Finding levers for culture change in science—the power of glocal

Abstract

To tackle the great challenges of our time, the culture of science needs to change to a more collaborative one. Such change would start locally to spread out into the global scientific community.

The culture of scientific practice has come under fire. Cut‐throat competition, back‐stabbing and harassment are increasingly being challenged. Recent media coverage of high‐profile scientists sanctioned for bullying junior colleagues is a sign of changing times, and many inside academia agree that something must be done: for abuse of power and mistreatment of junior scientists not only affects health and well‐being 1, but also threatens the integrity of the research enterprise itself 2. Yet the question of how to create change is another matter. It is tempting to downplay the problem or underestimate the importance of the challenge. For the question of how to change scientific culture to one based on cooperation rather than competition is something of a mystery.

For the question of how to change scientific culture to one based on cooperation rather than competition is something of a mystery.

But what is a mystery and how is it different from a puzzle? The political analyst and economist Gregory F. Treverton gave one answer: a puzzle, he explained, has an answer. It may be tricky to solve, but if you stick at it you will find it. A mystery on the other hand is another kind of problem: “[it] poses a question that has no definitive answer because the answer is contingent; it depends on a future interaction of many factors, known and unknown. A mystery cannot be answered; it can only be framed, by identifying the critical factors and applying some sense of how they have interacted in the past and might interact in the future. A mystery is an attempt to define ambiguities 3”.

Many of the questions that science tries to solve are puzzles that, ultimately, have answers. Scientists may struggle to find these and may be wrong repeatedly, but eventually puzzles can be solved. But many scientific puzzles fall within greater mysteries: how to reverse climate change, reduce global inequality, use science and technology to improve health and well‐being. Most of the complex social and environmental challenges that we face today have no simple or single answers; they are governed by multiple factors moving in ever‐mutating, complex relationships. Working with these relationships to address the big questions of our time will require all the ingenuity and inventiveness on which our species prides itself. Yet, our cognitive abilities are largely useless if we cannot resolve the mystery of how to cooperate more effectively. The scale, complexity and unpredictability of the problems humankind faces today require a level of collaboration and integration of knowledge that we have arguably never achieved before.

The cost of competition

Human beings are by nature highly cooperative: it is this very capacity that has enabled us to become the dominant species on the planet. Yet, we also have a strong propensity to divide into tribes, to distinguish between us and them, and we do this even in our pursuit of knowledge. Science today has more disciplines and sub‐disciplines than ever before, a level of specialisation and fragmentation that would have been inconceivable 100 years ago. It has long since become impossible for even a Renaissance super‐human to integrate and understand all knowledge. Surrounded by an ever‐increasing number of global mysteries, one of the most relevant questions facing science today is how scientists can cooperate to integrate understandings across disparate, fragmented fields. In what new ways do we need to work? What changes to our systems of learning do we need to make? And perhaps most fundamentally, what shifts do we need to make in the way we think and behave?

These egregious results of uncontrolled competition might just be acceptable if the system were achieving what we wanted it to.

The culture that underpins science today is familiar. While most research is done in teams, and teams collaborate for success, the system as a whole is based on competition with, inevitably, winners and losers. This competitive system, with its rewards and costs, means that fear of failure is high. While the few at the top thrive, many others are caught in a cut‐throat race where relationships are tense and even cheating sometimes ignored. In this culture, trust disintegrates as competitive personalities succeed, while the gentle and sensitive fall by the wayside. These egregious results of uncontrolled competition might just be acceptable if the system were achieving what we wanted it to. Yet, we know the system is failing. Risk‐taking by pursuing unconventional ideas is decreasing, translation of findings into action treacly and evidence‐informed policy hard to spot. At the same time, funding pressures escalate as a confused public becomes uncertain of the value of investing in the knowledge‐production enterprise. A vicious circle has taken hold, and science, some believe, is in bad shape 4, 5.

Clarion calls for a change in scientific culture are becoming louder, as many realise that trust, integrity and a supportive culture are essential, not only for researchers’ well‐being but also for knowledge production itself: for caring environments that nurture human relationships are likely to be fertile ground for the transdisciplinary connections we so urgently need. But how do we shift the competitive culture of science to one that fosters trusting relationship, diversity and sharing?

