Directors to the research team.

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Responsibilities of the research team leader

Lead by example:.

• Seek out and engage with learning opportunities to improve your understanding of EDIW
• Raise your awareness of race and privilege
• Learn about institutional gaslighting
• Increase your awareness of ongoing barriers faced as a result of demographic characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, family background, caring responsibilities, disabilities, culture, religion, age, neurodiversity, mental wellbeing
• Be aware of how you respond to someone who has a different background and demographic characteristics to yourself
• Continuously reflect on your own practices
• Acknowledge mistakes and biases
• Become an ally to members of historically marginalised communities
• Learn how to be an active bystander
• Be prepared to be challenged
• Develop active listening skills
• Raise your awareness of mental health issues and sources of support
• Understand the importance of the language you use and your behaviours
• Be aware of power imbalances
• Understand and be aware of cultural and religious holidays and practices
• Continually raise yours and the recruitment team's awareness of the role bias can play in all aspects of recruitment
• Develop inclusive recruitment practices from application to appointment and induction
• Be equitable and understand the role of unconscious biases in supporting, mentoring, praising and promoting all team members
• Develop inclusive supervision practices
• Understand inclusive research design
• Share good practice with colleagues and collaborators.

Networking and conferences

• Reflect on the diversity of your collaborators and network
• Understand how you meet and form collaborations
• Work to diversify your network
• Understand the barriers others face to networking
• Understand the barriers to attending conferences
• Learn how to create inclusive conferences.

Creating an inclusive culture

• Create a code of conduct with shared values
• Be prepared to challenge
• Encourage allyship
• Create a culture where differences are valued
• Create a sense of belonging for all
• Listen to an act on reports of bullying and harassment
• Create and petition for an inclusive environment where everyone has a sense of belonging and reasonable adjustments are the exception e.g., quiet rooms; accessibility software of equipment; accessible equipment and work spaces; prayer rooms; lifts; gender neutral toilets and washrooms; accessible notebooks; data sharing and presentations; inclusive and accessible meetings; consider the diversity of needs before choosing booking conferences; travel arrangements; food; consider needs and cultural preferences to ensure social events are inclusive and accessible.

Inclusive research design

Every aspect of the research pipeline is at risk of bias and offers opportunities for increasing diversity and inclusivity.

• Project background and hypothesis e.g. bias in sources of supporting literature
• Plan e.g., awareness of impact on participants and their families, local populations, environment, impact on research team and/or support staff such as placements field trips, travel
• Data acquisition e.g., bias in cell lines, omics databases, human or animal subjects, source of plant or environmental samples
• Sharing of data e.g., accessibility by researchers in low and middle income countries
• Impact e.g., limited local impact or global
• Communicating results e.g., accessibility, inclusiveness of materials in a website
• Public engagement e.g., increase the diversity of the cohorts, review accessibility (venue, resources, food and drink) inclusiveness including language and imagery
• Output dissemination e.g., authorship recognise all contributions including technical support.

Team leader checklist

• Do you lead by example when it comes to EDIW?  
• Do you understand the barriers faced by individuals as a consequence of their race, age, gender, sexuality, caring responsibilities, disability, ment al well-being, culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background?  
• Do you know how to create an inclusive research environment?  
• Do you reflect on your own biases and how they impact your opinions of others?  
• Do you support everyone in your team?  
• Do you listen and act on concerns raised by your team members?  
• Are you an ally?  
• Do you share inclusive practices with your colleagues?  
• Do you support investment in inclusive infrast ructure e.g., quiet rooms, prayer rooms, accessible software, accessibility in the laboratories?  
• Do you support attendance at conferences for all e.g., choose conferences that are inclusive, in countries that do not discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals?  
• Do you consider EDIW in your research design?  
• Are your outreach activit i es accessible to all?  
• Is the membership of your patient or others  diverse?  
• Are your collaborators from diverse backgrounds?  
• Do you make an effort to seek out collaborators from diverse backgrounds?  
• Do you support your research with publications from non-colonial countries?  
• Do you regularly attend EDIW workshops, training, and seminars?  

Useful Resources

The Inclusive Research Collective ran a series of online events that explored biased and exclusionary practices in life sciences research and how to overcome these to achieve equitable and representative science.  Four aspects were covered: basic research, working with human participants, data science, and the environmental impact of research.  Watch the Inclusive Research Collective's seminar series.  

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5 Tips for Building and Managing Research Teams

As one moves up higher on the academic ladder, it is inevitable that their responsibilities keep changing shape. At some point, every researcher grows from being a timid graduate student fumbling around in the lab to learning how to manage a research team of their own at an academic institution or at a research organization. The excitement of this new role might be accompanied with some anxiety regarding the challenges that one might face while figuring out how to build a research team and forming an effective research team structure. Team work in research is essential and any issue in the team reflects in the work. So, if you have ever wondered how to lead a research team and you are looking for avenues that can improve your managerial skills, this article can help you get started.

1. Identify the right people for your research team

When you think about the question how to build a research team, the first step is to choose the right people for the team. As an efficient team leader/manager, one of the primary responsibilities is building a research team and establishing a research team structure that can help you achieve the goals envisioned by your lab or institute. The first step toward this is identifying people that can not only perform delegated tasks effectively, but can also adapt smoothly to the culture of your institute. If you are leading a heterogeneous research team of technicians, interns, graduate students, and postdocs, it is important to consider their individual calibre and time availability while assigning specific roles. The question of how to manage a research team will become simpler to answer once you have gauged your teammates’ capabilities.

2. Utilize the strengths of individual research team members

Managing research teams goes beyond just ‘managing’. The key to becoming a good team manager is developing a thorough understanding of the core characteristics of individual members of the research team. Building one-on-one relationships with team members can help you understand them better and help them achieve their most optimal performance. Some individuals perform well under pressure and stringent deadlines, while others perform better at their own pace. Similarly, some members thrive in a competitive environment, while others in the research team prefer a collaborative environment. The more extroverted members of your research team might be better at handling people-oriented tasks, while introverted ones work better in solitude. Identifying each individual member’s core strengths will help you delegate tasks more efficiently and build a better research team structure, which will in turn lead to better performance and research team work.

3. Invest in mentoring and skill-building within your research team

The best tip for how to lead a research team is to prioritize your team’s growth. A good manager thrives the most when he/she engages in mentoring and capacity building of the research team. Motivating team members to pursue skill building, will help in building and managing a research team that is robust and confident. Investing time in understanding their individual long-term goals and providing them with useful guidance from time-to-time can help develop trust with each team member. As a result, you get a strong research team structure too since each member’s core strengths are further refined. It is also essential for a research team manager to establish a team culture that facilitates good research practices and fosters an attitude of integrity.

4. Keep the communication channels open with your research team

Lack of availability of the manager can directly translate to poor performance of the research team. To learn how to manage a research team, it is important to first consider whether your team is heterogeneous in nature – the younger and more inexperienced members will require your continued guidance and support. It is necessary to be open to feedback on how you can support the team better. This will help build the team’s trust and confidence in you. Hosting frequent lab meetings, albeit of short durations, to discuss urgent and pertinent issues can be one way to ensure that the communication channels remain active. Encouraging open communication can also be extremely helpful in identifying signs of conflict among team members and address the situation effectively.

5. Foster a collaborative attitude and celebrate the small wins

Appreciate the time, energy, and effort dedicated by each research team member, regardless of the outcome of their work. In academia, each failed experiment can be used to enhance the individual learning curve, and allowing research team members to grow through their mistakes will help in boosting their self-confidence. Academicians invariably end up harboring a competitive spirit, since the system is designed to reward individual performances more than collective research team work. This can have deleterious effects on individual well-being as well as projects involving multiple people. Fostering a collaborative attitude, organizing team-building activities, and creating a safe and inclusive environment for researchers from all backgrounds and with diverse viewpoints will help in the improved well-being of your research team.

Do you know the best thing about having a research team? Work on your plate gets divided. And that’s why, developing an empathetic attitude toward your team members is extremely essential. It is wise to acknowledge the fact that you have a limited control over their performance and can only motivate them to a certain extent. Thus, it is necessary to develop an adaptable mind that can readily accept modifications in the previously envisioned goals and strategies to ensure effective team work in research teams.

Additional reading:

• Five ‘power skills’ for becoming a team leader. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00178-2.
• How to lead a research team | Careers | Chemistry World. https://www.chemistryworld.com/careers/how-to-lead-a-research-team/4011327.article.

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Building and managing a research team

Building your team, what is a research team.

What constitutes a research team in one department or institution might be described elsewhere as a research group, research centre, research unit or research institute. Regardless of the terminology used, the key characteristic of a research team is that it comprises a group of people working together in a committed way towards a common research goal.

Research team diversity

There are many different configurations of research teams in academia and boundaries can be 'fuzzy'. They may comprise co-investigators, fractional or pooled staff, technical and clerical staff and postgraduate research students. There may also be inter- and intra-institutional dimensions and increasingly international ones; some team members' contributions may well be largely virtual, via email, phone or videoconference.

Also, team members may have different disciplinary backgrounds, different motivations and aspirations, and different cultural backgrounds. Over time, team members' roles may change from being core (fully dedicated to the research goal) to peripheral (committed to this research goal, but also working in one or more other teams), and vice-versa.

Assessing the balance and composition of your team. 

Ideally, the balance and composition of the team in terms of skills, expertise and other contributions will be appropriate to achieve the team's objectives, i.e. for the  research goal the team is working towards. The research team leader needs to be confident that team members have, or can develop, the necessary skills and knowledge for the research in hand, and you will make recruitment decisions on that basis.

There is also another perspective on the effective team which it is good to consider. In addition to knowledge, experience and skills individuals have different behavioural traits or characteristics they bring to the way they carry out their work and these can be aligned to particular roles in the team: some are very good at seeing a big picture, others very good at detailed work. Some are very oriented towards action - good at just getting things done; others are natural communicators and networkers. The need for these different roles will emerge at different times and it is worth considering the composition of your team to ensure you have a balance of strengths. 

To find out more about specific team roles and the research by Meredith Belbin on which they are based, see the section further down this page. 

Managing your team

Your responsibilities as a manager of the group.

These are the responsibilities identified in Adair's action-centred leadership model :

• establish, agree and communicate standards of performance and behaviour
• establish style, culture, approach of the group - soft skill elements
• monitor and maintain discipline, ethics, integrity and focus on objectives
• anticipate and resolve group conflict, struggles or disagreements
• assess and change as necessary the balance and composition of the group
• develop team-working, cooperation, morale and team-spirit
• develop the collective maturity and capability of the group - progressively increase group freedom and authority
• encourage the team towards objectives and aims - motivate the group and provide a collective sense of purpose
• identify, develop and agree team- and project-leadership roles within group
• enable, facilitate and ensure effective internal and external group communications
• identify and meet group training needs
• give feedback to the group on overall progress; consult with, and seek feedback and input from the group.

Team  roles and development

A research team consists of people working together in a committed way towards a common research goal. Teams, like individuals and organisations mature and develop and have a fairly clearly defined growth cycle. Bruce Tuckman's 1965 four-stage model explains this cycle. It may be helpful  to reflect on your team's current stage of development  in order to identify relevant approaches to leadership and management. In addition to understanding the development of your team over time, having an understanding of the preferred ‘team roles', the characteristics and expected social behaviour, of individual team members, including the team leader, will help ensure that the team performs effectively together. Using team role or individual profiling tools can offer insights into building and maintaining an effective team, but team role analysis is most useful if all members evaluate their own and others' preferred roles, whichever tools are chosen.

There are a number of team role and individual profile tools available and your institution's staff development department or equivalent may have registered practitioners in one or more of these who can help you and your team understand your preferred team roles or working styles.

In the 1970s, Meredith Belbin and colleagues at the Henley Management College identified nine team roles, based on long-term psychometric tests and studies of business teams. Belbin defined team roles as "a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way". The resulting role definitions fall into three categories, each with strengths and allowable weaknesses, and have been used widely in practice for team development in the intervening decades. Further research by Belbin has led to the addition of a tenth ‘Specialist' role in recent years. Watch this short introduction to the work of Belbin , or read about the team roles.

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• > Leading your Research Team in Science

Book contents

• Leading Your Research Team in Science
• Copyright page
• Introduction
• 2 Organization
• Further Reading
• Acknowledgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2018

“It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.”

1.1 Introduction

There is probably nothing new to you about working on a team. As a PhD student or a postdoc you have seen your supervisor lead a team. With luck, it will have been great fun (e.g., taking in cake for the coffee break or going out for drinks to celebrate a recently accepted article), especially if you worked on a team of people with mixed backgrounds (e.g., celebrating Chinese New Year with all its traditions). You’ll remember such events forever. The team may have achieved amazing scientific results – more than were promised in the original project plan and more than hoped for because the team spirit inspired everyone to work together to a higher level. At the same time, you may wonder what the keys factors were behind all the fun and success.

From time to time, working on a team can also be quite frustrating, and you may have seen this side of things too (e.g., a PhD student bogged down in details or suffering a burnout or a supervisor who was out of office for too long when you urgently needed his or her input). There is a Jewish and Arabic saying, “Wish your enemy a lot of staff.” Disagreements, controversies, and discomfort – you have probably come across some (or maybe too many) such difficulties. Your supervisor may have resolved the issues and created a culture in which problems could be discussed and sorted out. Or not …

Once you start your own team, leading your own people is no longer the responsibility of your boss – but yours . The fun is yours, and the hard part is also yours to deal with. Before this point, work was all about making your career. Now it’s also about the careers of others. You are welcoming team members and raising them as your “scientific offspring.” You are a specialist in your field, and now, more than ever, you need to take care of the human dimensions of your team.

How you deal with the human factor is crucial for making science your successful “business.” The following four sections address the different consecutive phases from identifying the first person you recruit to building an effective team:

Scout. Where and how do you attract talented PhD candidates or postdocs to apply for a post on your team?

Select. What criteria should you use when comparing applicants? How do you value and treat applicants equally who can have quite diverse expertise, experience, and characteristics?

Prepare. What good research practices should you and your team members take on board? How do you make them aware of the need for high standards in their research? Can you pay attention to these standards from the very first moment?

Advance. What makes a group of individuals into an effective team? How do you train members well for taking their next steps? How about yourself? Once some members leave your team, how do you restore the team’s equilibrium and get back to a state of performing well?

Team members, such as PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and maybe a research assistant or two, fly in, stay for a time, and fly out again. They are each present for some of the cycle of starting, running, and completing your projects. This requires you to become a skilled talent scout who can attract and select exactly the right people to fit into your team and work plans. You can start looking for candidates when you have a vacancy, and you may often need to fill the vacancy as quickly as possible in order not to lose the funding. It would be just too bad if you needed to recruit your new member in a rush from a rather limited pool of not quite good enough candidates . Why not start looking for candidates a bit earlier? After all, a good project also takes months to develop from the initial idea to the funded proposal. You can use those months to build up a list of PhD and postdoctoral candidates who may be looking for new positions in due course. As soon as you can start recruiting, you can alert the people on your list and then post job ads and use complementary strategies to extend your list. With such a combined medium- and short-term strategy, the chances of recruiting the “best people in the market” for your growing team are a lot higher. If you start scouting late, time may be ticking away, and you may need to appoint a doubtful candidate in order not to lose your grant money – this would be too bad.

How to attract the best candidates

It is worth running that extra mile to attract and recruit the best candidates for your team. Figure 1.1 shows some strategic options you might use to get in touch with high-potential candidates directly or indirectly. See which strategies work for you.

Figure 1.1 Scouting strategies: traditional job ads (top), job ads, and social media (center, left); building up a list of candidates before you post any job publicly (center, right); building up a list of candidates you have met in person (bottom)

You can share job advertisements in the traditional way:

Job post to your peer network. Develop, cultivate, and exploit relationships with national and international colleagues and project collaborators to mutually share job openings and opportunities for exchange (internship) programs. Become a member of relevant academic societies in your field, and post your positions on their job portals and in their newsletters. Your university may also be associated with other universities offering additional peer networks to which to post your jobs.

Job post at a conference. Try to agree that you and your colleagues will routinely promote each other’s job openings during visits, workshops, conferences, or wherever else you and they go – this is “direct marketing” to well-defined groups. A joint advertisement for your positions with those of your colleagues can demonstrate the ambition and dynamics of your group, institute, and university.

Job post in a scientific journal. Publishers such as Nature Publishing Group allow for online or printed job posts. This is an expensive option unless your vacancy is advertised jointly with a number of other vacancies from your university.

Job post on an academic job portal. Your university will advertise your vacancies on its site. National or international unions of universities, academic medical centers, and research institutes may also post their vacancies on a joint web portal. Funding agencies may want to advertise your positions on their websites and in their newsletters.

Job post on your personal website. All serious candidates will look at your website. They will form an opinion about you and your team and whether they would fit in well. Even better, on your website you can show that you have happy group members with diverse backgrounds and share who has worked with you in the past. Be explicit that everyone (different genders, ethnicities, handicaps, etc.) are really welcome (include a broad welcoming statement in all your recruitment methods).

You can, of course, also share job posts by using social networks:

Job post on social media. Tweet your vacancies, and your followers may retweet them. If you inform an influential player in the field, your tweet may spread even wider. Post your vacancies on Facebook, and others may “like” your post so that their friends see it too. Try posting on well-read forums and other social media platforms such as those of your peer community, academic societies to which you belong, PhD and postdoctoral researcher associations, or any funding agency that is sponsoring your project.

Web advertisement campaign. Seek help from support staff to start an online advertisement campaign; for example, with the right combination of keywords, Google ads may be affordable. Your ads may pop up on the screens of good candidates. Other platforms such as LinkedIn can also email or show ads to the right candidates.

Headhunting software. Commercial platforms such as LinkedIn offer free or paid tools for headhunting. Advanced platforms such as ResearchGate and Elsevier’s Scival mine publication databases and other online information to find and rank candidates. Candidates are analyzed based on text in their publications, citations, altimetry, and more (e.g., demographics, publication time frames). Again, seek help from support staff.

You can start scouting around before you actually have a vacancy. You can become your own headhunter. Every time you run into someone interesting, consider that person from a recruitment perspective. Note his or her name and some details. At a later stage, you can then email them your job ad. You can ask them to circulate it or send it directly to anybody who may be interested and suitable for the job. Of course, it becomes unethical when you try to acquire someone who works (happily) somewhere else. After all, the supervisor of that person is also your peer. But perhaps they may be looking for a new position themselves.

Authors, awardees, and grantees. Analyze the author list and their contributions to a striking and possibly influential paper in your own field or a neighboring field. A Master’s student who coauthored a paper could become your next PhD candidate; a PhD candidate who wrote an article could become your postdoc. If you hear of people who graduate with distinction or who obtain personal grants for internships or awards for their theses, posters, presentations, or articles, add their names to your list. Or perhaps you have served on a grant review or award nomination panel and have seen some excellent candidates. Or you may see a press release about people being elected for membership of prestigious young societies, all more names to add to your list. Be ready when they are looking for new positions.

Ambassadors. Current or former team members also can help to attract several excellent PhD candidates or postdocs from the place where they studied or worked. They can be your best ambassadors, telling others that working with you is great. If some of your alumni now lead their own teams elsewhere, this can generate more candidates for your team when they are looking for new positions. It’s worth keeping in touch with your alumni.

Career fair. Delegates of your university may travel to career fairs to interview candidates for you and your peers. These candidates may be in their final year of their current contract and may be starting to look seriously for their next job opportunity. In the weeks before the career fair, you can prescreen CVs from the fair’s database and select one or more candidates to be interviewed by your university’s delegate during the fair. You can plan further actions for those candidates who pass the interview. For example, you can send them a direct email to inform them that you may have a job opening in a couple of months (or straightaway if the fair is fortuitously held at the time you need to start recruiting).

As a medium- to long-term strategy, you will want to meet some candidates and invest in a personal relationship. They may feel pleasantly surprised and even flattered by your attention and may then seriously consider a job with you rather than with someone else they don’t know so well. Be ahead of your competitors by having direct contact with candidates.

Student conference. Help student or postdoc associations organize international conferences at their level, and offer a topical satellite lecture or workshop or a mentoring session at a satellite career fair . You’ll get to know the talent pool, and they will get to know you (and hear about future job opportunities at your place).

Summer school. Organize an annual summer school together with some colleagues. Invite some well-known lecturers. Allow Master’s students, PhD candidates, and/or postdocs to apply. Possibly you can also offer some support for travel and housing expenses.

Research assistant program. Each year try to offer one or more local Master’s students a paid (part-time) job as a research assistant for a couple of months. It’s a job, so they won’t earn study credit points. Instead, they get a (small) salary that they can use for covering study and living expenses. A job at a bar at night would be much less useful for establishing their career in science. The funding for this might come from your own grant money, or if you’re lucky, your institute may have a budget available. Invite local students to apply, and carry out a genuine selection procedure to recruit the best. This can be seen as useful experience to prepare them for future job applications and a reality check for their suitability for a career in academia. It can also give you practice in seeking out the best candidate.

International training network. Coordinate with international colleagues to design a Master’s student training program and get it funded, for example, by the EU’s Erasmus Program. Master’s students from all over the world will apply to prestigious programs. Selected students stay for six months at the place of one coordinator, before they move on to another coordinator and place. As a lecturer and coordinator, you’ll be able to assess which students are best qualified for your job vacancies.

Short-term stipend. Offer promising external candidates from your scouting list a stipend for a short stay of a few days or perhaps even two weeks in your group. Some institutes or consortia have budgets available for exchange visits between partners. It’s good for the candidate’s curriculum vitae (CV), and both of you can test whether the match is mutually beneficial. In addition, your team members can tell you how they like interacting with the candidate. See Box 1.1 for an example of an invitation for a short stay with your group.

BOX 1.1 Invitation for a three-day site visit

Dear Mr./Ms. [name, e.g., Johnson],

Thank you for the Skype interview last April 15th for one of my PhD/postdoc vacancies.

It is my pleasure to invite you, along with a few other candidates, for a campus visit on May 10–12th. Please plan your trip to have these days available for your visit.

I would like to invite you to attend the Faculty’s Research Seminar (click here for the speakers) on May 10th at 3 p.m . A week beforehand you will receive details about the prep work required for the seminar. Further program details will be made available in due course, but your visit will end on May 12th by 2 p.m .

After the site visit, we will make a final selection of candidates based on our criteria of academic skills (e.g., potential to work with digital tools and ability to analyze data) and social skills (e.g., ability to work on an international and interdisciplinary team).

We can offer you a travel stipend (which you can add to your CV) to cover your travel costs (economy class) and accommodations. A hotel room will be booked for you once you have confirmed the dates.

Thank you for your interest in the position. I would appreciate it if you could confirm these dates as soon as possible, but by April 25th at the latest. We look forward to hearing from you and to meeting you soon!

Yours sincerely,

[Your name and degree, e.g., Maria Dunn, PhD]

Choosing between a PhD and a postdoc

You may have built up a nice long list of high potentials, some of whom are still Master’s or PhD students, while others may already be postdocs. How great it would be if you could welcome one or more people from your list to your team. However, before you move on from scouting to selection, do note some of the advantages and disadvantages of recruiting a PhD student or a postdoc.

Ideal group composition. Educating PhD candidates is a primary task for any university researcher; you are probably expected to supervise PhD candidates on your team. You have too many ideas to follow up yourself, and one or two PhD candidates can work with you and multiply your research capacity. Because they stay for three or four years with you, it pays to invest plenty of time in training and supervising them. However, you will find that you have limited supervision capacity; if your group is going to grow more, so will your role as supervisor. At some point cosupervision of PhD candidates by a postdoc will be welcome. You will then be able to leave for a longer trip or take a holiday while someone else takes care of the daily supervision and some of the daily group dynamics. There is also a benefit to spreading training over more people because postdocs can help you train junior members and improve the junior/senior staff ratio. Teaching student courses is another activity you can share with a postdoc. The cosupervision of PhD candidates and the gain in teaching experience will strengthen a postdoc’s CV, but you should explicitly credit them for taking on additional responsibilities (and successes). However, for postdocs to succeed, they need to demonstrate their scientific independence, and they will therefore need to work increasingly on their own ideas rather than on your projects.

Skills comparison. A PhD student may start as some sort of research trainee in your group but should develop scientific independence over the course of the project. The “should” in this sentence refers to the risk: not all PhD candidates develop their knowledge and skills fast enough, which is particularly relevant for monodisciplinary-trained PhD candidates starting on an interdisciplinary project. Some may need a lot of supervision for a rather longer time than hoped for. But PhD candidates can be flexible if you have the time to train them and help them develop. In contrast, postdocs – if well screened during hiring – are scientifically quite independent from their first day and will generate results more quickly, for example, increase the number of good group papers published, bring critical diversity into your group’s discussions, or help in supervising undergraduate and graduate students. But some projects need to start producing results right from the start – there is no time for the two-year growth period of a PhD candidate. The tasks, deliverables, and timeline then call for a postdoc with the right background. In the same project, some other tasks may be more suitable for PhD candidates, so if you have enough funding, you could appoint both.

Commitment comparison. A PhD candidate will stay until the end of the research project in order to finish their thesis – it’s their entry ticket to a career, whether in academia or elsewhere, and failing is not an attractive option. In contrast, a postdoc position is usually short term and a stepping stone to a more permanent job in academia (e.g., instructor, lecturer, or assistant professor) or elsewhere (e.g., research group leader in industry). The postdoc needs to search proactively for his or her next job and will ask you for recommendation letters. You must help your postdoc leave, even if this means that his or her contract with you will be terminated earlier than practical for your project work. Another point is that when hiring a postdoc, you also hire their history. Often they need time to finish earlier work. It takes time to get manuscripts on earlier work published, and quite often reviewers of these manuscripts will ask for extra work to be done. This is all time your postdoc cannot spend on your project. Or the postdoc will need to work in the evenings and on weekends so that they have no time to switch off and relax.

A Young Team Leader’s Anecdote

One virtual handshake away.

I have over 300 followers on Twitter. Many of them I have never met and don’t know personally. So I tweet my vacancies and hope interested followers will apply. Sometimes it works, but I thought I could test a possibly more effective strategy. Curious? Then read on. I follow some 100 influential scientists, academic groups and organizations, publishers, and funding agencies. It shows where my interests lie, and I am actually looking for people with similar interests. I decided to use an internet crawler, software that allowed me to collect information from websites. This enabled me to download the list of followers for each Twitter account on my list of 300 people following me. And then, with some further data crunching, I derived a list of people who showed a good overlap in terms of who they followed and who I followed. After further analysis, I had a list of 10 top candidates, and I sent each of them a private message explaining how I had found them and what job opening I had. I was definitely the first recruiter to contact them for their next step. And my search strategy impressed them. I conclude that so far this strategy has worked amazingly well. Now I’ll have to see whether I can really hire one of them in the next few months once their current jobs finish.

Interview five to 10 experienced researchers about their scouting strategies: what worked well (or badly) and why? Discuss the options in Figure 1.1 .

Ask your human resources (HR) recruitment officer for advice, and discuss the options in Figure 1.1 . Has the university subscribed to recruitment software for searching for suitable candidates and advertising jobs (e.g., LinkedIn ads or Google AdWords)? Does it attend specific career fairs with access to a database of participants?

Make a list of the five keywords to be used as input for scouting tools:

Use the keywords to mine social network sites, e.g., ResearchGate or LinkedIn or career fair databases for candidates.

Make a list of at least five influential people and communities on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Alert them when you’re looking for people, and hope for likes, retweets, and more:

Make a list of at least five important student or other conferences, society meetings, or academic network meetings, and check whether anyone from your organization is attending and can post your job ads:

Make a list of at least three top male and three top female candidates you don’t yet know by looking for (1) authors of important scientific articles, (2) awardees of relevant minor and major distinctions, and (3) receivers of relevant minor and major grants:

Check whether your organization offers summer schools (or winter schools ) and how it can help you organize one. Who would you like to co-organize it with you, who would you like to give a talk, and how would you advertise it?

Use a fraction of your budget to offer talented Master’s students the experience of working in your group as your assistant. Ask students to apply formally.

On your website, offer a stipend for short stays in your group. You may attract just a few more candidates or evoke an avalanche of applications. See whether good candidates apply. Read the invitation in Box 1.1 : what assignments can candidates be asked to complete before their visit, and what activities could be organized for their visit? Which agencies fund peer networks for training PhD candidates or postdocs? Can you join a training network? Or can you team up with some strong partners to propose a training network grant application together?

Get the right people on board with your team and in the right seats. Making a selection is a very serious business, and the golden rule is: in case of serious doubt about a candidate, don’t hire him or her. Otherwise, your group will never become an effective team. The implications of a mismatch are huge, for the candidate in his or her career progression, for the team because the funding and timing may not allow for a restart with another person, and for you and your career because you need to demonstrate “sound leadership in the training and advancement of young researchers.” A traditional long interview in person or by Skype can be useful in deciding to turn down a candidate you have never seen or spoken to before, but it is still a dangerous basis for making a precipitous positive decision. Although you may feel that you need to start the project as soon as possible, you may be impressed by the candidate, and so on, but a good one-hour session can still lead to a frustrating “marriage in science” for one or more years.

We all tend to evaluate candidates based on their past academic merits and our prediction of their future prospects ( Figure 1.2 ). You will have to work with this person, probably on a daily basis, so don’t forget to evaluate their fit into the team. The hard and soft selection criteria can be specific to your research field, your project, and your current team composition and attuned to the level of the position (PhD or postdoc). In addition, there are several evaluation criteria generic to many fields and projects (again these can be attuned to the level of the position):

Scientific achievements. Your candidates have experienced what it is to do research, as part of their thesis project or a postdoc job. Ask them what they are most proud of. Can they outline in 100 words what their two to three main intellectual contributions were (versus the contributions of the supervisor or coauthors). Ask them explicitly not to focus on what they have done but on what they have created, discovered, invented, developed, or achieved. Also ask them about their failures, disappointments, and frustrations and how they have dealt with these. Are they independent, creative, and persevering?

Papers, talks, and more. It’s great to be independent and creative, but not enough. Only if candidates present and write well can their peers and society benefit from their work. Ask candidates to show their thesis reports and whether these resulted or will result in a paper. What else have they written, submitted, and/or published; how much of the writing did they do themselves; and how independent were they? How do they perceive the writing process, including making revisions based on reviewers’ comments? Let them write a brief piece on the spot as a reality check. Have they ever had experience reviewing a manuscript for a journal editor (perhaps one passed on by their supervisor)? Have you seen or heard them present a poster or paper at a meeting? How convincing and stimulating were they? How lively was their interaction with the audience? Let them give a presentation to your group, and do let them talk with the group and with individuals about their work and your group’s work. The quality of the work is what really matters, not the number of papers. Are they eager and able to communicate effectively at an academic level?

Other academic activities. Have they supervised students or taught any classes? Did they ever help organize or coordinate anything like a journal club, student conference, satellite meeting, or a conference, or have they acted as an editor of a student journal? Have they been a member of a student council or a student member on a faculty board? Have they worked only locally, or nationally or even internationally? What can they say about their academic network? Who do they know, where have they been, and why? Try to find out whether they have hidden talents that may be of use to your group or that, with some extra investment, could position them well for their next career step. For example, do they like sharing results with the public via press releases, media posts and blogs, interviews, or generating newspaper coverage, e.g., by sending a letter to the editor of a local or national newspaper? Are they open to helping academia run well?

Recognition and reputation. Did they get excellent grades for their student exams and, in particular, for their thesis? Was their thesis well received? Did it win an award? Have they ever been given a poster award or a best presentation award? Or a travel stipend to attend a conference, or a personal grant or fellowship? Is their work being picked up quickly by the research community or societal groups, i.e., downloaded, tweeted, highlighted, cited? Have they been invited to give an oral presentation at a workshop or conference? Can they provide you with the names of supervisors and recommendation letters from them? Can you phone the supervisors and discuss their recognition of the candidate’s scientific abilities. Is this a high-potential candidate? Would the supervisor hire this candidate with no reservation if in your place? Does this candidate have a good reputation?

Trainability. Good past performance doesn’t guarantee that candidates will be successful in the future. To successfully contribute to your project, they need to be hungry for new knowledge and ideas, quickly picking up while thinking for themselves, eager to develop the hard and soft skills necessary for the project. A short stay in your group can help you assess their trainability. Can they familiarize themselves with your project’s topic, can they connect it to their earlier experiences, and can they perhaps already suggest new ways for your project to progress? Will they contribute to the deliverables and at the same time negotiate to make it their own project that might deliver more than your original expectations? Is this candidate trainable and taking ownership of self-training?

Motivation for this job. It can be quite informative to start an interview with an open question such as, “Tell me how you prepared for this meeting?” Has the candidate done his or her homework? Did he or she study your group website, look up the information on your research lines, and maybe read some of your recent publications? Why does the candidate want to do this project? Why with you and/or your team? Is this a well-thought-through career step or the only job ad available? Has the candidate ever turned a job offer down, and why? Did the candidate prepare well for the application and interview/meeting?

Expectations of the job. In terms of content, work, career – do the candidate’s expectations match yours. Discuss the work plan, potential risks and opportunities, and how they would start on day one. What sort of interaction with the supervisor and group members are they hoping for. Do they need special working conditions (e.g., a quiet room rather than a shared office space or flexible working hours because of childcare, etc.). Are all the expectations mutually clear, and do they match well?

Vision for the future. This is very important: what is the candidate truly passionate about? What does he or she see as the most exciting challenges in his or her academic life? What makes the candidate tick as an academic? Does the candidate have clear dreams or even any concrete ideas for a future research line of his or her own inside academia (discuss that universities need only a limited number of professors) or for a future career track outside academia (universities educate the next generation workforce for society)? Can the candidate explain how a PhD or postdoctoral position in your group would serve his or her future career goals? What core or general skills does the candidate want to strengthen? Does the candidate have a vision of what he or she wants to learn and where he or she wants to go and the (beginning of a) concrete and realistic plan on how to achieve this?

Funding potential. Does your PhD or postdoc candidate have ambition, ideas, and a wish to bring in some additional funding during the project, or to apply for a grant to cover conference costs, or to fund a small project of his or her own? Any reluctance to discuss such a strategy should make you pause and seriously wonder whether this candidate is the one to hire. You can introduce the candidate into the landscape of available grants ( is this a grant for you? ), help the candidate benchmark himself or herself ( are you ready for this grant? ), and help the candidate make a plan to get ready ( what can you or we do to be more ready in two to three years?). Perhaps you should consider making the candidate draft a personal funding plan (PFP) as a standard part of the selection procedure. Is the candidate willing to draft and discuss a personal funding plan?

Fitting into the team. You’ll be working long hours together with your team members. Will you get along well with each other? Have a drink, lunch, or dinner with the candidates to learn more about their personalities: you need to see them when they are relaxed and not stressed or hyped. Let your team members meet the candidates to see how they all get along and to hear how the candidates behave when you’re not around. Then discuss with the team their and your views on the fit to the team. People can be quite different, and this can actually be a strong asset: they can complement – or even strengthen – the hard and soft skills and expertise levels already present in the group (more on this later). Are they a team player and complementing the current team well?

Figure 1.2 Evaluate the candidates at various levels: past performance (black), future perspectives (gray), and how well they fit in the team (light gray)

Table 1.1 Personal funding plan

Note: Items to discuss (left column) and questions you can ask the applicant (right column). See also the author’s book, Funding Your Career in Science (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

An applicant may write in their application or tell you during the interview that they are creative, independent, and resilient, a good team player who writes fantastic papers in no time. But whether this is true or not, or a little bit true, may be hard to discern from the CV or motivation letter or from a “yes, sure, I’m creative.” The five steps of the STARR method ( Figure 1.3 ) can help you get a more objective picture of the applicant (and to select the true star).

Situation. Ask the applicant to describe a situation in which a particular personal or professional skill (e.g., conflict resolution, critical thinking, perseverance, problem solving, time management) was required. Who else was involved, such as one or more group members or external people?

Tasks. Ask the applicant what their task was, how this fitted in the group’s tasks, and what the supervisor’s and their own success criteria were.

Actions. Here the applicant is asked to describe what they actually did: why, how independently or codependently, and what other skills were needed.

Results. Were the actions successful? The applicant can describe whether the results were as anticipated, fell short, or were beyond all expectations. And how their actions contributed to the team results, hindered them, or helped the team reach a higher goal.

Reflection. Perhaps the most important question in the STARR method is: what went right, what went wrong, what are you uncertain about, what would you do differently the next time you are in a similar situation, and why? Issues will keep recurring until the applicant learns the lesson associated with them. Here the candidates need to show their ability to self-reflect honestly and to learn and improve.

Agree before the interviews with the members of the selection committee on the selection criteria to be used and how to evaluate them (e.g., STARR interview, home work for the candidates, etc.).

Figure 1.3 The five steps in the STARR method

Pitfalls during selection

You, as a research leader, want to select from as large a pool of candidates as possible. Unfortunately, there has been a substantial and unfortunate brain drain from academia ( Box 1.2 ).

BOX 1.2 We are losing talented women and men

In many countries, student populations have equal numbers of young men and women, whereas the proportions of PhD candidates are slightly less balanced (e.g., 56 percent males versus 44 percent females), and higher up the academic career ladder there is a clear skewing toward men (e.g., in 2018 in the Netherlands, full professors are 80 percent men versus 20 percent women; for university board members, 72 percent are men versus only 28 percent women). If universities recruited the 100 most talented professors, 50 should be men and 50 women, not 80 versus 20. So 30 men became professors, whereas 30 more talented women should have been recruited. Worse, perhaps some of the top 50 women decided not to work in academia, and some of the top 50 men too, not because they have no passion for doing research but because they felt they wouldn’t fit into the current culture and career system maintained at universities today.

Selection criteria that are traditionally used in academia need to be revisited. For example, selecting a candidate:

For following the standard academic career. You may look for candidates who want to follow a standard academia career: a Master’s degree, followed by a PhD, become a postdoc, etc. However, older people who have had alternative careers or a career break can also be top candidates for PhD and postdoc positions. Some may bring in their own funding, a thesis plan, or even a concept thesis spinning off their current work experience. Outsiders with their “outside” expertise and experience could give a major boost to academia and to your research group in particular. What makes this senior candidate tick for your group’s research?

For having published the most papers. Some people can and want to work 60 to 70 hours per week; others can’t or don’t want to. Those who work more hours per week may well publish more papers – but they aren’t necessarily the smartest or most creative researchers. For example, one candidate worked on a conservative project for four years and published eight mediocre articles. Another candidate worked on a risky project for four years and published two striking articles. Who should you select? Ask for the two to three best recent papers (or other output), and evaluate these for (potential) scientific and societal impact.

For having visited the most conferences. Parents who take up maternity or paternity leave and have family responsibilities are necessarily less active at the national level and particularly internationally; for example, they may attend fewer conferences and decline invitations to speak more often. This also applies to people with certain disabilities. They and many other people can participate when conference organizers embrace today’s digital network technologies. This also saves traveling time, funding spent on hotels and (air) travel, and the environment. Discuss during the interview finding (or being helped to find) help to attend important meetings and present their work and help the academic world to embrace the virtual conference technology.

Get the selection panel for a new member thinking along the same lines. Together you should check all the selection criteria for potential bias and adjust them to exclude, or at least reduce, bias. Then agree to consistently apply these criteria throughout the selection process: from advertisement to final negotiations with the top candidate.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to review and adapt the selection criteria: equal opportunity criteria are great but remain ineffective if certain groups of talented candidates do not apply. For example, women tend to be less tempted to apply for high-level positions than men, for many diverse reasons (e.g., cultural, family). Therefore, you need to actively and deliberately encourage women to apply (check your job advert for gender bias: see TRY THIS). And what holds for gender may hold equally (or sometimes more) for people from different ethnicities and cultures, for those who are disabled, and for minorities in general.

It’s also not enough to improve on the recruitment procedure: candidates may look beyond the nice words and promises and check whether you practice what you preach by talking with your current or former group members. For example, in general, you’ll likely miss quite a few bright people unless your group’s culture is warm and helpful toward young researchers who want to start a family, toward team members needing to care for a disabled child or elderly parents, or toward people who wish to combine their work with other activities outside work.

You may unconsciously select and hire new people who are similar to you: this is a well-recognized “more of me” selection mechanism. But you should consider your own personality and what type of candidate would best complement the group members you already have. The “Big Five personality traits” describe the most important factors:

Extravert/introvert

Collaborative/competitive

Organized/easy-going

Sensitive/confident

Curious/cautious

If you are an extravert, you may believe that introverted people lack initiative, are socially less competent, overly modest and cautious, and indecisive. Similarly, if you are an introvert, you may believe that extraverted people are rather offensive, pushy, and rude. But introverted people may actually prefer to first tune into the needs of their discussion partner. Extraverted people may actually think and speak at the same time and hope that their discussion partner will do the same. In academia, extraverted personalities seem to have become the norm, which can falsely disqualify introverted but highly talented people. Similar biases exist for the other five main personality traits.

Without diversity in personality and more, we would all think and behave alike. People who clearly differ from you may not have an equal opportunity of being recruited, while their different values, fresh ideas, and alternative approaches may shed completely new light on your research questions and methods (see the following anecdote).

“When science is inclusive, everyone wins.” Footnote 1

Bring together and truly include members with different abilities and knowledge skills that are relevant to your project ( Figure 1.4 ).

Figure 1.4 Diversity, equality, and inclusion underpin excellence

A Gender Equality Champion’s Anecdote

Shame on me.

A professor emailed me and asked, “Can I do a short sabbatical in your group?” Initially I wasn’t very keen. He was from a country that I considered to be underdeveloped; I feared he would simply highjack my ideas and contribute very little. I didn’t see our research themes as matching particularly well. Okay, maybe, but I felt his request was rather farfetched. My curiosity won, and he stayed with my group for three months. We talked a lot and exchanged ideas; it turned out to be a surprisingly rewarding and pleasant time. He offered me totally different insights and visions on “my” research questions. And the joy was mutual. Together we wrote a perspectives paper on where the field should go, and it was quickly accepted for publication in a highly visible journal. Shame on me, as a woman who is always alert for gender discrimination from male colleagues, not to have noticed how my own prejudice had biased and fooled me.

Prepare for the selection

Make a concrete list of criteria for evaluating the applicants. Rank the criteria for importance.

Prepare STARR questions for the most important criteria (see Figure 1.3 ).

Agree with the panel on the final list of criteria and method for evaluation.

Decide on the roles during the selection process: who is the chair, who is making notes, who is watching over diversity, equality, and inclusion?

Some behaviors (and words) are stereotypically masculine, whereas others are feminine.

Check your own job advertisements for the number of words that are stereotypically more male or female. Discuss whether this would put women off applying or encourage men to apply; alternatively, is your advertisement okay?

Run a “gender decode for job ads” tool on your advertisement text (e.g., http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/about#masculine ).

Your top talent candidate happens to have special needs, but could you:

Arrange an adapted workspace for a person with a physical disability who uses a wheelchair?

Set up a quiet work room for a person who is sensitive to noise?

Adapt computer equipment for the work desk and in the lecture room for a person with a visual impairment?

Arrange a room for a mother needing to express breast milk?

Tests for implicit bias

Complete one of the implicit bias tests (e.g., related to age, gender, science, career, etc.) at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatouchtest.html . Challenge your selection committee and your current team members to do the test as well and discuss the experience together.

1.4 Prepare

Primer is an undercoat for paintwork to ensure that the new paint adheres well to the old surface. Your new group member also needs preparation, like an undercoat, to become an effective team member. On the first day you will introduce the new member to the group and attend to the practical details of where to sit, how to log into the computer network, who from administration can help, and so on, all toward a smooth transition into their new job. Preparing the new member for their research tasks is as important, if not more so. From the first day, you have to create an awareness of what is often referred to as the “code of conduct for good research practices.” Without this undercoat (code of conduct), the paintwork (results from the research) may look nice for some time but will not be enduring. To make your research projects and your team really successful, it is essential to help your team members study themselves in the first place and for you to perform self-reflection too . Refine the most important resource in your research – the people.

Humans create science, but they can err, be ignorant or inexperienced, short-sighted, or hesitant or reactive; take risks easily or be conservative; follow the mainstream or prefer new trails; and have false beliefs or limiting prejudices. Humans in science are also subject to fierce job competition, up-or-out promotion stress, peer pressure for short-term results that can be published in Nature or Science with high visibility, or following hypes with a high risk of their results being scooped. Increasing personal interests can make humans opinionated and biased, dominant and arrogant; they can develop strong egos and hold hidden agendas and become selfish and stubborn or even narcissistic and manipulative. Perfectionists and thinkers, achievers, and supervisors who have unhealthy ambitions or who demonstrate unhealthy behaviors can be very harmful to science ( Table 1.2 ).

Table 1.2 Examples of four personality characteristics and how they may change from healthy to unhealthy behavior

Make your team members aware of the many pitfalls in the bumpy road to excellence, and let them stay far away from the illusion of excellence ( Figure 1.5 , left). Surprisingly, it was found that 60 percent of studies published in fields such as medicine and psychology cannot be replicated. Footnote 2 An incredibly high number of “landmark papers” published in high-impact journals contributed to this “illusion of knowledge” and “illusion of excellence.” What if 60 percent of all the published studies in your field cannot be replicated? If you read uncritically, trust the literature, and base your research on this body of knowledge, your results are more likely to be false than true . If you are uncritical, you may also overlook the known or unknown hidden facts or factors that do not fit your “story” and would have put your findings in a totally different light, even if they had been replicated (see also the anecdote at the end of this section).

Figure 1.5 Excellence. Science needs excellence (right), not the illusions of successful scientists (left).

As a team leader, it’s your duty and in your own interests to create an environment where your team members aim for real excellence ( Figure 1.5 , right). You need to prime your new team members and critically monitor yourself and your team as the project evolves. The last part of this section proposes some options of how you could put this theme firmly on your team’s agenda.

Being independent and critical

For junior people, it may not be easy to become an independent and critical researcher. These people have taken classes for years, studied many textbooks, completed hundreds, if not thousands, of carefully set assignments, have passed exams, and have done thesis projects with experienced researchers who gave them well-defined tasks to complete. Why should they doubt what they were taught, have read in textbooks, or were instructed to do by all these knowledgeable lecturers and researchers? Yet this is just what they do need to do – the opposite of what they may have been trained to do so far and the opposite of what is outlined in the left column of Figure 1.5 . Critical and independent thinking is, first, the ability to change your own way of thinking. Three simple examples can help open the discussion with your team members:

Connect the dots in four lines without lifting the pen from the paper ( Figure 1.6a ). It’s a well-known puzzle, and some people will already know the solution, whereas others will need a few minutes to solve it. Several intriguing things happen: those who know the solution often turn their attention to something else, such as chatting with a neighbor or checking their cell phone. Others complete the assignment and then stop thinking too. This is common practice in education: do what you’re requested to do, and you’ll be ready for the exam. Typically, a few individuals go beyond the assignment. Some explore opportunities by folding the paper or using equipment such as scissors and copiers. Incidentally, someone may prompt the next question: can we connect the dots with three, two, or even only one line? They take the lead (rather than being led by an instructor and the direct assignment) and go beyond your expectations (rather than being satisfied with the initial solution). It is this ability to independently, freely, and creatively “further explore the universe” that will break new ground in research. They don’t think inside the box, nor do they think outside the box: for them, there is no box. Help your team members to understand that research work is no longer a matter of completing assignments.

Peel a banana ( Figure 1.6b ). Many people open a banana by the stem. They have always done it this way and never questioned it. A few will open it at the other end and argue that it’s generally simpler to open it here than by the stem. It’s the approach used by chimpanzees and other apes, they say. This dichotomy in the audience is striking. Most follow the mainstream approach without ever questioning it. And some who have discovered that their approach wasn’t optimal explain that they were too strongly preconditioned by the past: reprogramming habits and other behavior is not straightforward , not even if you want it to be. Whether to open a banana by the stem may be a question relevant to Westerners, who eat their bananas when they are still unripe. People from other cultures may eat really ripe bananas, and then it is simple to open the banana anyway. The question of where to open the banana is totally irrelevant to them; the research question we ask may also be irrelevant if we change values, norms, or habits. Help your team members to understand that they shouldn’t take other people’s research questions and approaches for granted.

Count windows ( Figure 1.6c ). Students, PhD candidates, and postdocs typically count between five and nine windows when shown this photograph. Sometimes a smart person sees that each window consists of four smaller panes, so the answer is somewhere between 20 and 36. But generally there is unanimous consensus that the number is large, although there can be debate about counting the panes or subwindows separately. We count and measure a lot in our research, and it can be a surprise that even in this simple case the answers can be so different. But no one takes into account that the windows could be fake. And they are fake for good reasons! This house was built in France, where house owners had to pay taxes proportional to the number of doors and windows in their house (1797–1926 (contribution sur les portes et fenetres). Painted windows, looking like genuine windows, could make you look richer but not cost extra tax. This “you see what you expect to see” is the mechanism adopted by the house owner, and it’s very likely to occur on a large scale in science too. Large groups of people can be convinced that they all see the same; this then becomes the “truth” or state of knowledge despite being incorrect. They all accept the story without further questioning or searching for the hidden factor. Help your team members to understand that they need to be critical of published results and conclusions.

Figure 1.6 Three simple assignments can help you open a discussion on excellence – or the illusion of it – with your team members; see text for further explanation. (a) Can you connect all the dots with just four straight lines without lifting your pen off the paper? (b) How do you peel a banana? (c) How many windows do you count? Photograph A.K.M. Disler.

The three assignments can help your team members to “feel” the need for critical and independent thinking. It’s of great importance to develop and use the “philosophy” in the Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). Footnote 3

As a next step in the discussion, it’s also important to let your new team member see that being independent and critical may actually put their career at risk: if your views are running against the mainstream, it may be hard to get your work published. Therefore, you also need to teach your team members that they should “put themselves in the place” of their most skeptical or threatened peers. Why would these peers be so skeptical? What are their interests? What can you do to avoid having your article or grant application turned down by a skeptical reviewer? Steps to consider include the following:

✔ Determine a likely difference between the mainstream and what you and your team members propose.

✔ Acknowledge the difference without being dismissive.

✔ Suggest that what you’re doing is complementary and might lead to a novel strategy; you’re standing on the shoulders of giants, including mainstream giants.

✔ Invite a scientist from the mainstream to give feedback, or invite him or her to participate in your project and compare the old way with the new way.

✔ Don’t overly use terms such as “groundbreaking,” “revolutionizing,” and “paradigm switch.”

✔ Rather you should let the facts speak for themselves: give preliminary or other evidence that supports the merits of your idea so that the idea becomes plausible in the eyes of the reviewers.

✔ Some (top) journals don’t go by the facts or evidence but just estimate what it will do for their journal impact factor. Submit elsewhere.

If you are at the stage of writing a grant application, give a concrete “plan B” for a risky “plan A.” List your earlier achievements to prove that you have typically gone beyond the state of the art.

Being honest and accountable

For junior people, it may not be easy to understand what it takes to be an honest and accountable researcher. Even senior researchers lack statistical skills and find it hard to report mistakes they discovered in their earlier work or to openly admit they were wrong when someone else found a mistake. But the reputation of you, your group members, and science at large is at stake, so honesty and accountability are musts.

Misconduct. Universities are strongly regulated around misconduct – e.g., manipulating, falsifying, or fabricating data – which can lead to suspension, dismissal, and/or prosecution. Your articles will be retracted and your reputation severely damaged, and you may be featured on retractionwatch.com or gain unwanted attention from the media.

Gray area. Between conscious misconduct and true scientific integrity lies a large gray zone of unconscious and subconscious misconduct and unprofessional behavior. You may be sensitive to status or financial interests and therefore tempted to somewhat oversell the positive aspects of your work and minimize its limitations. Unfortunately, universities cannot make you disclose status interests, nor financial interests that may be paid to you in the future.

Third-party interests. Researchers often work with third parties under the umbrella of a consortium agreement (funded by a public body or a private-public partnership) or a contract agreement (third party pays for the research). A third party may have strong interests in the outcome of your research, which it needs to support its political proposals or ideas or to support its business: your results should prove to customers that the company’s product outperforms that of its competitors. Your relationship with the third party may be discontinued (no more funding) if you report results that conflict with its business interests. Such funding parties often have the right to see your draft articles before they are submitted for publication, and they can pressure you to modify the draft article or not publish it at all.

So you need to discuss with your team the mechanisms that could lead you to the wrong side, and you need to reinforce strict requirements to unambiguously stay on the right side. For example:

✔ Don’t let third parties influence your research: not the questions you want to study, nor the experimental or theoretical approach you decide to take, nor the results you deliver.

✔ All additional or ancillary activities you and your team members have on top of your normal tasks as university employees should be disclosed – activities such as being an editor of a scientific journal, member of an advisory board of a political party, owner or shareholder of a spinoff company, or a company consultant.

✔ Add an up-to-date and complete list of activities to personal pages on the university website. Specify the relationship (e.g., consultancy or collaboration) and the terms (e.g., paid or unpaid).

✔ Also report any indirect conflicts of interest , e.g., if you or any of your family members hold shares or have other financial interests in the company you’re collaborating with. Any appearance of potential conflict of interest should be avoided by everyone on your team.

✔ Promptly and completely disclose all these (potential) conflicts of interest when you submit an article to a scientific journal. These interests will be evaluated by the editor and reviewers and published to inform readers.

Whenever you use data analysis in your research, make sure that other researchers can fully understand and, if they so wish, reproduce your analysis (see more in Section 3.2 ). Consider these steps:

✔ Define and openly share your data-acquisition and analysis plan before you start the study, and stick to it. Preregister your project and planned paper with a journal if possible.

✔ Create artificial data sets mimicking your real data (e.g., using data simulation or permutation), and analyze them in exactly the same way as you stated in the preregistration for the initial data. Use the same procedures for data cleaning, for finding patterns in the data, and so on. See what the results from these “artificial” data sets turn out to be, and use them for inference in the real data. Are your findings in the real data perhaps not unique because these or more extreme findings also occur in the artificial data sets? State your uncertainty.

✔ Reanalyze your real data by using slightly different approaches for data cleaning, for finding patterns in the data, and so on. See what the results from these alternative analyses turn out to be. Are your initial findings perhaps not so trustworthy because they don’t occur with other analyses?

✔ Search explicitly in all directions for all possible hidden factors and alternative explanations for any unique findings.

✔ Provide all the data (including metadata) and analysis tools (e.g., software), and invite team members (and other peers and perhaps nonacademics) who are not involved in the study to interpret the data (first arrange confidentiality in case of data privacy issues). Challenge them to be your devil’s advocate.

✔ Software may contain bugs, so proper software testing and versioning or an independent and complete reimplementation of the software is needed too.

✔ Clearly describe the limitations of your study.

✔ If you detect a mistake in your published work, publish a corrigendum or erratum to the article or retract it as quickly as possible.

✔ Check other peoples’ articles for corrigenda or errata published by the authors and critical reviews or letters published by their peers: would you still build on the data, methods, and conclusions of the original article?

✔ Actively and independently reanalyze other peoples’ data if your study is based on their data. Check whether you draw the same conclusions.

A Young Professor’s Anecdote

Obituary for a giant.

I am not a regular reader of Nature or Science , but from time to time I browse through some print copies of these journals. And so, by accident, I ran into a full-page obituary of a person whose name I immediately recognized. Several years ago, as a youngster and not knowing about his status, I had contacted this person and a journal editor because I had developed a divergent view on claims made in two of his papers. I agreed that the results in one study were convincingly replicated in a second , but I disagreed about their medical relevance because he had mistaken a replicable technical artifact for a replicable and medically relevant finding. The editor and I got a reply, but to my surprise, it was nothing less than an attempt to create fog and enable the editor to ignore my contribution. My comment was not posted online. Later, when I presented this technical artifact as a side issue in a talk I gave at a major conference, a senior researcher in the audience stood up and stressed that we’d all overlooked this hidden factor and had fooled ourselves by thinking that replication is the “gold standard” for quality. I was grateful to him for his public comment, but even today, while reading the obituary, I feel sad about how the divergent views of young researchers may be handled by giants and editors.

Use the following assignments to discuss good research practices with your team and to stimulate self-reflection by your team members.

People look at an object and claim that it’s a square. Others look at the same object and claim it’s a circle. Can both observations be true? Does truth exist?

Are you more a frontrunner than a follower? Provide facts to support your answer.

Are there any schools of thought that are in conflict in your field of research? If you belong to one such school, then step into the shoes of someone in the other school. What would it take for them to bury the hatchet?

If 60 percent of the published literature was nonreplicable in your field, how would you read the next scientific article? Make a list of key points to check.

Do you know your personality weaknesses? For example, to what extent are you prestige oriented, easily jealous of and influenced by other people’s success?

Consider your recent work. Rate on a scale from 0 to 100 percent: to what extent did you turn patterns post hoc into hypotheses, tweak your data, twist your story, exaggerate your findings, hide deviant details, or downplay uncertainties or risks? Explain how you came to your percentage ratings.

What concrete actions do you take to protect against “fooling” yourself in your own daily research ( Figure 1.5 )?

Codes of conduct

Does your university have a code of conduct, good research practice guide, code of ethics, or scientific integrity documents? Discuss these with your team members.

Consider all your activities and interests: are there any that could or should be considered as “additional” or “ancillary”? Fill out the following table.

Dilemma game for scientific integrity

Do one of the 75 dilemmas tests (e.g., related to collaborating, publishing, reviewing, career, etc.) at www.eur.nl/english/eur/publications/integrity/scientificintegrity/ . Challenge your team members to do the test as well, and use it for discussion.

Play “The Lab,” a game with roles in research on how fraud develops at https://ori.hhs.gov/thelab/ . You can do this at retreat, and everyone will sit up and start thinking!

1.5 Advance

What makes you a good team leader.

If you are an early-career scientist, you may have started your first independent project. In a couple of years, you may see yourself running several projects in parallel. For sure you will have made (and will still make) mistakes as a leader. Make time for self-education and self-reflection, and hopefully avoid the following pitfalls. You have recruited a PhD candidate, but your prediction about his or her potential growth proved to be wrong (sadly). You have committed yourself to an externally funded work plan, but the postdoc employed on the project complains about your “just do it” directive style and wants to deviate from the plan. You may have collaborated with a colleague, but negotiations about authorship didn’t work out to your satisfaction. You have taken too much work on; it was fun, but alarm bells are hinting that your body and/or mind is out of balance. You believe you deserve early promotion, but your dean sticks to the formal rules to your annoyance. Learn through open-minded reflection on your doing, for example, by taking the following steps Footnote 4 :

Join courses and peer discussion groups on academic leadership.

Find a senior mentor who can serve as a critical sounding board for you and hold a mirror up.

Ask team members for their feedback on your leadership.

Admit you have weaknesses – perhaps your leadership style is not particularly effective – and be prepared to change.

Keep your work-life balance sustainable for the long term.

Develop an antenna for politics and changes in your organization and society.

People can lead in different ways. Figure 1.7 shows four leadership styles, each with two sublevels:

Charismatic style. You are a leader with an inspirational style (you have an appealing vision, can easily persuade others, and are results oriented) or a coaching style (you listen, appreciate, and stimulate others, are people-oriented, and look for win-win situations).

Democratic style. You are a leader with a participative style (you include people in processes, accept their propositions, and are people-oriented) or compliant style (you hesitate to give guidance, prefer to stay in the background, and go along with people’s interests).

Avoiding style. You are a leader with a withdrawn style (you’re absent, don’t take up your responsibility, and keep out of conflicts as long as you can) or distrustful style (you don’t trust others’ motives, think negatively about others, and don’t connect with them).

Autocratic style. You are a leader with an authoritarian style (you’re harsh on your people, force them to obey, you’re not open to criticism, and you go for win-lose situations) or a directive style (you plan, do, evaluate, and act; you go for results; and people have to follow your instructions).

Figure 1.7 Leadership styles. There are four main styles, each with two sublevels. When looked at from the outside, do you see an orientation on results (“you hear the workers busy with hammering and sawing”), or an orientation on people (“you hear the team having fun”), or do you notice conflicts between the leader and team (“you hear quarreling and banging doors”), or inertia rather than action (“you hear a desolate silence”). Reflect on your own style!.

To advance your team and be an effective team leader in academia, you need to be predominantly results and people oriented; i.e., you need to be a charismatic leader and occasionally use a more directive or participative style. The other styles, from compliant to authoritarian, can become counterproductive, if not disastrous, and will not facilitate a group of individuals making an effective research team.

A group is not a team

Two or more people make a research group: Bachelor’s and Master’s students, PhD candidates, and postdocs, they are in your group and can be busy with their next paper, their thesis, or curriculum vitae (CV). They all run, bike, or skate their own race, focusing on their own goals and successes. But two or more individuals can also work as a team, leading to better papers, better theses, stronger CVs, and better project outcomes, even if they are officially working on different projects. Now they run, bike, and skate wearing the same team outfit and aim jointly to raise everyone on the team to a higher level of success. A sports team includes a physical trainer, sports psychologist, masseur, technician, team captain, and many others; on a research team, you’ll have a research assistant, an administrative assistant , and other support staff, with you as the team leader.

Teams typically go through several phases before they perform really well ( Figure 1.8 ).

Forming phase. Everyone is happy with the new job or project; work can start. You as the leader inform, direct, and instruct people about the project aims, tasks, deliverables, and milestones, and you fuel the team spirit and ambition by making the endeavor fun and exciting, something really special (inspirational and/or directive leadership style).

Storming phase. There are different opinions or confusion on how to proceed with the details of the work. You coach the team forward (coaching leadership style).

Norming phase. The members negotiate, compromise, convince, or otherwise organize themselves and (re-)organize the work to be done. You enable a constructive controversy and reflection to happen (coaching and/or participative leadership style).

Performing phase. The team and project are alive and kicking. Results exceed initial expectations. You oversee the team and its work (participative leadership style).

Mourning phase. As a project closes, one or more members leave, successes are celebrated, and failures are acknowledged and transformed into lessons learned. You thank everyone for their commitment (participative leadership style).

Figure 1.8 The five team phases.

Then you continue with new projects, each with their own cycle of forming-storming-norming-performing-mourning. See also chapter 3 of the author’s book, Developing a Talent for Science (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The entire group may go through the stages at the same time, but things may become tricky when different members are actually at different stages because they entered the group at different times. Achieving or maintaining high performance in the midst of many changes of people can be a challenge that constantly demands your attention.

The storming phase may be particularly alarming for new team leaders (and is still challenging for experienced team leaders). Help! What’s happening? Suddenly members appear to disagree strongly, show disappointment or anger, and disconnect or revolt. Look at it this way. It’s a sign that team members are serious about their work. After all, who would make a buzz about something unimportant, but the storming and norming phases challenge your interpersonal leadership skills even more than the other phases. Some leaders may be tempted to become angry and tell members to obey them (authoritarian style). Others may be tempted to keep out of the conflict as long as they can (avoiding style). Neither style will work well in the long run. Only when you successfully coach the members through the storm will you have established an effective team where the members:

Have trust and confidence in each other

Exchange ideas and contributions

Give and receive constructive feedback

Go the extra mile for each other and the team

Express wants and worries openly

Share fun, enthusiasm, and a high team morale.

The lives of PhD candidates and postdocs can be hectic or problematic for all kinds of professional or personal reasons. They are often in a busy phase of their lives: stormy season. Keep an open ear and eye for their needs and worries, help them to get through difficult times, and arrange a buddy, mentor, health coach, or other internal or external help for them, preferably at an early stage before problems arise or escalate. It’s important that group members feel that they can approach you when a problem is arising.

The final phase in a project’s life cycle is the mourning phase (also called the “adjourning phase”): the project is coming to a close, the work has been done, and team members will have to leave. In the worst case, former team members have no job to move on to and become unemployed, and you have no funding for the next project and lose your position as team leader. However, the mourning phase can have a much happier end if you take the advancement of your team members seriously from day one – and if you take your own advancement seriously too. Table 1.3 provides an overview of more good practices.

Table 1.3 Leading your team: more good practices in each of the five team phases

You should also coach team members to work with and support other teams – in the best interest of your team, other teams, and the organization. Recognize the five phases and be particularly alert to team members speaking negatively about another research team or support department; take action to provide a bridge across teams and jointly enter the performing phase.

Advancing your team members and their careers

Although you may think that running a funded project is all about time, money, and quality of results, the funding agencies also value the personal and professional development of PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers as an important asset of your project. And the funding agencies will evaluate your training success. For example, reviewers for the European Research Council (ERC) are asked:

“To what extent has the principal investigator demonstrated sound leadership in the training and advancement of young scientists?”

This evaluation should be interpreted as your career progression depends on theirs: PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers are not just a workforce to help you achieve your project’s scientific goals. You are their role model and partner on an important journey: their final educational steps to having a fully professional career within or outside academia with a healthy work-life balance. Help them become aware of their goals in their work and life.

Is doing a PhD project a good investment? Will the next postdoctoral period serve their career goals? Or is it time to leave academia, since further training will not add to their chances of achieving these goals? Might it even reduce them?

Outside academia , where the majority of people will eventually find a career, there are many different opportunities: in industry, government, the public sector, or, still close to academia, university administration, scientific publishing, or being a media and public relations officer for a university or research institute. You empower your team members with up-to-date scientific knowledge, with the core skills for doing research, but also with many general skills that are transferable to other settings (see Table 1.6 in TRY THIS! exercise). By contrast, in academia , their career journey is toward scientific independence, and you help them develop a research line of their own – not a copy of yours, but something where they may be outperforming you and go on to develop their own opportunities in the academic job market. You empower them with cutting-edge scientific knowledge and the core skills to use it well.

Some examples of how you can help your PhD candidates and postdocs advance include the following:

Side projects. Although they’ve been recruited for and paid by a specific project, try to set aside some free time for “playing” – just as Google allows its employees to spend a day per week on curiosity-driven activities. It may turn into a new research line for them, and it may also open new or surprising angles for the project on which they are working.

Other role models. Invite guests from within and outside academia to talk to or even work with your team: for example, your alumni (your former PhD graduates and postdocs), your academic and industrial collaborators, an editor of an influential scientific journal, or an officer of a prominent funding agency. Other people can help your team members to sharpen their vision of the future. You can also encourage team members to spend some time outside your group during the project to broaden their experience; for example, they can seek out and apply for travel and internship scholarships and thereby gain valuable experience for future grant applications.

Job or grant applications. Any job application – inside or outside academia – is a quest for money: your team members need to earn a salary in their next job. They may want even more money if they have ideas and plans for the new job that require financial investment by the employer (e.g., for new equipment or support staff). Job competition can be fierce, so teach your people how to make a strong case – a proposal that the other party can’t refuse. It makes good sense to teach them or send them to a course on how to write a convincing personal research grant application because this is a skill that is also important for those who want to move outside academia. It shows they can create a vision of where they want to go, outline a concrete work plan and impact plan, calculate the budget, and convince others that such a project is feasible and the investment worthwhile. As the group leader, you will need to help your team members with their job or grant applications. Yes, your investment (time and expertise) will indeed go toward benefiting someone else, but a former group member can extend or strengthen your network by making a new or revitalized connection to a top researcher or company elsewhere – and who knows what return you may see later.

Recommendation letters. Once your team members start applying for jobs, you will need to write letters of recommendation for them ( Table 1.4 ). Pay a lot of attention to these letters; selection panels will read them carefully and consider them seriously. What facts or anecdotes can you share to provide sufficient evidence for your recommendation? You may be asked whether the candidate is among the top 20 percent of his or her peers or to state whether he or she is “very good,” “excellent,” or “outstanding.” Be aware that your personal reputation is also at stake if you are not honest and your statements incomplete. If you don’t believe that your team member would be a good candidate for a particular post/job, tell him or her carefully but directly in a positive way and, at the same time, discuss or indicate what kind of job or career track you envision for that person. You don’t want to land a colleague elsewhere with a PhD researcher or postdoc who is not suited for the job vacancy. You may decline to write a letter of recommendation, but you should explain your reasons to the candidate, and if you do write one, you should fully commit your time and effort to enable the person to stand out from the crowd.

Table 1.4 Letter of recommendation for an academic job (similar for an internship or award nomination, etc.)

Note: Add facts and anecdotes (as proof). Do not show it to the applicant, but submit it directly to the person who requested your opinion.

Your own advancement

Find out what is required for a next step in your career – a tenure-track position or tenure, promotion from assistant to associate professor, or promotion from associate to full professor. Are you expected to take on additional administrative tasks to help your department, faculty, or university prosper? Are you expected to excel not only in research but also in teaching, knowledge transfer, and public engagement, or are you allowed to specialize? What do you actually want? Take time for self-reflection and candor, and perhaps seek help from an experienced mentor. Develop your strategy and action plan, and discuss your future with your supervisor and administration.

If you want to stay in academia, you may have a large number of working hours ahead of you: 2,000 hours times the number of years until retirement. How can you remain successful and happy for so long? Research work follows a cyclic pattern. You start, run, and complete a project; start again, run again, and complete again, possibly with multiple projects running in parallel. If you successfully revitalize from time to time, you can continue your career in science to the age of 65 or older. Here are some pointers to revitalize yourself:

Attend conferences outside your field of specialization to see whether ideas that work in another or related field can be introduced in your own field.

Take a sabbatical of three to six months with another group every six to seven years to get fresh intellectual input or to learn new methods or techniques.

Negotiate a move from one sector to another within your organization to fuel your research line. Stay there for several years, and then perhaps move on to yet another sector or return to the first institute with your enhanced cross-disciplinary experiences. (This would also challenge institutes to be good places to work in, since a poorly managed institute would not flourish, and people would leave and not return.)

Write a perspectives paper to outline your vision of where your field should go and get it published. Some hardliners wouldn’t consider this as a real publication, but they are wrong, of course.

Write the textbook you always really wanted to write, introducing students to the results of recent and past research. Usually this doesn’t help in formal research evaluations or for job promotion, but metrics can and will change.

Serve as a mentor to one or more early-career researchers from another institute or faculty.

As a scientist – almost by definition – you are driven by curiosity and maybe at some point you want more, different, or “bigger” adventures in academia. For example, you could want to:

Combine your current position with a new one elsewhere, e.g., a part-time visiting or honorary professorship at another university.

Gather many more grants, tens of PhD students, hundreds of articles, many prizes, etc., which could give you an academic superstar status. But the mores are changing: the “Matthew effect of cumulative advantage” Footnote 5 is considered to disproportionally concentrate resources and reduce the return on funding.

Take on a limited number of projects only, be there as committed supervisor and collaborator, and let credits for work go to those who really deserve it, which would make you a real academic leader and role model for others. You go without compromise for high quality instead of large quantity and help change the reward system in science.

Become a director, assistant dean, dean, vice chancellor, or president of an institute or university or governor of a scientific society or public funding agency or help in the administration of academia. Beware: In some quickly developing and highly competitive fields, it may be almost impossible to return to active research.

You may also consider leaving academia – at least for a while or part time – to build a new career elsewhere, for example:

Combine your current position in academia with a new one outside academia, e.g., a part-time job at a consultancy firm.

Become a full-time researcher or research and development (R&D) manager in industry, start your own business, join a major consultancy firm, or move into politics, perhaps in the department of education.

Leading your team in your organization

It’s important to realize that as a team leader you are a middle manager: you are formally responsible for the team under you, but you have other managers above you: a head of department or director, a faculty dean, and the university president. They will monitor and evaluate what you and your team are doing. Let’s hope they are content and supportive. But what if they’re dissatisfied and impose measures on you and your team? If you agree, you can comply and execute their measures. If you disagree, though, you will enter another storming phase: now it’s storming in the hierarchy rather than within the team. It will be particularly tough if the leader above you adopts an authoritarian or distrustful style. As in any other storming event, you can see this as someone who is serious about an issue that is important to them. The negotiation steps you need to undertake include: Footnote 6

1. Don’t go into heads-on battle with your adversary. Instead, invest some time in trying to understand what motivates them: pay attention to what they want, need, are concerned about, and their interests. Perhaps they have to cope with political issues or organizational changes you’re not yet aware of. Ask, listen, and check whether you’ve properly understood what they are telling you.

2. Then ask them to listen to your needs and concerns. The other person is above you in the hierarchy, but you don’t have to behave as their subordinate. You can remain positive and assertive and, if necessary, indicate that you’re also a force to be reckoned with.

3. Refer to a common basis, such as shared principles underlying good research practice. Discuss the results you’re supposed to generate, and present the facts to counter any presumptions or misconceptions. Try to work together toward a solution that both of you can accept. This might lead to a compromise or a new solution better than either of you could have developed alone.

You and your team will also be working with people who are not in an academic hierarchy but alongside you, for example, support staff such as human resources (HR) and financial affairs. Chapter 2 is about their organizations’ rules, processes, and procedures with which you also need to comply. Invest some time in getting to know these colleagues and understanding their work, give them credit when it is due and create a culture of working together. If you take coffee or cake to your meetings and invite them to team parties, it will make it more fun for both parties.

Table 1.5 offers some more tips on how to deal with management and support staff.

Table 1.5 Some advice on how to deal with …

An Alumnus’s Anecdote

Being nice to people.

During my stay at Harvard Medical School, I learned about the American Association for Women in Science (AWIS). A women-only society, this slightly surprised me, but it also made me curious. It was less than a year until my PhD graduation, and the career stories of these women – most of them at a senior stage in their career – could help me make a decision on my next position, whether it should be in science or not.

The obvious step was to sign up for one of their events. But would I dare to talk to these professors? At this point, a lesson from the past came to my mind. My supervisor had once said, “You’ve all got over 20 years of experience of how to be nice to people, right?,” followed by, “Who would like to welcome our world-famous guest speaker and be her host at today’s program?” I’d offered to be her host for the day, which had proved to be a remarkable experience, a tipping point in my life.

Thinking about this, I convinced myself to join AWIS and walk up to and talk to professors. Looking back, I met many ambitious professors, as well as other postdocs and PhD candidates from a wide range of nationalities. They all enthusiastically elaborated on their scientific track and shared the lessons they had learned. These AWIS conversations contributed to my orientation process and consequently to my current position in the consulting business. Being nice to people can help lead you to new horizons.

The following assignments will help you reflect on your own leadership style, recognize the phases your team is in or has gone through, and allow you to contribute to the training and advancement of current and former team members.

Interpersonal leadership styles

Could a young researcher be(come) a good team leader? Make your reasons explicit.

Could someone with no expert knowledge be a good or better team leader? Make your reasons explicit.

Leaders use different interpersonal leadership styles. Can you give concrete examples from your own experience of each style? How did they feel?

Which is your preferred style of leadership?

Ask others what they see as your dominant style, and discuss how it feels for them.

In what circumstances would you use other styles and why?

Do you see any reasons to change your leadership style in general or in specific situations?

A green traffic light means “go ahead,” red means “stop,” and orange means “be careful.” Use green, orange, and red to color each of the eight interpersonal leadership styles in Figure 1.7 . Explain your choice of color for each leadership style.

Team phases

Do you have a group or a team?

Which phase is your group/team in at the moment?

How did you react to storming phases in the past?

How will you react to the next storming phase?

Have you completed earlier projects in a good manner?

Your current team members

Do your team members have sufficient time and freedom to develop their own niche in science?

PhD candidates and postdocs often discount, underestimate, or overlook the value of core transferable skills and could therefore better sell themselves at job interviews than they actually do. Get your team members to list their most important selling points, and see how many of the attitudes and skills listed in Table 1.6 they include. Set up a laboratory meeting to do this or go on an away-day with your team once or twice a year.

Help your team members prepare for job interviews. Analyze the job advertisement for selection criteria (skills, qualities) and help the team member prepare STARR (situation, tasks, actions, results, and reflect) stories that would inspire and convince the selection committee (see Section 1.3 for more on STARR). For the main criteria, they should develop recent and concrete stories with a positive ending along the lines of the STARR method.

Table 1.6 Core transferable skills

Your former team members

Where are your former team members now, and how are they doing? Build up a database of them with the following information: name; current and past affiliations and job titles; prestigious grants, awards, etc. for those who stayed in academia; and other relevant parameters for those who moved outside academia. You can add this information to your team website and even to your own CV.

Are you connected to all of them via LinkedIn or other social media?

Are there any opportunities to benefit from former group members? Who could you build a new academic collaboration with? Who could suggest candidates for your job openings? Who works at a profit or nonprofit organization that could become your sponsor?

1 Lee Reference Lee 2014 .

2 Special issue, Nature (2015); see “Further Reading” for this and other articles, editorials, blogs, and guidelines.

3 Bosch Reference Bosch 2018 .

4 In 1983, David Kolb published an experiential learning cycle: experience, reflect, conceptualize new behavior, and experiment with new behavior; see “Further Reading.”

5 Merton Reference Merton 1968 .

6 Modified from Fisher et al. Reference Fisher, Ury and Patton 1991 and Ury Reference Ury 2007 .

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• Book: Leading your Research Team in Science
• Online publication: 30 November 2018
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108601993.002

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How to Lead a Research Team

• First Online: 01 January 2020

Cite this chapter

• Aimee-Noelle Swanson 2  

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Leadership. Organizational culture. Managing dynamic teams. Providing effective feedback. Did you miss this course in your advanced training? Is this the class that you slept through only to show up for the final exam – or was that really just a dream? You didn’t, and it was only a dream. Being an intentional leader and building the culture you want to maximize workflow and employee satisfaction is not something that is taught in graduate school. Very few institutions provide a didactic to scientists on how you build an effective organizational structure to deliver the best science possible. In academia, you are taught to think critically; to be a careful, well-reasoned scientist and clinician; and to approach problems with an objective eye, determine the root cause, and create impactful solutions. You are not taught how to be an effective leader, how to hire the right staff, how to engage teams in work during stressful periods, how to provide effective feedback to enhance performance, and how to build trust in a diverse team. However, you do have all of the tools that you need to do all of these things. You’ve been doing them for years and have seen them all around you. Now it’s just a matter of recognizing them for what they are and connecting with them in a way that serves your goals and objectives. That is the point of this chapter. In this chapter we will cover building an intentional organizational culture, being a thoughtful leader, and managing a research team so that with some foresight and effort, you can focus on your science while engaging your staff in meaningful, high-impact work as a team.

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Suggested reading.

These texts are valuable management and leadership tools for scientists. Consider these as key reference materials to set yourself up for success.

Google Scholar  

Allen D. Getting things done: the art of stress-free productivity, revised edition. New York: Penguin Books; 2015.

Barker K. At the Helm: leading your laboratory. 2nd ed. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2010.

Cohen CM, Cohen SL. Lab dynamics: management and leadership skills for scientists. 2nd ed. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2012.

The Harvard Business Review (HRB). 10 Must Reads book series covers a wide range of topics with terrific resources and references.

Making the right moves: a practical guide to scientific management for postdocs and new faculty. 2nd ed. Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; 2006. https://www.hhmi.org/developing-scientists/making-right-moves .

Patterson K, Grenny J, McMillan R, Switzler A. Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2011.

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Swanson, AN. (2020). How to Lead a Research Team. In: Roberts, L. (eds) Roberts Academic Medicine Handbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31957-1_34

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How to Lead a Research Team in 4 Steps

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Carol Jennings

Despite talent management in research being  the greatest driver of research success , researchers are seldom taught how to lead a research team well.

In fact,  research from the Wellcome Trust  where over 4,000 scientists were surveyed, reveals that while 80% of lead researchers say they have the skills to manage a diverse team, less than half of research leaders have had any management training.

Successfully implementing talent management practices in a time-sensitive laboratory environment can be complex and  remains a key area in need of improvement even for industry leaders  in the scientific field.

However, when leaders do rise to the challenge, they can generate an environment of continual improvement, increased efficiency and greater satisfaction.  In this article, I’ll outline 4 key steps, inspired by Psychologist Bruce Tuckman’s notorious  theory of group development .  Expect to find: 

• 4 steps to successful leadership
• Research and insights on laboratory leadership
• Key skills information for research leaders

Four key steps to leadership success

Step 1 – form a vision and set your strategy.

While mission statements involve describing the purpose of your research itself, a vision statement should outline the project’s full trajectory while staying connected to the mission. 

Your wider strategy and vision statement should include details around:

• Staff career plans – understanding your team’s ideal career trajectory will enable you to better share opportunities and responsibilities.
• Timelines for the project – clarifying clear timelines from the start can improve your chances of gaining additional funding.
• Communication channels – find reliable ways to maintain communication, ideally through weekly updates.
• Financial goals – aim for any additional funding opportunities from the project’s outset.
• Approach to work-life balance – understanding your team’s need for a work-life balance will help shape the trajectory of the project, and timelines, by setting realistic goals
• Development opportunities – describe any additional training and development opportunities that are available over the course of the project
• Enabling innovation – foster a creative environment from the outset, creating a psychologically safe environment where people can suggest new ideas.
• Building connections – collaboration can open up a wealth of opportunity and resource.

Vision statements should be a collaborative affair, where your team contribute their perspectives to shape a realistic and meaningful vision for the project. 

A strong research vision describes the unique way a challenge will be addressed in context of its wider societal, environmental or even industrial impact.

Syngenta  accomplish this with the vision statement below:

“Our vision is a bright future for smallholder farming. To strengthen smallholder farming and food systems, we catalyze market development and delivery of innovations, while building capacity across the public and private sectors” Leadership tip: While creativity is often regarded as key to research culture,  75% of researchers believe it’s being stalled.  Overcoming this takes conscious action, and psychological safety.  Google’s research  shows that psychological safety is one of the greatest drivers for successful teamwork. Leaders can achieve a more innovative, and successful team culture by showing concern for wellbeing alongside success. 

Step 2 – Bridge communication gaps and work through the challenges

Once you’ve successfully set up the vision and strategy behind your project, your attention can shift onto working through the challenges that arise and bridging any communication gaps that emerge. Your focus as a leader should be on promoting learning and providing the constructive feedback needed to help your team turn mistakes into lessons learned. 

When faced with a hurdle, consider additional training where skills are insufficient, and stay committed even if the project isn’t going at the pace you expected.

Leadership tip: It’s also important to practice self-awareness and identify whether any research challenges could be down to your leadership style. If you don’t find your leadership style to be driving your team’s motivation, be prepared to change up your approach.  Research  shows you can do this by asking ‘what’ you can do to change, rather than focusing too much on ‘why’ your approach wasn’t successful. 

Step 3 – Sustain performance

Now your project has overcome its growing pains, it’s likely that productivity has increased and that you’re looking for ways to keep that momentum going. 

Emphasising project ownership and accountability is integral at this stage and can help  sustain motivation and commitment  to the research. As the research continues, it’s important to leverage communication channels, and keep conversations and ideas flowing – doing so, will better enable problem solving if further issues do arise. 

Your responsibilities will largely shift at this point to monitoring:

• Time – the time it takes to complete projects, as well as the time the team are spending in the lab.
• Money – how finances are progressing, and whether further resourcing may be required.
• Quality of work – the quality of work should take a greater focus over the quantity of work, although both are important.
• Work-life balance – refer back to the vision for the project; is the same work-life balance being maintained?
• Burnout – monitor employee wellbeing and try to identify signs of employee burnout early.

Leadership tip: To maintain productivity, it’s important to move away from a competitive culture.  78% of researchers think that high levels of competition in the laboratory have created unkind, and aggressive conditions . Celebrate achievements and consider how you can help encourage team growth and development rather than focusing on a competitive environment.

Step 4 - Prepare for wrap-up

As the project draws to a close, your role as a leader should shift on to developing your team member’s career beyond the project. You can refer back to your project vision, as well as actively communicate with your wider team to ensure that every member is accessing the opportunities that they need to transition to their next research project and role.

You could organise a final event for the team to celebrate personal achievements alongside overall team achievements to close the project in a positive way.

Leadership tip: Establishing a successful offboarding process as a leader is crucial to maintaining a strong network with wider research teams, even after project completion. 

Skills breakdown:

Key skills Research Managers require to  achieve laboratory success  are:

• Self-awareness
• Time management
• Accountability

Looking for resource support?

Synergy Scientific Solutions provide specialist teams that boost laboratory capability, potential and efficiency from within.

Our links with SRG’s expansive talent networks mean we can source, manage and develop teams on behalf of our clients across the clinical and biotech industries.

Want to learn more? Get in touch with our team at:  [email protected]  

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Source: © Caroline Knapp

How to lead a research team

By Katrina Krämer 2020-05-06T09:10:00+01:00

• No comments

By building skills to support your lab members, you lay the foundation for success

‘The most challenging thing is the management,’ says chemist Josep Cornella , who has been leading a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Carbon Research in Germany since 2017. ‘I was good in the fumehood, but then they take you out of that, put you in an office and give you eight people to manage.’

While there are other challenges associated with heading up a lab – including attracting funding and preparing lectures – managing a research team is arguably one of the bigger ones. In a recent Wellcome Trust survey of more than 4000 scientists, 80% said they had the skills to manage a diverse team. But of the people being managed, only 11% had been asked for feedback by their supervisor. They also reported experiencing few of the behaviours associated with effective management, like noting achievements, discussing career aspirations and providing support with personal issues.

‘The first step is being aware that your leadership actually affects the output – and being willing to change,’ says Juan Pablo Ruiz, postdoctoral researcher in the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, and president of Future of Research , an organisation that seeks to empower junior researchers.

Support diversity

When asked what is most challenging about leading a team, physicist Helen Gleeson from the University of Leeds, UK, replies firmly: ‘Without doubt, the fact that everybody is different and one rule doesn’t fit all.’ Cornella agrees. To get the best out of each team member he quickly needed to accept ‘that not everyone is like you when you were a postdoc … It’s important to have empathy, try to understand people and put yourself in their situation,’ he says.

‘If you look at teams in industry, [particularly] in the tech sector where innovation and creativity is required and fostered, what you see is that teams that score highly in measures of wellbeing also have higher levels of measurable output,’ says Ruiz. ‘Individuals need to feel like they can speak their mind without fearing repercussions and need to feel supported enough to be independent, not micromanaged.’

In Google’s two-year study of 180 of its teams , psychological safety came out as one of the top drivers for successful teamwork. Team members need to feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other. Good managers can create this environment by showing concern for success and wellbeing, Google’s related study on manager behaviour found.

Source: © John Wingren Media Solutions/University of Wisconsin

Juan Pablo Ruiz, postdoc and president of Future of Research

The unfortunate reality of academia is that it has a very hierarchical structure, says Ruiz. ‘When you create this sense of “this person is at the top and they’re untouchable, unreachable,” that’s when you can get a really big power imbalance.’ This not only puts people off providing honest feedback, it can also stop good ideas percolating up.

‘I think the way to address that is to create a culture in which the hierarchy is understood to be for the roles and responsibilities,’ Ruiz explains. Supervisors should make it clear – not just vocally but by action – that team members should speak up if there is anything that needs improving. For many researchers, including Cornella, practising an open-door policy is a straightforward way to invite open discussion and feedback.

At the same time, the distinction between supervisor and supervisees needs to remain clear-cut, says Gleeson. Early in their career, team leaders might not feel comfortable with that distinction and might blur the boundaries too much. ‘That doesn’t matter until it goes wrong – for example, if you have to have a discussion about the students not working very hard,’ she stresses.

Create freedom to learn

‘I think the thing that makes a big difference in a student–supervisor relationship is allowing the student to take ownership of the project as early as possible,’ says Gleeson, who won  Times Higher Education ’s  outstanding research supervisor award  in 2018. ‘That’s hard because very often it was your idea, and you might be under a lot of pressure to get publications out.’

Cornella recalls that early on in his career he used to see every team member in the lab every day. ‘Not to put pressure on them, but just out of curiosity,’ he explains. ‘But of course the students or postdocs can feel it as pressure.’ As time went on, he started giving his researchers more freedom. ‘By doing that, [my team] came up with things that I would never do, but really interesting things, and things that surprised me,’ Cornella says.

Like many of his peers, Cornella’s only management experience prior to starting his independent career came from supervising students in the lab during his time as a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher. Fewer than half of respondents to the Wellcome survey said they had formal management training.

First-time supervisors shouldn’t feel like they need to know everything

Some universities have introduced mandatory training for both new and existing supervisors. University College London, UK, where organometallic chemist Clare Bakewell started her independent career in 2018, is one of them . Bakewell did a two-hour online training course, which covered policies, assessment and case studies like students reporting harassment or difficulties with a project. ‘The scenarios were useful, they definitely picked up some things I hadn’t ever considered to be an issue,’ she says.

At the same time, Bakewell suggests some ways the training could be improved. New starters receive an almost overwhelming amount of information and have to do a number of other courses at the same time. The impact of the supervision training therefore risks being diluted. ‘You do it once when you first join, but is that still going to be relevant a couple of years down the line?’ she asks. ‘I think having a refresher course would be really useful.’

Bakewell stresses that first-time supervisors shouldn’t feel like they need to know everything. ‘As long as you know the right channels to advise people to go down, that’s important.’ She currently leads a team of four, including co-supervising one PhD student. Gleeson’s university runs a scheme in which first-time supervisors choose a more experienced researcher with similar subject expertise to act as co-supervisor.

Take a break

Source: © Markus Wahle

A weekend of hiking helps keep Helen Gleeson’s lab motivated

While a research group’s main job is to do research, other activities can help team members stay motivated. ‘In the department and my group in particular we do a lot of outreach activities,’ says Gleeson. ‘It’s something students can get a real buzz from.’

‘I do think there is value in stepping away from the usual environment,’ says Luis Martinez , chemistry professor and director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Trinity University, US. Gleeson agrees with this; she rents a bunkhouse for her group to stay in over a weekend once a year. ‘But I think it’s important to recognise that not everybody will want to engage with these activities,’ she cautions. ‘So these [activities] aren’t compulsory.’

Jennifer Heemstra , a chemist at Emory University, US, also holds an annual off-site retreat. Over the course of several days, the group works on research ideas, funding proposals and even ideas on how to stay on top of new literature.

At the retreat, ‘people are putting in their time and mental energy for projects they don’t work on,’ Heemstra explains. ‘It turns out we’re really motivated by these altruistic things.’ In the long run, this means that instead of being jealous of each other’s successes, the entire team celebrates a new publication or successful grant application.

Get cultured

A lot of management focuses on a one-to-one relationship between lab leader and team members. But it might be worth thinking about the bigger picture. Martinez says that ‘every team needs to do deep thinking about how to make every member be valued and recognised’. Research groups could do more to communicate their mission and the things that inspire and motivate them, Martinez says.

While details about research and publications are familiar sights on scientists’ websites, a few have also started to add details about their lab culture. Heemstra’s lab website features a diversity statement. On University of Kansas biologist Prachee Avasthi ’s website, a lab policies section details her approach to career development and work schedules.

Source: © Kay Hinton

Jennifer Heemstra (right) in the lab with graduate student Colin Swenson

‘What we do is not just have individual goals but create goals for the entire group for each year,’ says Heemstra, who also writes a blog about research culture. ‘Almost everything we’re doing is pretty standard in a lot of businesses, but as academic labs, we’ve been slow to adopt these practices.’ Since many corporate practices translate well into a lab environment, magazines like Harvard Business Review are a good start for learning about how to become better at managing people or what makes an effective communicator, she says.

Martinez agrees. He says researchers should talk to colleagues in other fields about their supervising practices or borrow principles from start-up culture. ‘As you read [books like Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup ], you realise “Wow, this really maps out the scientific method”,’ he says.

‘To help foster more expertise, PIs should train for leadership – not necessarily train themselves, though that’s important too, but train their trainees for leadership,’ Martinez continues. Communication and critical thinking skills, a taste for taking risks and a tolerance for failure are all incredibly important, he says.

‘We do our research, but then there’s all of these things around how we do our research that can impact how successful we are,’ Heemstra says.

How to lead: Five quick tips

• Value different viewpoints and different ways to do research
• Invite honest feedback from team members
• Encourage team members to take ownership of their work
• Do something other than research, like a team outreach activity or an off-site retreat
• Communicate details about lab culture, goals and mission to team members (and potentially also to others)
• Careers advice
• Collaboration
• Professional development
• research culture
• Working life

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Cultivating an Effective Research Team Through Application of Team Science Principles

Shirley L.T. Helm, MS, CCRP Senior Administrator for Network Capacity & Workforce Strategies

C. Kenneth & Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research

Virginia Commonwealth University

Abstract: The practice of team science allows clinical research professionals to draw from theory-driven principles to build an effective and efficient research team. Inherent in these principles are recognizing team member differences and welcoming diversity in an effort to integrate knowledge to solve complex problems. This article describes the basics of team science and how it can be applied to creating a highly-productive research team across the study continuum, including research administrators, budget developers, investigators, and research coordinators. The development of mutual trust, a shared vision, and open communication are crucial elements of a successful research team and research project. A case study illustrates the team science approach.

Introduction

Each research team is a community that requires trust, understanding, listening, and engagement. Stokols, Hall, Taylor, Moser, & Syme said that:

“There are many types of research teams, each one as dynamic as its team members. Research teams may comprise investigators from the same or different fields. Research teams also vary by size, organizational complexity, and geographic scope, ranging from as few as two individuals working together to a vast network of interdependent researchers across many institutions. Research teams have diverse goals spanning scientific discovery, training, clinical translation, public health, and health policy.” 1 1 Stokols D, Hall KL, Taylor BK, Moser RP. The science of team science: overview of the field and introduction to the supplement. Am J Prev Med. 2008 Aug;35(2 Suppl):S77-89. Accessed 8/10/20.

Team science arose from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, which fund the work of researchers attempting to solve some of the most complex problems that require a multi-disciplinary approach, such as childhood obesity. 2 Team science is bringing in elements from various disciplines to solve these major problems. 3, 4 This article covers the intersection of team science with effective operationalizing of research teams and how teaming principles can be applied to the functioning of research teams.

Salas and colleagues state that, “a team consists of two or more individuals, who have specific roles, perform interdependent tasks, are adaptable, and share a common goal. . . team members must possess individual and team Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes ….” 5 Great teams have a plan for how people act and work together. There are three elements that must be aligned to ensure success: the individual, the team, and the task. Individuals have their own goals. These goals must align, and not compete with, goals of other individuals and team goals. Task goals are the nuts and bolts of clinical research. Like individuals, the team has an identity. It is necessary to provide feedback both as a team and as individuals.

In a typical clinical research team, the clinical investigator is at the center surrounded by the clinical research coordinators. The coordinator is the person who makes the team function. Other members of the typical clinical research team are:

· Research participant/family

· Financial/administrative staff

· Regulatory body (institutional review board)

· Study staff

· Ancillary services such as radiology or pathology

· Sponsor/monitor.

The Teaming Principles

Bruce Tuckman developed the teaming principles in 1965 and revised them in 1977 (Table 1). 6 Using the teaming principles is not a linear process. These principles start with establishing the team. The team leader does not have to establish the team. Any team member can use teaming principles to provide a framework and structure and systematically determine what the project needs. Storming is establishing roles and responsibilities, communications, and processes. The storming phase, when everybody has been brought together and is on board with the same goal, is a honeymoon period.

Norming is the heavy lifting of the team’s work. This involves working together effectively and efficiently. Team members must develop trust and comfort with each other. Performing focuses on working together efficiently, and satisfaction for team members and the research participants and their families.

Tuckman added adjourning or transforming to the teaming principles in 1977. The team might end or start working on a new project (study) with a new shared goal. Adjourning or transforming involves determining which processes can be transferred from one research study to another research study.

While the teaming principles seem intuitive and like common sense, people are not raised to be fully cooperative. Using the teaming principles provides framework and structure and takes the emotion out of teamwork. The teaming principles empower team members and provide the structure that is necessary for teams, which are constantly evolving and changing.

The shared goal at the center of the teaming principles provides a sense of purpose. This provides commitment, responsibility, and accountability, along with a clear understanding of roles, responsibilities, competencies, expectations, and contributions. In Dare to lead: Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts, Brené Brown coined the phrase, “clear is kind, unclear is unkind.” 7 It is extremely important to define roles and ensure that each team member knows what the other team members are doing. This prevents duplication of effort and ensures that tasks do not fall through the cracks.

How to Use Teaming Principles

Table 2 briefly describes each of the five teaming principles. Forming begins with gathering the team members and involves determining who is needed on the team to ensure success. Each team member must be valued. The team may vary depending upon the study, project, and timelines. During the research study, team members may enter and exit from the team. Forming the team may mean working across boundaries with people and departments that team members do not know. It is also necessary to establish the required competencies and knowledge, skills, and attitudes of team members, and to recognize and celebrate differences. The team must have a shared goal and vision.

Storming the team involves establishing roles, responsibilities, and tasks. This includes determining who has the required competencies to perform tasks such as completing pre-screening logs or consenting research participants. Also, storming involves defining processes, including communication pathways and expectations. Simply sending an email is not an effective way to communicate. Team members need to know whether an email is providing information or requires a response. Expectations for responding to emails should be described and agreed upon by all team members. Emails might be color coded to show whether an email is informational or requires a response. If clinical research sites utilize a clinical trial management system, the process for updating it must be determined and clearly communicated.

Norming is how team members work together. The shared goal is re-visited often under norming. Team members are mutually dependent upon each other and must meet their commitments and established deadlines.

Trust lies at the heart of the team. Building trust takes work and does not come naturally. It is helpful to understand that there are several types of trust. Identity-based trust is based on personal understanding and is usually seen in relationships between partners, spouses, siblings, or best friends. This type of trust does not usually occur in the workplace.

Workplace trust resides in calculus-based trust and competence-based trust. Calculus-based trust is about keeping commitments, meeting deadlines, and meeting expectations. There are some people who can be counted upon to always do what they are supposed to do. These people have earned calculus-based trust. Competence-based trust is confidence in another person’s skills or competencies.

Swift trust is immediate and necessary during extreme situations where there is not time to develop deeper connections with individuals. It relies on personal experiences, stereotypes, and biases. Some people are naturally more trusting than other people.

The teaming principle of performing involves satisfaction in progressing toward the goal and being proactive in preventing issues from arising. There will always be issues; however, the most effective teams learn from issues and have processes for resolving them. This makes a team efficient. Performing also includes revisiting the shared goal, embracing diversity and differences, and continually improving knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Adjourning/transforming is the completion of tasks and identification of lessons learned. Team members need to circle back and determine what worked well and can be applied to the next study. Celebrating successes and acknowledging the contributions of all team members are also an aspect of adjourning/transforming. When the author was managing a core laboratory, she performed tests for an oncology investigator’s study. Months later, the investigator gave her a thank-you card for her contribution to the study that was unexpected but greatly appreciated.

Strengthening the Team

Without a framework and structure, team dysfunction is likely. In The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable , Lencioni presented team dysfunction as a pyramid. 8 Absence of trust is at the bottom of the pyramid. Absence of trust results in questioning everything people do and results in team members unwilling to share or to ask for help. Without asking for help, mistakes will be made.

Absence of trust leads to a fear of conflict and an inability to resolve issues or improve efficiencies. Fear of conflict leads to lack of commitment. Doubt prevails, team members lack confidence, and the goal is diminished. Team dysfunction leads to avoidance of accountability. Follow-through is poor and mediocrity is accepted, breeding resentment among team members.

At the top of the team dysfunction pyramid is inattention to results, which leads to loss of team members and future research studies. There are some teams where people are constantly moving in and out. This is

a symptom of team dysfunction. Loss of respect and reputation of the team, department, and individual team members is another consequence of inattention to results.

Table 3 highlights ways to strengthen the team. Recognizing the strengths of each team member starts with self-awareness. For example, the author had to understand her communication and learning style and how this is similar to and different than that of other team members. The VIA Institute of Character offers a free assessment that could be a fun activity for research teams.

There is no one road to self-awareness; however, each team member must recognize that other team members do not necessarily share their understanding or perceptions. There are many options and possibilities for how others may understand or perceive an experience, none of which are right or wrong. Each team member should appreciate that different understanding and perceptions of experiences do not have to threaten their identity or relationships.

One quick way to show this is through ambiguous images, in which people see entirely different things in the same image. Once they are aware that there are different ways of seeing the same thing, they can appreciate other perspectives. As Pablo Picasso said, “There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes.” Strengthening the team requires embracing demographic, educational, and personality diversity.

Open and honest communication should be encouraged. Team members should give and receive constructive feedback. This is a learned skill that is often difficult. However, tools are available for assessing communication and listening styles. Many institutions and human resource departments utilize the Crucial Conversations program by VitalSmarts, LC. One member of the team can participate in Crucial Conversations and bring the knowledge back to the team. Communication must include managing conflict and an awareness of cultural differences.

Opportunities for education and training to acquire new knowledge, skills, and attitudes/competencies should be provided. Education may be transportable across teams or may be study specific. Team members should be cross-trained, which may be accomplished through several methods. Positional clarification is where one person is told what another person is doing, which is primarily for information transfer. Positional modeling is receiving the information but also shadowing the other person while they perform the task/skill. Positional rotation is performing another person’s job. This is best for back-up positions, which are necessary for research teams.

Team success is facilitated by recognizing individual successes and commitment to shared goals. Recognizing individual successes reflects team success. For example, if a team member becomes a certified clinical research professional, this is a success for both the individual and the team. Also, the team must have a shared understanding of the goal or purpose. This shared goal must be linked to the individual goal of each team member.

Teamwork needs constant attention and annual evaluations, and team meetings are not sufficient. It is extremely important to regularly check in with people. Team members can check in with other team members simply to ask how things are going. Misunderstandings should be dealt with immediately. Clear direction, accountability, and rewards are necessary.

The author has a bell on her desk that team members ring when they have a success. This sounds cheesy, however, it is fun and team members really enjoy it. For example, when the author finished her slides for the SOCRA annual conference on time, she rang the bell. Her team members asked what happened, and they had a mini celebration. This small item helps to build and strengthen a team with small successes leading to larger successes.

Case Study Using the Teaming Principles

The following case study illustrates the application of the teaming principles to a team involving four major players. Olivia is a clinician with three clinic days and teaching duties who is a sought-after speaker for international conferences. In addition, Olivia is the clinical investigator for four clinical research studies: two studies are active, one is in long-term follow up, and one is in closeout. The studies are a blend of industry sponsored and investigator initiated. Olivia is also a co-clinical investigator on two additional studies and relies heavily upon Ansh for coordination of all studies and management of two research assistants.

Ansh is the lead research coordinator with seven years of experience in critical care research. Ansh is very detail-oriented and takes pride in error-free case report forms, coordinates with external monitors, and manages two research assistants as well as the day-to-day operations of Olivia’s research studies.

Bernita is a research assistant with six months of work experience in obtaining informed consents, scheduling study visits, and coordinating with ancillary services. Bernita is responsible for contacting participants for scheduled visits and providing participant payments. Bernita is developing coordinating skills, seeks out training and educational opportunities, and is a real people person.

Delroy is the regulatory affairs specialist for the Critical Care Department, which consists of eight clinicians (not all of whom are engaged in research). Studies include one multi-site clinical trial for which the clinical research site is the coordinating site, and one faculty-held Investigational New Drug/Investigational Device Exemption study. The department’s studies are a mixture of federal- and industry-funded studies. Delroy has been with the department for five years in this capacity. However, Delroy’s coworker recently and unexpectedly took family and medical leave, leaving Delroy to manage all regulatory issues for the department. Also, the department chair recently made growing the department’s industry-sponsored study portfolio a priority.

Olivia has received an invitation to be added as a clinical research site for a highly sought-after ongoing Phase II, multisite, industry-sponsored study comparing two asthma medications in an adult outpatient setting. The study uses a central institutional review board (IRB) and has competitive enrollment. It will require the following ancillary services: investigational pharmacy, radiology, and outpatient asthma clinic nursing. For the purposes of this case study, all contracts have been negotiated and all of the regulatory documents are available (e.g., FDA Form 1572, informed consent template, and the current protocol). The institution utilizes a clinical trial management system.

Oliva shares the study information and study enrollment goals with Ansh with the charge of getting this study activated and enrolling within 40 days. What are the potential barriers that might affect this outcome? One potential barrier to the study activation timeline is Delroy’s heavy workload. To ensure that the timeline is met, Ansh might contact Delroy and explain the situation, asking what Ansh can do to help facilitate study start-up to ensure that the timeline is met. Ansh should be clear in determining what Delroy needs for study activation, the deadlines for each item, and assist in facilitation of communicating to other members of the study activation team (e.g., ancillary services, IRB) what is needed. Priorities include the regulatory work and staff training. Barriers include managing the regulatory issues on time. This might be a good opportunity to connect with Bernita for providing Delroy some assistance, as Bernita is knowledgeable and eager to acquire additional skills and training. The shared goal of starting the study on time should be shared with all team members in order to meet the 40 day study activation and enrollment goal.

Nuggets for Success as a Team Member or Leader

Members of a research team must know the other team members and available resources. They need to know who is needed for a particular study. This will change during studies and across studies. Roles and responsibilities among the broader team should be identified.

Table 4 outlines nuggets of success as a team member or leader, starting with using the framework of the teaming principles. Next, the team member or leader should build and create networks for knowledge and access. A knowledge network enables team members to know who to contact to provide an answer to specific questions. Each team member is a knowledge network for someone else. Also, each team member should find a person who they admire to serve as a mentor, even informally.

Team members should take advantage of available training. LinkedIn has many free training programs, and the institution’s human resources department also offers training. Meeting times should be scheduled to set aside time for reflection. Team members should check in often with the team as a whole and individual team members, set realistic boundaries, and establish priorities. Team members should avoid making assumptions, and instead, communicate clearly and often. Other keys to team success are to be respectful and present, participate, and practice humanity.

This work was supported by CTSA award No. UL1TR002649 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institutes of Health.

Overview of the Teaming Principles

• Establish team (top-down and bottom-up)
• Establish roles and responsibilities, communications, and processes
• Working together effectively and efficiently
• Individuals develop trust and comfort
• Work together efficiently
• Focus on a shared vision
• Resolves issues
• Natural end:dissolution
• New project (study) with a new shared goal

Description of the Teaming Principles

• Team members may vary depending upon the study, project, and timelines
• Work across boundaries
• Appropriate competencies and knowledge, skills, and attitudes
• Recognize and celebrate differences
• Shared goal and vision
• Determining who has the competencies for specific study tasks
• Communication pathways and expectation
• Completing clinical trial management systems updates
• Revisit the shared goal often
• Requires mutual dependence
• Identity-based: personal understanding
• Calculus-based: keep commitments, meet deadlines, meet expectations
• Competence-based: confidence in skills, competencies of another
• Satisfaction in progressing toward goal
• Proactive in preventing issues from arising
• Revisit the shared goal
• Embrace diversity and differences
• Continuous improvement in knowledge, skills, and attitudes
• Completion of tasks
• Identify lessons learned
• Celebrate success and acknowledge the contributions of all
• Self-awareness and assessments
• Demographic
• Educational
• Personality
• Give and receive constructive feedback
• Acquire new knowledge, skills, and attitudes/competencies
• Cross-train
• Recognize individual success, which reflects team success
• Commit to shared goals

Nuggets of Success as a Team Member of Leader

• Use the teaming principles as a framework
• Build and create networks for knowledge and access
• Find a mentor
• Take advantage of training
• Schedule meeting times for reflection
• Check in with the team and team members
• Set boundaries and priorities
• Never make assumptions
• Be respectful and present
• Participate
• Practice humanity

1 Stokols D, Hall KL, Taylor BK, Moser RP. The science of team science: overview of the field and introduction to the supplement. Am J Prev Med. 2008 Aug;35(2 Suppl):S77-89. Accessed 8/10/20.

2 Bennett LM, Gadlin H, Marchand C. Team Collaboration Field Guide. Publication No. 18-7660, 2nd ed., National Institutes of Health; 2018. Accessed 8/10/20.

3 National Research Council. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2015. Accessed 8/10/20.

4 Teambuilding 1: How to build effective teams in healthcare. Nursing Times. Accessed 8/10/20.

5 Salas E, Dickinson TL, Converse SA. Toward an Understanding of Team Performance and Training. In: Swezey R W, Salas E, editors. Teams: Their Training and Performance. Norwood, NJ: Ablex; 1992. pp. 3–29.

6 Tuckman, BW, Jensen MA. Stages of small-group development revisited. Group and Organization Studies, 2. 1977: 419-427.

7 Brown B. Dare to lead: Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts. New York: Random House, 2018.

8 Lencioni P. The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: 2002.

One thought on “Cultivating an Effective Research Team Through Application of Team Science Principles”

Hey there! I just finished reading your article on cultivating an effective research team through the application of team science principles, and I couldn’t help but drop a comment. First off, kudos to you for sharing such valuable insights. Your article was not only informative but also highly engaging, making it a pleasure to read.

I particularly resonated with your emphasis on the importance of clear communication and collaboration within research teams. It’s incredible how these seemingly simple principles can make such a significant difference in the success of a research project. Your practical tips on fostering trust and encouraging diversity of thought were spot-on. I’ve had my fair share of experiences in research teams, and I can attest that when everyone is on the same page and feels heard, the results are remarkable. Your article has given me a fresh perspective on how to approach team dynamics in my future research endeavors, and I’ll definitely be sharing these insights with my colleagues. Thanks again for sharing your wisdom! Looking forward to more of your articles in the future.

Keep up the fantastic work, and please continue to share your expertise. Your writing style is not only informative but also very relatable, making complex topics like team science principles easy to grasp. I’ll be eagerly awaiting your next piece. Until then, wishing you all the best in your research and writing endeavors! 😊📚

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Research Team Leadership in Changing Times

Effective leadership is critical to the success of any team. For those new to a research team leadership role, developing the necessary practical skills combined with the requirements of meeting research delivery objectives can be particularly challenging.

Research Team Leadership in Changing Times is a two-day online course designed to develop your skills as a research team leader with particular reference to supporting research leaders and their teams in these changing times.

Developing the leadership skills of both research professionals and academics

Research Team Leadership in Changing Times is designed to develop the skills of research team leaders by providing a pragmatic framework to equip them with the skills to lead with confidence in an increasingly challenging research context.

The programme offers a variety of solutions and approaches to team building and gaining co-operation from colleagues, using techniques to enhance team equality, diversity, depth and clarity.

As a participant on this programme, you will discover how to build and lead a research team, run effective research team meetings, support individual researchers and develop your role as a team leader; thus enhancing your capability as a research leader and developing your career potential. Particular attention will be given to the demands of accomplishing this in a virtual environment and through periods of uncertainty.

Research Team Leadership

 30 January 2025 - 31 January 2025

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Who is the programme for?

This programme has been designed for those who have been appointed as principal investigators or who are currently leading small research teams (up to six researchers). Participants may have responsibility for leading contract research staff or postgraduate research students, as well as technical and administrative support staff. Research Team Leadership is ideal for those who have had little or no leadership development and want to grow into their leadership role.

How is the programme delivered?

Research Team Leadership in Changing Times is a two-day digital programme, where participants:

• undertake pre-work to enable participants to develop a vision for their research career and assess their leadership in a range of research team functions.
• take part in a series of interactive and practical sessions which includes a mixture of exercises, discussions, demonstrations and presentations, aimed at developing their team leadership skills.
• consider different approaches to leadership in a research context, including: team building, running effective team meetings, resolving conflicts, vision and action planning.

Research Team Leadership in Changing Times: Programme

Over the two-day digital programme, participants will take part in a series of interactive and practical sessions aimed at developing their team leadership skills:

What are the programme outcomes?

The Research Team Leadership in Changing Times programme allows participants to reflect upon their personal vision for their research career in terms of the role of a Research Team Leader. They will review what it means to take on a team leadership role, how to engage in team working and team building, and practice relevant key leadership skills such as listening.

By the end of the programme, they will have considered and prepared an action plan that will enable them to implement their learning to enhance research activity within their institution.

Participants will also gain experience of using on-line tools for one-to-one, small group and research team meetings and for creating breakout spaces, sharing information and fostering collaboration.

The programme will particularly benefit individuals and institutions preparing for REF submissions and looking to enhance research performance and outputs.

Facilitators

David faraday.

Shirley Wardell

"Provocative, engaging and fun"

To find out how the programme has been adapted to be delivered online and what participants will gain from the programme, we spoke to facilitator David Faraday who told us the 'highly interactive programme' allows team leaders the 'opportunity to observe teams in action and engage in problem solving' activities.

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For much of our portfolio for 2024-25 the learning of event attendees and programme participants and conference, symposia and colloquia presenters will be digitally recognised.

This makes it easy for you to share and celebrate your achievements by adding them to your email signature or including them in your social profiles including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Your learning certificates can also be easily verified and downloaded as a PDF.

In Recognition of 100 Research Team Leader Courses - Pt 3

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In Recognition of 100 Research Team Leader Courses - Pt 1

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Committee on the Science of Team Science; Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council; Cooke NJ, Hilton ML, editors. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2015 Jul 15.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

6 Team Science Leadership

This chapter begins with a discussion of the definition of leadership and the degree to which it is distinct from management. We then review the expansive parallel literatures on team and organizational leadership in contexts outside of science. Through the lens of established leadership theories, models, and behaviors, we identify those approaches that are relevant to science teams and larger groups and for which there is research evidence for enhanced team or group effectiveness. Next, we summarize the research evidence on team science leadership. We then discuss professional leadership development for team science leaders. We then use the research evidence as a guide to consider how leadership strategies can address the challenges for team science created by the seven features outlined in Chapter 1 and conclude with a conclusion and a recommendation for the future leadership of science teams and groups.

• DEFINING LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Our study charge calls for consideration of how different management approaches and leadership styles influence the effectiveness of team science. The distinction between management and leadership has been defined in the research literature in multiple ways. For example, Kotter (2001 , p. 85) proposed that leadership and management are “two distinctive and complementary systems of action.” Kotter (2001) proposed that the main functions of leadership are to set direction, to align people, and to motivate and inspire them, while the main functions of management are to develop concrete plans for carrying out work, to allocate resources appropriately, to create an organizational structure and staffing plan, and to monitor results and to develop problem-solving strategies when needed. However, Drath et al. (2008 , p. 647) pointed out that these functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive: “alignment is often achieved through structure and many of the aspects of shared work usually categorized as management, such as planning, budgeting, supervisory controls, performance management, and reward systems.” Recognizing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a strict line between leadership and management, we have not attempted to completely disentangle the two functions. Therefore, while this chapter focuses primarily on leadership, the research discussed also addresses aspects of management (as defined by some scholars). Management of organizations that house science teams is discussed further in Chapter 8 .

• RESEARCH FINDINGS ON GENERAL LEADERSHIP AND POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEAM LEADERSHIP

Over half a century of research on leadership has highlighted the nuances and complexities of leading individuals, teams, and organizations. Some leaders are born with the skills and abilities to guide followers, while other leaders are trained through education and opportunities for hands-on experience. Those who lead large organizations successfully are not necessarily successful at leading small groups. Some leaders are charismatic and have a commanding presence in a crowd while other leaders build trust and respect through one-on-one relationships. In short, leadership is not a quality that an individual either has or lacks, and there is not a single leadership style that is effective in all contexts. Rather, leadership is multifaceted, encompassing different ways in which individuals exhibit leadership as well as different environments in which leadership occurs. Leaders' approaches to their team or group members may vary depending upon the nature of the task and goals for the team, as well as the composition of the team. In some cases, a directive, task-oriented approach may be called for, while in other cases, leaders strive to support and encourage team members' ideas, innovations, problem identification, and proposed solutions.

This chapter will show that researchers have focused on many aspects of leadership, including specific leader behaviors, their interactions with followers, and contingent factors that guide how effective a leader is in a given situation.

This general leadership theory and research can inform the emerging field of team leadership, yet it must be noted that leadership quality is very difficult to measure or evaluate; in the research to date, the most common criterion for leadership effectiveness is the subordinates' perception of the effectiveness of their leader, rather than direct measures of team performance. Nonetheless, meta-analytic findings from this extensive literature provide indications of the potential value of leadership in promoting team effectiveness ( Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006) . In this section, we review the research evidence for the impact of behavioral , relational , transformational , transactional , contingency , and contextual approaches to leadership, with particular emphasis on contextual approaches. Each of these approaches entails different behaviors on the part of leaders (and in one case—the relational approach—also emphasizes the behavior of followers), but they are not necessarily mutually exclusive and a single leader can employ multiple approaches.

Behavioral Approach

Influential studies conducted at the Ohio State University in the 1950s identified two overarching features of a behavioral approach to leadership: consideration (i.e., supportive, person-oriented leadership) and initiating structure (i.e., directive, task-oriented leadership) ( Day and Zaccaro, 2007) . Team outcomes have been found to be significantly correlated with both features, suggesting that this classic approach is potentially viable for team leadership as well ( Judge, Piccolo, and Ilies, 2004 ). An advantage of this behavioral approach is its focus on observable leader behaviors rather than personality traits, allowing many of its core elements of this approach to be used with other leadership approaches, especially the transformational approach, discussed below ( Bass and Riggio, 2006) .

Relational Approach

The relational approach, or leader-member exchange theory (LMX), describes the dyadic relationship between leaders and followers, or subordinates. Research shows that followers who negotiate high-quality exchanges with their leaders experience more positive work environments and more effective work outcomes ( Gerstner and Day, 1997 ; Erdogan and Bauer, 2010 ; Wu, Tsui, and Kinicki, 2010 ). In this view, team leaders become especially important for shaping team members' perceptions of their shared environment and of team relationships ( Kozlowski and Doherty, 1989 ; Hofmann, Morgeson, and Gerras, 2003 ).

Transformational Approach

The transformational approach, the most dominant leadership paradigm over the past decade, focuses on leadership styles or behaviors that induce followers to transcend their interests for a greater good ( Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006 ; Day and Antonakis, 2012) . Transformational leadership encompasses the behavioral dimensions of charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

While the transformational approach may be of particular relevance to teams, it has been studied mainly at the individual level of analysis, assessing how leaders using this approach influence individual followers 1 and outcomes rather than team-level outcomes. In one of the few studies looking specifically at teams, Lim and Ployhart (2004) found the transformational approach to be more strongly related to performance in maximal-performance than in typical-performance contexts, supporting the notion that transformational leadership facilitates subordinate motivation and effort. 2 Other studies have linked the transformational approach to facets of a team's collective personality and to its performance/profitability ( Hofmann and Jones, 2005) . Of direct relevance to science teams, recent research has demonstrated the multilevel and cross-level influences of transformational leadership on the effectiveness of innovation teams ( Chen et al., 2013) . In another example of the multilevel influences of organizational and team leadership, Schaubroeck et al. (2012) found that higher-level leaders influence lower-level leaders and teams by serving as leader models to emulate and by crafting cultures that influence the lower level via alternative pathways.

Transactional Approach

The transactional approach ( Bass, 1985) entails leader behaviors aimed at negotiating mutually beneficial exchanges with subordinates. These behaviors can encompass contingent rewards, including clear expectations and linkages with outcomes, active management by exception (i.e., proactive and corrective action), and passive management by exception (i.e., reactive management after the fact).

Contingency and Contextual Approaches

The contingency approach matches the leader's behavior to the context to maximize outcomes and leadership effectiveness. This emphasis on context should be relevant to teams engaged in complex tasks, as is the case for science teams ( Dust and Zeigert, 2012 ; Hoch and Duleborhn, 2013) . While the contingency approach is no longer active in current research, it has been tied to the development of a contextual approach to leadership . As its name suggests, this approach emphasizes a more contextual perspective that recognizes the need to use a combination of approaches to meet the leadership requirements of particular situations ( Hannah et al., 2009 ; Simonton, 2013 ; Hannah and Parry, in press ). For example, the contextual circumstances of a particular team might require shared leadership, in which leaders share leadership roles, functions, and behaviors among team members. Shared leadership can be formally appointed at the outset of an endeavor or can emerge during the course of an activity ( Mann, 1959 ; Judge et al., 2002) . Leadership emergence involves both the extent to which an individual is viewed as a leader by others in the group ( Lord, DeVader, and Alliger, 1986 ; Hogan, Curphy, and Hogan, 1994 ; Judge et al., 2002) , as well as the degree to which an individual exerts influence on others ( Hollander, 1964) .

Contextual leadership should not be viewed as either hierarchal or shared. Instead, research suggests that teams engaged in a combination of both hierarchal and shared forms of leadership have the best outcomes ( Pearce and Sims, 2002 ; Pearce, 2004 ; Ensley, Hmielski, and Pearce, 2006 ). Understanding ways in which more traditional and hierarchical leadership may be used in conjunction with more participative, shared, or otherwise emergent forms of leadership is particularly relevant for effective leadership of science teams and groups. For example, based on extensive, repeated interviews, Hackett (2005) found that the directors of successful microbiology laboratories at elite research universities used and valued both directive, hierarchical leadership and shared, participative leadership styles. It is also important to understand how shifts in leadership hierarchies occur in science teams and groups and how best to manage these shifts, depending on the stage of the research project or the expertise needed at different times.

• RESEARCH FINDINGS ON TEAM LEADERSHIP

The general leadership theories delineated in the previous section have useful, but only indirect, implications for team effectiveness ( Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006) . In part, this is because they focus on a general set of behaviors that are broadly applicable across a wide variety of situations, tasks, and teams. They neglect unique aspects of specific team tasks and processes and the dynamic processes by which team members develop, meld, and synchronize their knowledge, skills, and effort to be effective as a team ( Kozlowski et al., 2009) .

Leadership and Key Team Processes

As discussed in Chapter 3 , team processes have been shown to be connected to team effectiveness, and existing research demonstrates that leadership can influence several of these team processes: team mental models , team climate , psychological safety , team cohesion , team efficacy , and team conflict . Leader behaviors that can influence each of these behaviors in ways that enhance team effectiveness are described below and summarized in Table 6-1 .

Team Processes That Are Influenced by Leader Behaviors.

Several leader behaviors can influence the development of team mental models . Marks, Zaccaro, and Mathieu (2000) found that when leaders provided pre-briefs describing appropriate strategies for carrying out team tasks, there were positive effects on team mental models, as well as team processes and performance. Other research has linked leader pre-briefs/discussions of planning strategies and debriefs/feedback to the development of team mental models ( Smith-Jentsch et al., 1998 ; Stout et al., 1999) .

Leadership can have a significant influence on team climate . Leader practices that define the mission, goals, and instrumentalities for teams can shape team climate ( James and Jones, 1974) , as do communications from team leaders, particularly in terms of what leaders emphasize to team members ( Kozlowski and Doherty, 1989 ; Zohar, 2000 , 2002 ; Zohar and Luria, 2004 ; Schaubroeck et al., 2012) .

Psychological safety is a facet of team climate. Team leaders can foster a climate of psychological safety through coaching, reducing power differentials, and encouraging inclusion ( Edmondson, Bohmer, and Pisano, 2001 ; Edmondson, 2003 ; Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006) .

While research on the antecedents of team cohesion is limited, theory suggests that developmental efforts by team leaders (e.g., Kozlowski et al., 1996 , 2009 ) are likely to have a strong influence on the team's formation and maintenance. Newcomers to teams tend to “respond positively to leader efforts to convey social knowledge, promote inclusion, and communicate acceptance” ( Kozlowski et al., 1996 , p. 269, citing Major and Kozlowski, 1991) . Kozlowski and colleagues (1996) proposed that several leader behaviors therefore promote the development of team cohesion, including explicitly defining social structure, promoting open communications, and modeling self-disclosure.

Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) identified several leadership behaviors that can influence the development of team efficacy . One such behavior is creating mastery experiences that enable team members to build individual self-efficacy, and then shifting the focus of team members toward the team's efficacy. Leadership efforts related to task direction and socio-emotional support have also been found to predict team efficacy ( Chen and Bliese, 2002 , as cited in Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006) .

As discussed in Chapter 3 , team conflict , particularly within diverse teams such as interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary science teams, may be inevitable. Leaders can minimize the harmful effects of conflict on team effectiveness by actively employing conflict management strategies. Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro (2001) identified two approaches to conflict management: preemptive and reactive. Preemptive approaches involve anticipating conflict in advance and guiding team members through the process of resolving conflict by establishing cooperative norms, charters, or other structures. In a study of 32 graduate student teams, Mathieu and Rapp (2009) found that the quality of team charters was related to the quality of the teams' performance. Reactive approaches involve guiding team members in working through conflicts, employing the following strategies: specifying the nature of the disagreement and encouraging team members to develop solutions to the problem, and fostering willingness to accept differences of opinion, openness, flexibility, and compromise ( Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006) .

Based on their analysis of in-depth interviews with members of successful and unsuccessful science teams and larger groups, and building on an earlier guide to team science ( Bennett, Gadlin, and Levine-Finley, 2010 ), Bennett and Gadlin (2012) proposed the use of pre-emptive approaches to manage conflict. Specifically, they suggested that team leaders and members develop explicit collaborative agreements at the beginning of a new research project, articulating how decisions will be made, how data will be shared, how authorship of publications will be handled, and other matters. The process of developing such plans requires the members to discuss and reach agreement on potentially divisive issues in advance, building trust within the team.

Leadership as a Dynamic Process

Team leadership involves the ability to direct and coordinate the activities of team members; assess team performance; assign tasks; develop team knowledge, skills, and abilities; motivate team members; plan and organize; and establish a positive climate ( Salas, Sims, and Burke, 2005 ). This is consistent with research that proposes a functional approach to understanding team leadership structures and processes ( Morgeson, DeRue, and Peterson, 2010 ), conceptualizing effectiveness in terms of team needs, satisfaction, and goal accomplishment ( Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006) .

This functional approach treats team leadership as a dynamic process necessitating adaptive changes in leader behavior, as opposed to treating it as a fixed set of static and universal behavioral dimensions. This implies that leaders must strive to be aware of the key contingencies that necessitate shifts in leadership functions, and they must work to develop the underlying skills needed to help the team maintain fit with its task environment and resolve challenges. Dynamic leadership is a process, not a destination; in other words, dynamic leaders recognize that they must always continue to adapt their behavior to best meet the changing needs of evolving projects. Given the dynamic nature of scientific research, leaders of science teams and groups may be more successful if they adopt a dynamic or functional leadership approach, are psychologically agile, and can use appropriate and varied modes of communication to engage with people from multiple generations, backgrounds, and disciplines.

Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership proposed an approach that might hold promise for effectively incorporating both hierarchical and shared forms of leadership as is necessary in interdependent science teams ( Drath et al., 2008) . They proposed that setting direction , creating alignment , and building commitment is essential among people engaged in shared work, and argued that any action that enables these three elements to occur is a source of leadership. This source could be an individual, a collection of individuals, the task itself, or the external environment. An advantage of this approach is that rather than offering a lengthy list of various leadership functions and behaviors (or competencies), the focus is on just the three core leadership tasks: setting direction, creating alignment, and building commitment.

These core leadership tasks are relevant to teams and can be used as a way to understand the dynamic nature of team processes. For example, Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) proposed that team effectiveness occurs when team processes are aligned with environmentally driven tasks. The core leadership task of creating alignment is consistent with this dynamic conceptualization of team effectiveness. In this sense, team leadership involves all processes that serve to improve team effectiveness. This type of leadership generally evolves throughout the life cycle of a team as the necessary tasks at hand are constantly changing.

Dynamic models of team leadership have two primary foci centered on task cycles or episodes , and the process of team skill acquisition and development . By harnessing cyclic variations in team task cycles to the regulatory processes of goal setting, monitoring/intervention, diagnosis, and feedback, the leader is able to guide team members in the development of targeted knowledge and skills—the cognitive, motivational/affective, and behavioral capabilities that contribute to team effectiveness. There is research evidence in support of this approach to team leadership from a meta-analysis of 131 effects relating team leadership to team performance, which found that team performance outcomes were associated with both task- and person-focused leadership ( Burke et al., 2006) . Specifically, Burke et al. (2006) found that task-focused leadership had a moderate positive effect on perceived team effectiveness ( r = .33) and team productivity/quantity ( r = .20), while person-focused leadership had almost no effect on perceived team effectiveness ( r = .036), a moderate positive effect on team productivity/quantity ( r = .28), and a larger positive effect on team learning ( r = .56). Importantly, task interdependence was also shown to be a significant moderator in that leadership had a larger effect when task interdependence was high. The results of this research suggest that leadership in teams influences team performance outcomes by shaping the way team members work with core tasks, and by attending to the socio-emotional needs of the team.

A theory of dynamic team leadership, developed by Kozlowski and colleagues ( Kozlowski et al., 2009) , elaborates on the role of the formal leader in the team development process in helping the team move from relatively novice to expert status and beyond while building adaptive capabilities in the team. In these latter stages of team development, the team takes on more responsibility for its learning, leadership, and performance. In this manner, vertical and shared leadership operate sequentially with a formal leader helping the team prepare itself to take on the core functions of leadership and learning. Thus, building adaptive team capabilities or collective leadership capacity ( Day, Gronn, and Salas, 2004 ) is an important team leadership challenge.

Tannenbaum and colleagues (2012) observed that the evolving drive for collaborative leadership reflects the changing nature of teams and the environments in which they operate. As team or larger group size increases, it becomes necessary for leaders to distribute certain leadership tasks, empower team members for more self-management, and create good learning opportunities for the members.

Current research suggests that team empowerment is facilitated by supportive organizational structures ( Hempel, Zhang, and Han, 2012 ); team-based human resource policies for training, development, and rewards ( Adler and Chen, 2011) ; and team-based and external reinforcing leaders ( Kirkman and Rosen, 1999) . Chen and Tesluk (2012) identified individual-level, team-level, and organizational-level antecedents to team empowerment. At the individual level, self-view, degree of self-efficacy, and need for achievement; job characteristics (such as level of ambiguity and unit size); and the quality of relationships with supervisors and coworkers influence team empowerment. At the team level, leadership behaviors, team climate, and team work characteristics can influence team empowerment. At the organizational level, organizational climate and human resource management practices such as employee development systems and team-based rewards and training were identified as possible antecedents to team empowerment ( Chen and Tesluk, 2012) .

Finally, the goal-directed activities of team task performance are cyclical in nature and constantly changing ( Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro, 2001 ). This episodic perspective on team tasks distinguishes between action and transition phases of team performance, with the former focusing on task engagement and the latter on task preparation and follow-up reflection. This has important leadership implications. Specifically, there are certain processes or actions that are targeted at managing the team transition phase (e.g., mission analysis, goal specification, strategy formulation and planning), other actions targeted for the action phase (e.g., monitoring progress, systems monitoring, team monitoring and backup, coordination), and actions that are relevant for both transition and action phases (e.g., conflict management, motivating and confidence building, affect management). Dynamic models of team leadership can be conceptualized in contingency or contextual leadership terms, given that different actions or leadership functions are required in different phases of team performance. Consonant with this perspective, a recent study has proposed a model of transdisciplinary team-based research encompassing four distinct phases ( Hall et al., 2012b) .

Leadership and Team Faultlines

One area of research that is highly relevant to team leadership for effective team functioning is the topic of faultlines . As discussed in Chapter 4 , faultlines are defined as boundaries that develop between subgroups within teams that detract from their overall effectiveness. Because faultlines escalate group conflict ( Thatcher and Patel, 2012) , their management, viewed within the construct of shared leadership, is essential for well-functioning teams. On the flip side, team conflict may also increase innovation by redirecting energy toward creating new ideas.

A strategy that leaders can use to mitigate subgroup conflict and strive instead toward innovation is to build superordinate team identification and superordinate goals ( Bezrukova et al., 2009 ; Jehn and Bezrukova, 2010 ; Rico et al., 2012) . Team identification and the strength of members' attachment to the group may bind members together into a powerful psychological entity ( Ashforth and Mael, 1989 ; Chao and Moon, 2005 ; Van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005) . Empirical research has demonstrated better performance of faultline groups when team identification is high ( Bezrukova et al., 2009) . Another way leaders might reinforce superordinate team identification is by establishing common goals, norms, or cultural values. Cultural misalignment between subgroup values and those of the larger business unit has negative implications for performance ( Bezrukova et al., 2012) . Multicultural teams may be particularly vulnerable to the development of team faultlines. Fussell and Setlock (2012) discussed types of cultural variation and the effects on teamwork, and offered several strategies for overcoming challenges presented to leaders of culturally diverse teams, including offering culture-specific and diversity awareness training for team members, developing team interaction strategies to address particular cultural issues (such as providing an anonymous way to make contributions to team discussions when some members of the team are from a culture that discourages public disagreement with leaders), and using appropriate collaboration tools.

Another approach to mitigating conflict betweeen subgroups is to create a cross-cutting strategy such as a reward system or task role assignment that cuts across the larger group ( Homan et al., 2008 ; Rico et al., 2012) . For example, in a science team or larger group, engineers and scientists may be grouped together to work on different aspects of a prototype. The crosscutting identification with the shared task would be expected to decrease bias and contribute to productive communication by reducing psychological distance between subgroups of engineers and scientists.

Finding common ground is yet another strategy that team leaders can use to leverage external conflict to make faultlines less salient. This approach unites the team to “fight” against common “enemies” outside the team ( Tajfel, 1982 ; Brewer, 1999) . In this way, the team members can perceive higher levels of team efficacy, autonomy, and relatedness, leading to increased team motivation and self-regulation ( Ommundsen, Lemyre, and Abrahamsen (2010) .

Intergroup Leadership

One area of research on leadership in business and government that may be relevant to leading science teams and larger group involves intergroup leadership . As Pittinsky and Simon (2007) discussed, leaders can encounter challenges in their efforts to foster positive relationships among subgroups of followers or constituents. Behaviors that foster subgroup or team cohesiveness can positively impact outcomes within the subgroup or team, but at a cost to relationships with other subgroups or teams, which can ultimately have a negative impact on outcomes of both the subgroups or teams and the larger business or governmental organization. This is similar to the challenge of leading multiteam systems discussed later in this chapter. Pittinsky and Simon (2007) discuss five leadership strategies for promoting positive intergroup relations: (1) encouraging contact between groups, (2) actively managing resources and interdependencies, (3) promoting superordinate identities, (4) promoting dual identities, and (5) promoting positive intergroup attitudes. Hogg, van Knippenberg, and Rast (2012) also discussed the importance of intergroup leadership and identify the leader's ability to promote an “intergroup relational identity” (p. 233) as critical to the development of positive intergroup relationships.

• RESEARCH FINDINGS ON TEAM SCIENCE LEADERSHIP

In this section, we focus on the existing literature on science teams and larger groups and discuss the leadership challenges.

Models of Team Science Leadership

Because science teams and larger groups share many features with teams and groups in other contexts, their leaders can enhance effectiveness partly by facilitating the team processes shown to enhance effectiveness in other contexts, as shown in Table 6-1 above. Research and theory conducted in science contexts also suggest that leader behaviors to foster these processes will enhance effectiveness. For example, B. Gray (2008) proposed that transdisciplinary teams require leadership that creates a shared mental model or mindset among team members (i.e., cognitive tasks; see also O'Donnell and Derry, 2005 ); attends to the basic structural needs of the team in terms of managing coordination and information exchange within the team and between the team and external actors (i.e., structural tasks); and also focuses on developing effective process dynamics within the team (i.e., procedural tasks).

B. Gray's (2008) view of collaborative team science leadership is conceptually very similar to shared leadership, discussed earlier. It may be tempting therefore to conclude that effective leadership in science teams can best be accomplished by facilitating collaborative and shared leadership processes; however, this conclusion may be both premature and overly simplistic. As noted above, Hackett (2005) found that the directors of successful microbiology laboratories at elite research universities used and valued both directive, hierarchical leadership and shared, participative leadership styles. Some of these science leaders adopted permissive, participative leadership styles, allowing students and colleagues autonomy to learn and develop their own approaches, while others were more forceful in their direction and follow more sharply drawn lines of inquiry. This apparent leadership paradox is consistent with the notion that there is no one best way to lead in terms of enhancing team effectiveness. Hackett (2005) proposed that the different leadership styles reflected each director's multiple roles as a scientist, leader, teacher, and mentor. Spending time in the laboratory may give a director greater control over technologies and subordinate scientists, but less time for writing the proposals, papers, and reviews that sustain the laboratory's funding and its identity within the larger scientific community. Over time, many of the directors had lost their cutting-edge scientific skills and become more reliant on the work of their followers, creating new tensions of leadership.

The research suggests that team science leaders would benefit from developing skills and behaviors that would allow them to practice directive as well as more participative, collaborative, or shared styles of leadership depending on team needs. This is consistent with the dynamic leadership processes described in the previous section.

Similar to studies in other contexts showing a relationship between leader behaviors, team processes, and team effectiveness, a study of academic science teams in Europe found significant positive relationships between supervisory behavior, group climate (a team process), and research productivity ( Knorr et al., 1979) . Supervisory quality was measured by surveys of followers' satisfaction, including survey items related to the supervisor's planning functions (e.g., satisfaction with the quality of research program, satisfaction with personnel policies) and integrative functions (e.g., satisfaction with group climate, feeling of attachment to the research unit). Within the overall positive relationship between supervisory quality and group climate, ratings of the supervisors' planning and integrative functions were the most important intervening variables.

One practical way to deal with the complexities of leading science teams or groups is through engaging the members to collectively develop a team charter, which provides a written agreement for task accomplishment and teamwork and has been shown to enhance effectiveness in teams outside of science ( Mathieu and Rapp, 2009) .

Emerging Team Science Models and Leadership Implications

The two models of team science described in Chapter 3 incorporate many of the leadership concepts discussed in this chapter, highlighting the potential value of professional development for team science leaders.

In their integrative capacity model, Salazar and colleagues (2012) proposed that leaders of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary teams or larger groups can build the capacity for deep knowledge integration (one of the key features introduced in Chapter 1 ) through several leadership styles and behaviors. For example, leaders who use an empowering leadership style can enhance the use of the team's intellectual resources ( Kumpfer et al., 1993) . This facilitates equal access to dialogue that is often hindered by status and power differences ( Ridgeway, 1991 ; Bacharach, Bamberger, and Mundell, 1993 ). Building consensus through team developmental strategies such as experiential learning and appreciative inquiry, another leadership technique, can help to develop agreement around goals and problem definition, ultimately facilitating integrative knowledge creation ( Stokols, 2006) . Leaders who listen for places where clarification might be needed are best placed to communicate knowledge across geographic boundaries ( Olson and Olson, 2000) . Finally, conflict management (i.e., minimizing team divisions, as in managing the faultiness discussed above) and affect management (i.e., the facilitation of trust between team members) can serve as effective ways in which to foster collaboration and knowledge generation ( Csikszentmihalyi, 1994 ; B. Gray, 2008 ; Salazar et al., 2012) .

The integrative capacity model has important implications for research on team science leadership. The model's authors are currently conducting a study to determine how the development of a team's integrative capacity and subsequent knowledge outcomes are impacted by boundary-spanning leadership behaviors and interventions. The research has the potential to fill a vital gap within the literature by both developing measures of these constructs and empirically testing the theoretical propositions linking integrative capacity to the creation of new knowledge in multidisciplinary teams. The authors will measure the constructs and test their relationship to the theoretical propositions using a large-scale highly controlled quasi-experimental research design a sample of more than 40 interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science teams across several U.S. universities.

The four-phase model proposed by Hall et al. (2012b) provides a roadmap to enhance the development, management, and evaluation of transdisciplinary research (see Box 3-2 ). It includes four relatively distinct phases: development, conceptualization, implementation, and translation and suggests the use of several tools to accomplish the goals of each phase, such as research networking tools in the development phase (see Chapter 4 ), the “Toolbox” seminars during the conceptualization phase (see Chapter 5 ), and conflict management tools during the implementation phase. This new model suggests that leaders can play a valuable role by providing the appropriate tools at each phase and working to ensure that team members use and learn from these tools.

Role of Scientific Expertise

Most leaders of science teams and larger groups are appointed or elected to these positions based on their scientific expertise ( Bozeman and Boardman, 2013) , and there is some evidence that subordinate scientists rate the quality of their leaders primarily in terms of such expertise ( Knorr et al., 1979 ; Hackett, 2005) . B. Gray (2008) suggested that relevant scientific expertise is critical to the leadership behaviors of managing meaning and visioning in transdisciplinary science teams or larger groups.

Leaders manage meaning for others by introducing a mental map of desired goals and the methods for achieving them while at the same time promoting individual creativity. . . . In transdisciplinary research, the cognitive tasks of leadership largely consist of visioning and framing. . . . This visioning process is referred to as intellectual stimulation by transformational leadership researchers, and includes leader behaviors that promote divergent thinking, risk taking, and challenges to established methods. Transdisciplinary leaders need to be able to envision how various disciplines may overlap in constructive ways that could generate scientific breakthroughs and new understanding in a specific problem area. They themselves need to appreciate the value of such endeavors, be able to communicate their vision to potential collaborators, and construct a climate that fosters this collaboration (2008, pp. S125–S126).

Similarly, Bennett and Gadlin (2012) proposed that effective team science leaders are able to articulate the scientific project vision, both to the research community and the home institution, in a way that allows each team member to recognize his or her contributions. Some leaders of large scientific groups have called for creating a new position, the interdisciplinary executive scientist. This role would be filled by individuals who have both project management skills and deep expertise in at least one of the disciplinary areas involved in the interdisciplinary endeavor. 3

Leadership of Multiteam Systems

A multiteam system is a complex system of teams created to accomplish goals too ambitious for any single team ( Zaccaro and DeChurch, 2012) . The system may consist of various types of teams and involve different leadership structures ( Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro, 2001 ). In science, multiteam systems may be engaged in interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research projects, which aim to deeply integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines and perspectives (one of the key features introduced in Chapter 1 ). Team leaders as well as members face the challenges emerging from this feature, as they may be unfamiliar with disciplines and perspectives included in their projects.

Of direct relevance to the seven key features that generate challenges for team science, some factors thought to be important in motivating different forms of multiteam leadership include the overall size of the multiteam system, the amount and kind of diversity, geographic dispersion, the level of interdependence among component teams, and power distribution among teams. More mature multiteam systems are reported to display greater levels of shared leadership than less mature multiteam systems, which makes sense given that shared leadership takes time to develop ( DeRue, 2011) . An example of this evolution, described further in Box 6-1 , is the shared leadership within the large multiteam system of physicists, engineers, and computer scientists conducting research enabled by the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The development of this shared leadership approach within what has been described as a “communitarian culture” in particle physics was born of necessity, because the funding level required for such large facilities precludes funding similar projects in multiple locations. In light of the growth of multiteam systems, other disciplines than particle physics might benefit from a similar philosophy and leadership approach.

CERN: An Example of Successful Multiteam System Leadership. On July 4, 2012, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, announced the observation of a new subatomic particle consistent with the Higgs boson. (more...)

In multiteam systems, leaders can engage participants in developing charters as a way to develop effective norms for between-team communication and leadership processes ( Asencio et al., 2012) . The process of creating a charter can also be used to identify a representative from each team who would participate in system-level leadership, help coordinate multiteam actions, and convey information across team boundaries.

To date there has been relatively little empirical research on leadership in multiteam systems. One study involved analyses of critical incidents in mission-critical multiteam environments, such as disaster relief systems ( DeChurch et al., 2011) . Based on the analysis, the authors identified a set of leadership behaviors that promoted positive team and interteam processes and enhanced performance of the multiteam systems. These behaviors included formulating overall strategy and coordinating the activities of the component teams. In a laboratory study examining leadership functions hypothesized to be important in synchronizing multiteam systems, DeChurch and Marks (2006) manipulated leader strategizing and coordinating and assessed their effects on functional leadership, interteam coordination, and the performance of the multiteam system. Results supported a multilevel (i.e., team and multiteam) model in which leader training positively influenced functional leadership, which in turn improved inter-team coordination, and ultimately resulted in improved performance of the multiteam system.

• LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FOR TEAM SCIENCE LEADERS

Leader and team member skills and knowledge are essential to foster effective team science. This includes both scientific knowledge and skills relevant to the research problem at hand and knowledge and skills to foster positive team or group processes that, in turn, enhance scientific effectiveness. The previous chapter discussed education and professional development for team members. Here we discuss approaches to developing the skills and knowledge required for effective leadership of science teams and larger groups.

Research conducted in contexts outside science has found that formal leadership development interventions can help leaders develop the capacity to foster positive team and organizational processes, thereby increasing team or organizational effectiveness (e.g., Avolio et al., 2009 ; Collins and Holton, 2004) . For example, in a meta-analysis of research on leadership and performance, Avolio et al. (2009) found, across 37 leadership training and development interventions, a positive corrected effect size ( d ) of .60. The authors also analyzed the return on investments in the training and development interventions included in the study. They found that investments in the interventions with moderate to strong effects would yield positive returns in improved performance. For example, for a mid-level leader, the return on an investment in a development intervention with moderate effects ranged from 36 percent for online training to 169 percent for on-site training. As noted above, in their laboratory study of multiteam system leadership, DeChurch and Marks (2006) found that leader training positively influenced functional leadership, which in turn improved interteam coordination, thereby improving the performance of the multiteam system.

Leadership development trajectories are influenced not only by formal training and leadership development programs, but also by experience in leadership positions. Day (2010) noted that deliberate practice is a very important component of leadership development, as is fostering a sense of identity as a leader, which can lead to greater interesting in learning about leadership and improving leadership skills (see Day, Sin, and Chen, 2004 ; Day and Harrison, 2007 ; Day, 2011 ; Day and Sin, 2011) . In addition to the mechanisms of formal training programs and experiential learning, self-directed learning or self-development can play an important role in leadership development (see Boyce, Zaccaro, and Wisecarver [2010] for an examination of leaders' propensity for self-development). Formal leadership training interventions may work to improve leadership styles and behaviors partly by fostering participants' sense of identity as a leader, and thus supporting experiential and self-directed learning.

The scientific community has begun to recognize the potential benefit of formal professional development for team or group leaders. Efforts are under way to extend and translate the leadership research to science contexts, as briefly described in the examples below.

Science Executive Education

This program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) is designed to address the fact that science executives who manage science enterprises often learn on-the-job through trial and error, usually without benefit of knowledge from organization science that might help them. As is the case for business executives, science executives need expertise in organizational governance, innovation management, resource provisioning, workforce development, turnover reduction, process improvement, and strategic leadership. However, for important contextual reasons, such as the fact that the business focus is on competitive industries rather than the pre-competitive world of basic research, business education models usually cannot be directly applied to science. Science executives increasingly have to balance long-term versus short-term goals, temporary projects versus permanent organizations, planning versus spontaneous action, and standardization versus fluid technical innovation. Hence, the lack of science executive expertise is regarded as a “rate-limiter” to moving toward greater coordination and collaboration.

In response to this need, the Science Executive Education Program was developed, drawing on research on interorganizational governance, virtual teams, distributed team collaboration, and innovation management involving organizational learning and memory. Extending project management to entrepreneurial leadership is at the center of science executive education ( Cummings and Keisler, 2007 , 2011 ; Karasti, Baker, and Millerant, 2010 ; Claggett and Berente 2012 ; Rubleske and Berente, 2012) . Science executive education focuses on four main areas: matching sources and uses for funds over time, explaining the “value-added” of centers to various constituencies, improving hiring and retention of key employees, and better handling of the “socio” in socio-technical systems.

Project Science Workshops

This program, which has been in existence for 11 years, aims to develop project management skills for leaders of large scientific research projects. Developed by astronomer Gary Sanders with support from NSF, the annual workshop uses didactic presentations and case studies to cover a range of project management challenges, including design of complex projects and the tools needed for their management. 4 Topics at the workshop have included large-scale collaborative science; building scientific structure and partnerships; and selection, governance, and management of unique large-scale research facilities. The 2012 workshop attracted scientists from a wide range of large projects, such as the Blue Waters supercomputer at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the Summit Station Greenland facilities, the iPlant collaborative focused on creating cyber infrastructure and tools for plant biology, and the interdisciplinary team creating the Thirty Meter Telescope in Pasadena, California.

Leadership for Innovative Team Science (LITeS)

The Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) developed the LITeS Program in 2008 to strengthen participants' leadership, to foster team science through the establishment of a network of researchers who can support one another, and to increase opportunities for researchers to collaborate across disciplines. The program is provided annually to a cohort of both senior and developing leaders working in clinical and translational research at the University of Colorado, and is structured as a full-year experience that includes participation in small-group projects and four workshops covering a variety of topics relevant to science team leadership, as well as individual feedback and coaching ( Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, 2014) . The program description on the institute's website ( Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, 2014 , p. 6) states that the LITeS Program “is designed to address three major domains for leadership: (1) knowledge of individual leadership styles and behaviors; (2) interpersonal and team skills for leading, managing, and working with people; and (3) process skills for increasing quality and efficiency in the work of academic leadership.”

• ADDRESSING THE SEVEN FEATURES THAT CREATE CHALLENGES FOR TEAM SCIENCE

The research findings on the general topic of leadership, team leadership, and science teams in particular address the challenges of team science in unique ways. The consistent theme from this research is that no single leadership style or behavior can be prescribed for effective leadership and management of science teams, but rather, a combination of approaches is required. This combination encompasses: shared and hierarchical leadership; contingency and dynamic leadership that recognize the cyclical and temporal needs of a team as it develops and evolves over time; goal alignment; and the management of faultlines within and between teams that manifest as conflict, including conflict that drives innovation. Moreover, emerging research suggests that leaders of science teams and larger groups can be helped to acquire leadership behaviors and management skills. In Table 6-2 , we summarize how the research findings discussed in the previous section might be applied to address each of the team science features that can create communication and coordination challenges.

Addressing Seven Features That Create Challenges for Team Science.

• SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION

Currently, most leaders of science teams and larger groups are appointed to their positions based solely on scientific expertise and lack formal leadership training. At the same time, an extensive body of research on organizational and team leadership in contexts outside of science has illuminated leadership styles and behaviors that foster positive interpersonal processes, thereby enhancing organizational and team performance. Extending and translating this research could inform the creation of research-based leadership development programs for leaders of science teams and groups. The committee expects that such programs would strengthen science team leaders' capacity to guide and facilitate the team processes, thereby enhancing team effectiveness.

CONCLUSION. Fifty years of research on team and organizational leadership in contexts other than science provide a robust foundation of evidence to guide professional development for leaders of science teams and larger groups . RECOMMENDATION 3: Leadership researchers, universities, and leaders of team science projects should partner to translate and extend the leadership literature to create and evaluate science leadership development opportunities for team science leaders and funding agency program officers .

For leaders to exercise influence, followers must allow themselves to be influenced ( Uhl-Bien and Pillai, 2007) . For a discussion of followership theory and a review of research related to followership, see Uhl-Bien et al. (2014) .

Maximal-performance contexts involve tasks of relatively short duration in which team members are aware that performance is being evaluated and accept that that maximal performance is expected on the task ( Sackett, Zedeck, and Fogli, 1988 , as cited in Lim and Ployhart, 2004) .

See https://www ​.teamsciencetoolkit ​.cancer.gov/Public/expertBlog ​.aspx?tid ​=4&rid=1838 [April 2015] for further discussion of this proposed position.

More information is available at http://www ​.projectscience.org/ [April 2015].

• Cite this Page Committee on the Science of Team Science; Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council; Cooke NJ, Hilton ML, editors. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2015 Jul 15. 6, Team Science Leadership.
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• Published: 21 July 2021

Five ways team leaders can improve research culture

• Zoë Ayres   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3805-2722 1  

Nature Reviews Materials volume  6 ,  pages 758–759 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Good mental health and wellbeing of research staff and students lead to better science: it is time to reflect on what we can do as team leaders to create a positive research culture.

Mental health concerns in academia are at an all-time high. With approximately one in two PhD students experiencing common mood disorders such as anxiety and/or depression 1 , 2 (which is six times the rate for the general population) 2 , and with 78% of UK research staff showing moderate to severe signs of mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic , it is clear something needs to change. These statistics are reflected within our postdoctoral community, with 51% of postdocs having considered leaving science altogether due to mental-health issues related to their work 3 . With such a high incidence of mental health concerns, providing support for team members is essential. But as team leaders we can often be left wondering — what can we actually do to help?

The first and most important step for us as team leaders is to acknowledge is that mental health concerns are not just brought about by biological factors and that the onus for staying well is not just on the individual. A person may have pre-existing mental illnesses, but a toxic working environment can make it difficult even for the most resilient to survive. In short: the working environment we create as team leaders can impact the mental wellness of those around us. By acknowledging this fact, we can work towards building and reinforcing a positive research culture where every member of our team can thrive.

There are many environmental factors that can add stress and lead to worsened mental wellbeing for students and staff. For example, financial struggles, feeling like an impostor (the ‘impostor phenomenon’), being subject to bullying and harassment, or simply feeling like a ‘bad scientist’ because science is not going to plan, can all have negative effects. And whilst one person’s experience may be different to another’s, there are often common themes that emerge that we, as team leaders, have influence over.

Foster collaboration, not competition

In a report by the Wellcome Trust , 78% of researchers said that high levels of competition in their workplace had created unkind and aggressive research conditions. This is not conducive to maintaining mental wellness: it can lead people to working long hours in a ‘race to the bottom’ to stay ‘ahead’ of others 4 . This is damaging both to mental and physical health, with overwork being a key contributor to occupational stress 5 . It is therefore important that as team leaders we encourage our staff and students to take time off and not routinely overwork. The culture of overwork is often reinforced passively — if we never take breaks, our team will infer they cannot either. As team leaders we must therefore lead by example (where we can). Further, a highly competitive environment can make it difficult for our staff and students to speak to one another about how they are feeling and reach out to their colleagues when they need support. For those of you that wish to use competition as a motivator, consider having your team compete with external groups, rather than internally, to create a more positive working environment.

Put the conversation on the agenda

One of the biggest issues with mental health is that we simply do not talk about it due to stigma, and yet talking can often help those struggling. As team leaders we can be creative in how we start off the conversation, for example incorporating papers on research culture, like the report by the Wellcome Trust ‘What researchers think about the culture they work in’, into our journal clubs, creating a safe space for discussion. Further, simply taking the time to discuss with our staff and students about how they are actually getting on and how they are feeling at the start of one-to-one meetings, rather than jumping straight into discussing science, can be beneficial. Sometimes it is small but simple changes in our behaviour that can have long-term impact on the wellbeing of those around us.

Address bullying and harassment

Unfortunately bullying and harassment are rife in science, with around one in five PhD students experiencing one or both 6 . It is important to understand that bullying can be perpetuated by team leaders who enable toxic behaviour to happen. It is our responsibility to understand our own biases (we all have them) and call out discriminatory behaviour within our own research groups by members of our team. If we do not do this, we risk alienating vulnerable team members. Feeling isolated and targeted can have huge mental health implications. Visible reporting routes are also essential to support our staff and students: if they don’t exist, we must advocate for them to be introduced at our institutions.

Seek training

As team leaders, we have typically been elevated to our position based on scientific merit and our publication record. Very few of us have training in mental health support (something that universities and institutions need to work on). In the meantime, seeking out training for ourselves is key. By developing skills to respond to a student in crisis we not only help the student but also ourselves: it can be incredibly stressful to manage a crisis situation with no training. Having knowledge of the resources that are available to support staff and students, be it referrals to medical support or talking therapy, can also help our staff and students get the rapid support they require.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable

It can be all too easy for people to internalize the (incorrect) notion that to be a scientist is to ‘think and not feel’ 7 , which leads to increased impostor feelings, a reduced sense of belonging and ultimately impacts mental health. Leading a team, we can often think that strength lies in appearing infallible, but our staff and students benefit from seeing us as real people behind the scientific work that we do. If we don’t show on occasion how we feel, and that we are human, when others are struggling it can be hard for them to seek help and turn to us for support.

As a final note — undoubtedly we will get things wrong. Mental health is complex, and we are learning too. It is important to recognize that even as team leaders we cannot control everything, particularly when it comes to the personal lives and experiences of our team members. Instead we can realize the positive impact we can have on the day-to-day workings of our laboratories and research groups. We can set boundaries. We can decide which behaviours get reinforced and which do not. We can choose to be become more informed on mental health topics to support our staff and students. By realizing the power that resides with us and in the example we set, we can make a difference and work towards making science a safer, more inclusive space for everyone. It starts with us.

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How leaders can get their teams to push back

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Imperial research has identified evidence-based strategies managers can use to build teams with the confidence to challenge them.

Companies hire people for a reason – because they value their knowledge, skills and experience. Making the most of those hires, however, can be difficult if they don’t feel they can challenge their bosses when they have bad ideas or suggest inappropriate courses of action.

There is hardly an organisation anywhere that has not struggled with this problem. In 2023, a report from the National Guardian’s Office found that many NHS staff did not feel comfortable speaking up to challenge decisions and practices, even when patients’ lives were on the line. And in 2021, Credit Suisse lost $5.5 billion following the collapse of Archegos Capital, with a report finding that “a cultural unwillingness to engage in challenging discussions” was a major factor in the crisis.

Clearly, a corporate culture in which employees do not have the confidence to challenge leaders carries risks of significant financial loss and organisational failure. So how can leaders build teams that do have the confidence to challenge them where necessary?

Our research identifies a number of evidence-based strategies leaders can use to help foster a culture of positive, constructive challenge, which can both mitigate risk and improve decision making.

Experimental approach

We worked with the Financial Services Culture Board and conducted an 18-month field study in a global financial institution. As part of the project, we set up, transcribed and analysed data from 43 meetings in which leaders asked their teams to put forward ideas to mitigate some of the institution’s emerging risks.

Secretly, the leaders were asked to endorse the idea that they, in fact, believed was the worst one raised during the meeting. We wanted to see how team members responded to this – whether they endorsed or challenged it. And if they did challenge it, whether we could identify anything that the leaders did that encouraged their dissent.

Below, we summarise some of the techniques we found to be the most and least effective in eliciting challenge from teams.

• Ask for challenge: People generally want to do what their superiors ask them to do. So, rather than using open-ended or general questions, frame the question in terms of the challenge you want (e.g. “what reasons are there not to do this?”). This allows your team to challenge you because you’ve explicitly asked for it.
• Make staff accountable: Although people may be reluctant to challenge leaders, they are usually even less keen to be responsible for a bad course of action. As a result, making staff feel accountable for their viewpoints tends to encourage challenge. This can be through questions (e.g. “which of the two options do you prefer?”) or asking team members to vote on different courses of action.
• Request disagreement: Leaders are more likely to ask whether people agree than disagree with them. However, the natural tendency to defer to authority means the other person likely will say they agree. In the same way, asking for disagreement helps individuals feel confident enough to disagree, as it makes clear that dissent is an option.
• Respond appropriately: It’s logical to assume that thanking team members for their contributions will encourage them and others to speak up, but we actually found that gratitude is associated with a lower likelihood that challenge will follow. Acknowledging challenge as legitimate (e.g. “I think that’s a fair comment”) is a much surer way of eliciting further challenge.
• Keep it fun and interactive: We found a significant correlation between the amount of challenge offered and the proportion of team members who spoke in a meeting. To encourage this, leaders can take an active role in engaging those who are yet to speak, and use jokes and conversation to help team members feel comfortable participating.
• Don’t put people on the spot: Asking individuals directly for their views makes them feel like a spotlight is shining on them: vulnerable and exposed. This means they’re more likely to say what they think they should – which usually means agreeing with whatever their boss has said – than what they really believe.
• Avoid pleading or being too general: Equally, pleading for input with general, open-ended questions (e.g. “anyone have any thoughts?”) risks going too far the other way – there is no pressure on team members to contribute meaningfully, so they are more likely to automatically agree and avoid the discomfort of challenging.
• Don’t squeeze the discussion in: When leaders don’t leave enough time for frank discussion, challenge is less likely. There’s no precise figure for how long a meeting should be, but leaders should allow time for people to feel comfortable and freely debate ideas. Asking “Any questions?” a minute before the end is not likely to yield constructive contributions.

Right environment

We can summarise these principles with a simple acronym: ACTS – accountability, conversations, time and solicitation. Building a working environment on these pillars can help to instil a culture of challenge, where staff speak out about what they feel is best for the business, regardless of hierarchy.

This article draws on findings from “ Facilitating Constructive Challenge: Concrete Ways Leaders Recruit (and Repress) Speaking Up ” by Celia Moore, Kate Coombs, Minjie Gao and Juliane Schittek (Imperial College London).

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PHILADELPHIA , Oct. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Every Cure, a nonprofit biotech that utilizes AI to unleash the potential of every approved medicine to treat every disease it possibly can, is thrilled to announce the addition of two new leaders from the drug development industry to its medical research team. Committed to evaluating and advancing the most promising therapeutic opportunities across all drugs and diseases, Every Cure collaborates with best-in-class experts on clinical research studies. By incorporating deep expertise in translational research into the team, Every Cure ensures that AI-driven treatment predictions are validated and effectively reach patients in need. As the strength of Every Cure's AI platform continues to expand, the organization remains dedicated to validating treatment predictions through laboratory work and clinical trials, translating data into tangible cures. These strategic appointments reflect Every Cure's dedication to innovation and excellence in discovering new applications for existing medications, driving significant breakthroughs in patient care and health outcomes worldwide.

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The new team members will drive the initiative to translate predictions from Every Cure's AI model into a pipeline of clinically validated treatments for neglected diseases. Predicted drug-disease matches will undergo rigorous evaluation for mechanistic rationale and clinical relevance, facilitating their advancement to patients and refining the AI platform to expedite access to life-saving treatments.

Introducing the New Members of the Executive Team:

Richard Riese, MD, PhD –  Dr. Riese serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Every Cure. He is a physician-scientist with over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and academic medicine, driven by a deep commitment to delivering treatments to patients suffering from rare and debilitating diseases. Dr. Riese brings extensive clinical development experience across both large and small biopharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Alexion, and Alnylam. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical Research at Allovir, Inc.,where he oversaw the clinical development of virus-specific T cells to fight latent virus infections in immunocompromised individuals. His expertise will be invaluable in guiding Every Cure's efforts to identify and expedite the development of effective, repurposed therapies, ensuring that innovative treatments reach patients more quickly and safely.

Ruxandra Draghia-Akli , MD, PhD - Dr. Draghia-Akli serves as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at Every Cure. Her extensive career in human genetics, rare diseases, gene therapies, and nucleic acid vaccines has made substantial contributions to public health. At Johnson & Johnson, she spearheaded the establishment of a Global Public Health R&D organization focused on developing solutions for critical health threats like Dengue and tuberculosis. She has played pivotal roles in the European Commission's health initiatives and co-chaired the ACTIV program, initiated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Dr. Draghia-Akli will join Novavax in November 2024 as Executive Vice President and Head of Research & Development (R&D), focused on building partnerships with industry and public health organizations. As Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Every Cure, Dr. Draghia-Akli will utilize her vast experience and strategic vision to guide Every Cure's efforts in identifying and advancing drug repurposing opportunities with the greatest potential impact.

This expanded executive team signifies a strategic enhancement to Every Cure's leadership, underscoring the organization's commitment to advancing its mission with renewed vigor and expertise. The diverse backgrounds of these colleagues in drug development, global health, and operational strategy collectively strengthen the organization's capacity. With their guidance, Every Cure aims to transform the global treatment landscape, improving health outcomes and enhancing the quality of life for countless individuals.

For more information on Every Cure's initiatives and to learn how you can contribute, visit EveryCure.org .

For further information or to express interest in partnering with Every Cure, please contact us at [email protected]

About Every Cure

Every Cure  is a nonprofit biotech that utilizes AI to unleash the potential of every approved medicine to treat every disease it possibly can. Every Cure believes that repurposing medicines represents the fastest and most efficient way to tackle critical health challenges all while optimizing the return on investment in the effort to save lives. Unfortunately, systemic barriers often hinder effective repurposing, leaving patients without access to available potential treatments. To tackle these challenges, Every Cure leverages its AI platform to efficiently identify and evaluate drug repurposing opportunities across all drugs and diseases. This process is guided by objective data and insights from global experts, patient advocacy groups, and research foundations, ensuring a comprehensive strategy that maximizes the potential for discovering effective repurposed treatments. Every Cure aims to update clinical guidelines and may conduct clinical trials as part of its mission to ensure effective therapies reach those in need. Every Cure proudly announced its launch in September 2022 at the  Clinton Global Initiative .

For more information, please visit   EveryCure.org or connect with us on  Twitter ,  LinkedIn ,  Facebook , and  Instagram .

View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/every-cure-announces-leaders-in-drug-development-joining-its-executive-team-302263955.html

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The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network (RDN) is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to enable the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. 

We consist of 12 Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDNs) and a Coordinating Centre (RDNCC), working together as one organisation with joint leadership.

We contribute to NIHR’s mission to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research.

Our vision, mission and purpose

The RDN will build on the success of the Clinical Research Network (CRN). Our vision is for the UK to be a global leader in the delivery of high quality research that is inclusive, accessible, and improves health and care.

Our mission is to enable the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. 

We have two primary purposes:

• to support the successful delivery of high quality research, as an active partner in the research system 
• to increase capacity and capability of the research delivery infrastructure for the future
• enable more people to access health and social care research where they live
• support changing population needs by delivering a wider range of research and deliver research in areas of most need
• provide support to the health and care system through research
• encourage research to become a routine part of care
• support economic growth by attracting investment to the UK economy

Why we are changing from the CRN to the RDN

The research needs of the UK health and care system have evolved, and will continue to do so. Building on the successes of the CRN, we now need to enable more types of research to happen across a wider range of health and care settings, and to provide consistent services and support. 

To enable this, we operate as a single organisation, with shared responsibility for delivering consistent, collegiate and customer focused services across the RRDNs and RDNCC.  This will:

• ensure greater consistency across organisation structures including job roles 
• provide new ways of working to ensure we maximise opportunities for people working across the RDN to contribute their expertise and experience

We focus on effective support for the whole RDN Portfolio, rather than individual studies. Our support includes building strategic capacity and capability to ensure the health and care system is able to deliver all types of research now and in the future. 

We will put a stronger emphasis on continuous improvement, learning and value for money in every part of RDN. This will ensure our services continue to meet the changing needs of our customers and the UK health and care system over time. 

We will build a sustainable, adaptable organisation that is fit for the future and well placed to deliver on the vision for the UK to be a global leader in the delivery of high quality research. We will ensure our research is inclusive, accessible, and improves the health and care for people across England and the UK.

Our leadership team

The RDN Board was established in April 2024 to lead the RDN. We operate a joint leadership model consisting of the RDN Coordinating Centre Directors, the Network Director from each of the 12 RRDNs, and representatives from DHSC. Our Board sets the Network's direction, develops strategies and plans and ensures consistency in their implementation at both a national and regional level.

RDN Coordinating Centre members

• John Sitzia, RDN Executive Director
• Andy Ustianowski, Network Director, North West RRDN (currently RDN Executive Director for an interim period)
• Nick Lemoine, RDN Strategic Development Director
• Kate Jones, RDN Research Delivery Director
• Imogen Shillito, RDN Public Engagement Director
• Emma Lowe,  RDN Transformation Director
• Ann Wieland, RDN Corporate Operations Director
• Sarah Fallon, RDN Network Operations Director
• Joanna Sugden, RDN Workforce & Organisational Development Director
• Vacancy - RDN Life Sciences Director

RRDN Network Directors members

• Morag Burton, Network Director, North East and North Cumbria
• Amber O'Malley, Network Director, Yorkshire and Humber
• Andy Ustianowski, Network Director, North West (Andy Ustianowski is RDN Executive Director for an interim period. Martin Gibson is acting Network Director, North West RRDN)
• Elizabeth Moss, Network Director, East Midlands
• Matt Brookes, Network Director, West Midlands
• Helen Macdonald, Network Director, East of England
• Sharon Barrett,  Network Director, North London
• James Lyddiard, Network Director, South London
• Clare Rook, Network Director, South Central
• Stephen Barnett, Network Director, South East
• Kyla Thomas, Network Director, South West Central
• Jo Davis, Network Director, South West Peninsula

Department of Health and Social Care members

• Alice Mortlock, Deputy Director Research Capacity and Growth
• Natalie Owen, Head of NIHR Research Infrastructure
• Vacancy, Head of Clinical Research Delivery  

Our host organisations

The 12 RRDN regions (pictured above) are:

A - North East and North Cumbria - hosted by The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

B - Yorkshire and Humber - hosted by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

C - North West - hosted by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

D - East Midlands - hosted by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

E - West Midlands - hosted by The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

F - East of England - hosted by Norfolk and Norwich University NHS Foundation Trust

G - North London - hosted by Barts Health NHS Trust

H - South London - hosted by Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

I - South Central - hosted by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

J - South East - hosted by Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust

K - South West Central - hosted by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust

L - South West Peninsula - hosted by Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

AI-powered marketing and sales reach new heights with generative AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in marketing and sales. And now, with the ongoing step-change evolution of generative AI (gen AI), we’re seeing the use of open-source platforms penetrating to the sales frontlines, along with rising investment by sales-tech players in gen AI innovations. Given the accelerating complexity and speed of doing business in a digital-first world, these technologies are becoming essential tools.

Inevitably, this will impact how you operate—and how you connect with and serve your customers. In fact, it’s probably already doing so. Forward-thinking C-suite leaders are considering how to adjust to this new landscape. Here, we outline the marketing and sales opportunities (and risks) in this dynamic field and suggest productive paths forward.

Our research suggests that a fifth of current sales-team functions could be automated.

How AI is reshaping marketing and sales

AI is poised to disrupt marketing and sales in every sector. This is the result of shifts in consumer sentiment alongside rapid technological change.

Omnichannel is table stakes

Across industries, engagement models are changing: today’s customers want everything, everywhere, and all the time. While they still desire an even mix of traditional, remote, and self-service channels (including face-to-face, inside sales, and e-commerce), we see continued growth in customer preference for online ordering and reordering.

Winning companies—those increasing their market share by at least 10 percent annually—tend to utilize advanced sales technology; build hybrid sales teams and capabilities; tailor strategies for third-party and company-owned marketplaces; achieve e-commerce excellence across the entire funnel; and deliver hyper-personalization (unique messages for individual decision makers based on their needs, profile, behaviors, and interactions—both past and predictive).

Step changes are occurring in digitization and automation

What is generative ai.

Many of us are already familiar with online AI chatbots and image generators, using them to create convincing pictures and text at astonishing speed. This is the great power of generative AI, or gen AI: it utilizes algorithms to generate new content—writing, images, or audio—from training data.

To do this, gen AI uses deep-learning models called foundation models (FMs). FMs are pre-trained on massive datasets and the algorithms they support are adaptable to a wide variety of downstream tasks, including content generation. Gen AI can be trained, for example, to predict the next word in a string of words and can generalize that ability to multiple text-generation tasks, such as writing articles, jokes, or code.

In contrast, “traditional” AI is trained on a single task with human supervision, using data specific to that task; it can be fine-tuned to reach high precision, but must be retrained for each new use case. Thus gen AI represents an enormous step change in power, sophistication, and utility—and a fundamental shift in our relationship to artificial intelligence.

AI technology is evolving at pace. It is becoming increasingly easy and less costly to implement, while offering ever-accelerating complexity and speed that far exceeds human capacity. Our research suggests that a fifth of current sales-team functions could be automated. In addition, new frontiers are opening with the rise of gen AI (see sidebar “What is generative AI?”). Furthermore, venture capital investment in AI has grown 13-fold over the last ten years. 1 Nestor Maslej et al., “The AI Index 2023 annual report,” AI Index Steering Committee, Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University, April 2023. This has led to an explosion of “usable” data (data that can be used to formulate insights and suggest tangible actions) and accessible technology (such as increased computation power and open-source algorithms). Vast, and growing, amounts of data are now available for foundation-model training, and since 2012 there’s been a millionfold increase in computation capacity—doubling every three to four months. 2 Cliff Saran, “Stanford University finds that AI is outpacing Moore’s Law,” Computer Weekly, December 12, 2019; Risto Miikkulainen, “Creative AI through evolutionary computation: Principles and examples,” SN Computer Science, 2(3): 163, March 23, 2001.

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What does gen ai mean for marketing and sales.

The rise of AI, and particularly gen AI, has potential for impact in three areas of marketing and sales: customer experience (CX), growth, and productivity.

For example, in CX, hyper-personalized content and offerings can be based on individual customer behavior, persona, and purchase history. Growth can be accelerated by leveraging AI to jumpstart top-line performance, giving sales teams the right analytics and customer insights to capture demand. Additionally, AI can boost sales effectiveness and performance by offloading and automating many mundane sales activities, freeing up capacity to spend more time with customers and prospective customers (while reducing cost to serve). In all these actions, personalization is key. AI coupled with company-specific data and context has enabled consumer insights at the most granular level, allowing B2C lever personalization through targeted marketing and sales offerings. Winning B2B companies go beyond account-based marketing and disproportionately use hyper-personalization in their outreach.

Bringing gen AI to life in the customer journey

There are many gen AI-specific use cases across the customer journey that can drive impact:

A gen AI sales use case: Dynamic audience targeting and segmentation

Gen AI can combine and analyze large amounts of data—such as demographic information, existing customer data, and market trends—to identify additional audience segments. Its algorithms then enable businesses to create personalized outreach content, easily and at scale.

Instead of spending time researching and creating audience segments, a marketer can leverage gen AI’s algorithms to identify segments with unique traits that may have been overlooked in existing customer data. Without knowing every detail about these segments, they can then ask a gen AI tool to draft automatically tailored content such as social media posts and landing pages. Once these have been refined and reviewed, the marketer and a sales leader can use gen AI to generate further content such as outreach templates for a matching sales campaign to reach prospects.

Embracing these techniques will require some openness to change. Organizations will require a comprehensive and aggregated dataset (such as an operational data lake that pulls in disparate sources) to train a gen AI model that can generate relevant audience segments and content. Once trained, the model can be operationalized within commercial systems to streamline workflows while being continuously refined by agile processes.

Lastly, the commercial organizational structure and operating model may need to be adjusted to ensure appropriate levels of risk oversight are in place and performance assessments align to the new ways of working.

• At the top of the funnel, gen AI surpasses traditional AI-driven lead identification and targeting that uses web scraping and simple prioritization. Gen AI’s advanced algorithms can leverage patterns in customer and market data to segment and target relevant audiences . With these capabilities, businesses can efficiently analyze and identify high-quality leads, leading to more effective, tailored lead-activation campaigns (see sidebar “A gen AI sales use case: Dynamic audience targeting and segmentation”). Additionally, gen AI can optimize marketing strategies through A/B testing of various elements such as page layouts, ad copy, and SEO strategies, leveraging predictive analytics and data-driven recommendations to ensure maximum return on investment. These actions can continue through the customer journey, with gen AI automating lead-nurturing campaigns based on evolving customer patterns.
• Within the sales motion, gen AI goes beyond initial sales-team engagement, providing continuous critical support throughout the entire sales process, from proposal to deal closure. With its ability to analyze customer behavior, preferences, and demographics, gen AI can generate personalized content and messaging. From the beginning, it can assist with hyper-personalized follow-up emails at scale and contextual chatbot support . It can also act as a 24/7 virtual assistant for each team member, offering tailored recommendations, reminders, and feedback, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates. As the deal progresses, gen AI can provide real-time negotiation guidance and predictive insights based on comprehensive analysis of historical transaction data, customer behavior, and competitive pricing.
• There are many gen AI use cases after the customer signs on the dotted line, including onboarding and retention. When a new customer joins, gen AI can provide a warm welcome with personalized training content , highlighting relevant best practices. A chatbot functionality can provide immediate answers to customer questions and enhance training materials for future customers. Gen AI can also offer sales leadership with real-time next-step recommendations and continuous churn modeling based on usage trends and customer behavior. Additionally, dynamic customer-journey mapping can be utilized to identify critical touchpoints and drive customer engagement.

This revolutionary approach is transforming the landscape of marketing and sales, driving greater effectiveness and customer engagement from the very start of the customer journey.

Winning tomorrow’s car buyers using artificial intelligence in marketing and sales

Commercial leaders are optimistic—and reaping benefits.

We asked a group of commercial leaders to provide their perspective on use cases and the role of gen AI in marketing and sales more broadly. Notably, we found cautious optimism across the board: respondents anticipated at least moderate impact from each use case we suggested. In particular, these players are most enthusiastic about use cases in the early stages of the customer journey lead identification, marketing optimization, and personalized outreach (Exhibit 1).

These top three use cases are all focused on prospecting and lead generation, where we’re witnessing significant early momentum. This comes as no surprise, considering the vast amount of data on prospective customers available for analysis and the historical challenge of personalizing initial marketing outreach at scale.

Various players are already deploying gen AI use cases, but this is undoubtedly only scratching the surface. Our research found that 90 percent of commercial leaders expect to utilize gen AI solutions “often” over the next two years (Exhibit 2).

Our research found that 90 percent of commercial leaders expect to utilize gen AI solutions “often” over the next two years.

Overall, the most effective companies are prioritizing and deploying advanced sales tech, building hybrid teams, and enabling hyper-personalization. And they’re maximizing their use of e-commerce and third-party marketplaces through analytics and AI. At successful companies, we’ve found:

• There is a clearly defined AI vision and strategy.
• More than 20 percent of digital budgets are invested in AI-related technologies.
• Teams of data scientists are employed to run algorithms to inform rapid pricing strategy and optimize marketing and sales.
• Strategists are looking to the future and outlining simple gen AI use cases.

Such trailblazers are already realizing the potential of gen AI to elevate their operations.

Our research indicates that players that invest in AI are seeing a revenue uplift of 3 to 15 percent and a sales ROI uplift of 10 to 20 percent.

Anticipating and mitigating risks in gen AI

While the business case for artificial intelligence is compelling, the rate of change in AI technology is astonishingly fast—and not without risk. When commercial leaders were asked about the greatest barriers limiting their organization’s adoption of AI technologies, internal and external risk were at the top of the list.

From IP infringement to data privacy and security, there are a number of issues that require thoughtful mitigation strategies and governance. The need for human oversight and accountability is clear, and may require the creation of new roles and capabilities to fully capitalize on opportunities ahead.

In addition to immediate actions, leaders can start thinking strategically about how to invest in AI commercial excellence for the long term. It will be important to identify which use cases are table stakes, and which can help you differentiate your position in the market. Then prioritize based on impact and feasibility.

The AI landscape is evolving very quickly, and winners today may not be viable tomorrow. Small start-ups are great innovators but may not be able to scale as needed or produce sales-focused use cases that meet your needs. Test and iterate with different players, but pursue partnerships strategically based on sales-related innovation, rate of innovation versus time to market, and ability to scale.

AI is changing at breakneck speed, and while it’s hard to predict the course of this revolutionary tech, it’s sure to play a key role in future marketing and sales. Leaders in the field are succeeding by turning to gen AI to maximize their operations, taking advantage of advances in personalization and internal sales excellence. How will your industry react?

Richelle Deveau is a partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office, Sonia Joseph Griffin is an associate partner in the Atlanta office, where Steve Reis is a senior partner.

The authors wish to thank Michelle Court-Reuss, Will Godfrey, Russell Groves, Maxim Lampe, Siamak Sarvari, and Zach Stone for their contributions to this article.

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A third of Swedish cheerleaders tell of psychological abuse

by Linköping University

Of current and former Swedish cheerleading athletes, 29% reported being subjected to psychological abuse in the sport, according to a new study from Linköping University, Sweden. The study shows that dissatisfaction with leadership, injuries, high expectations and bad atmosphere in the team are major reasons why athletes give up the sport.

The study is published in the Journal of Sports Sciences .

"It's similar to what we see in other sports: that it's primarily psychological abuse that stands out," says Carolina Lundqvist, docent in psychology and sports science and licensed psychotherapist at the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Linköping University.

In a survey, 211 active and 73 former competitive athletes aged 15 years and older answered questions about psychological, physical and sexual abuse in the sport as well as about their own health.

As far as is known, this is the first time in the world that such a study has been conducted on cheerleading, which is growing rapidly in Sweden. There are about 18,000 practitioners, many of whom are children and young people.

"But we have a problem of athletes quitting in the upper secondary school age group. We wanted to investigate why and bring about a change," says Katarina Eriksson, general secretary of the Swedish Cheerleading Federation.

The most common reason was experience of psychological abuse. This could involve being frozen out of the community, diminished or devalued, being manipulated or experiencing threats. The severity of the abuse experienced was not measured in this study.

The second most common reason for quitting was that athletes experienced a lack of support when someone in a position of responsibility knew of harassment or abuse but took no action. About 5% of current and 27% of former athletes reported that they had experienced this.

The consequence may be that the athlete retires prematurely. More than 35% of former athletes reported that they had quit because of their coaches' leadership and 34% gave injuries as the reason; 27% reported high expectations as the cause and 22% poor team cohesion and atmosphere.

Previous research shows that it is often only after their career that athletes talk about various forms of abuse. According to Lundqvist, this may be because attitudes and behaviors are normalized in sports environments and that it is only afterwards that they realize what they have actually been through. The athlete may also be worried about becoming even more vulnerable if they speak out about abuse.

The results of the study point to the importance of educating leaders at all levels and actively working with initiatives that ensure that sports environments are safe, healthy and nurturing.

"I think old norms and an attitude that puts performance before health are what's getting in the way," says Lundqvist.

The Cheerleading Federation has now begun work on developing training courses for coaches and has already drawn up a new code of conduct for leaders. Since many in the study indicated injuries as a reason for quitting, the federation wants to increase coaches' knowledge of how training can be conducted to prevent injuries.

The survey was sent to around 800 active or formerly active athletes in October and November 2023. The response rate was just over 35%.

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