It is helpful to consider what makes a culture. While libraries have been filled addressing this question, many agree that all human cultures share one thing: stories 6. Human beings are narrative animals: we make sense of our world through stories, we form beliefs that are consistent with these stories and our thinking is based on mental models that are embedded in these stories. Different cultures are different because their stories are different. If you want to change a culture, you have to change the stories that capture hearts and imaginations. Reason alone will not do.

Creating stories for change

New stories about how the scientific enterprise works are desperately needed if we are to change from a culture of competition to one of collaboration and community. Fortunately, some new stories are already in circulation: initiatives promoting Open Science, good scientific practice, soft skills and women's advancement are being led by enthusiastic individuals and partnerships. But culture change is slow, and if we are to hasten things, we need other stories acting in complementary ways, evoking other metaphors.

One such new story concerns how local research communities are creating place‐based cultures, where collaboration is nurtured as part of a holistic, lived experience. The idea of such initiatives is to create conditions that enable scientific staff to develop trusting relationships that promote exchange of ideas. Place‐based initiatives rest on the premise that trust and sharing emerge naturally when relationships are encouraged within local environments. People participating together in activities they care about, whether science or not, inevitably form bonds that strengthen the whole system from the bottom up. This approach shifts the frame from a question of “how do we do soft skills training”, to “how can we, as a local science community, change to reflect and live our values?” In contrast to single‐cause initiatives, place‐based levers of change are situated nodes, wave sources for multi‐faceted local culture change. Since researcher mobility keeps all science communities connected to the wider system, change may be local, but its effects ripple out to the whole system.

Several scientific centres around the world are investing in the development of place‐based initiatives to nurture their local scientific communities through education and social activities facilitated by architectural space. Forward‐thinking organisations such as Janelia Farm, EMBL and the LMB have all developed models for encouraging collaboration between groups and disciplines. These initiatives have usually been driven by a single vision and a management structure that oversees the organisation from the top. Another approach to enhancing community in science is to encourage individuals in independent but geographically neighbouring centres, to form relationships that are nurtured from the bottom up. The advantage of cross‐centre community building is that individuals gain insights into how different organisational cultures influence practice and, as individual relationships grow, each culture cross‐fertilises the other.

PRBB and the Intervals programme

An example of such a grassroots initiative to promote a collaborative community of scientific centres is the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park or PRBB (an acronym of the Catalan name), a research campus founded a decade ago. Housing six independent research centres under one roof, 1,500 staff from more than 50 nations share common spaces and facilities (Fig 1). As in most research campuses, the different centres occupying the PRBB have different visions, management boards, scientific goals, funding and corporate cultures. But unlike most research parks, the estate's proprietor—the PRBB Consortium, which is independent from the research centres—also had a scientific vision. From the outset, they sought to answer a question of the mystery type: in the interests of promoting excellent science, how can we create a local culture of community collaboration?

Figure 1.

The Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) hosts six scientific centres: the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM); the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences of the Pompeu Fabra University (CEXS‐UPF); the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG); the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE); the Barcelona Institute of Global Health—Campus Mar (ISGlobal); and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory Barcelona outstation (EMBL Barcelona).

Image: ©PRBB/Ferran Mateo.

As with all mysteries, there were no definitive answers, and various measures were started in the hope that they would forge a community identity. Attention was paid to physical space, with unimpeded flow from centre to centre once the entrance barrier is passed. Shared community spaces including dining facilities, meeting spaces and sunny terraces invite informal meetings. A social programme of sport and music encourages networking, a public engagement programme links the PRBB to the city and a community newspaper keeps everyone abreast of news. As the community has matured, shared working groups in good scientific practice, women in science and communication have evolved.

An important core component of the approach is a specialised training programme in interdisciplinary skills that is open to the whole PRBB community. Known as the Intervals programme, this initiative promotes skills in self‐development, interpersonal relationship, leadership and systems working: the very skills that can catalyse the cultural shift we are seeking. Subtly but crucially, Intervals offers staff much more than the sum of its training events. As an embedded and strategic part of the wider PRBB community project, it promotes the story of collaboration through personal, lived experience: course participants learn skills of collective leadership, but the whole community gets to see in practice how a project that dissolves barriers between disciplines and organisations can work in science (Fig 2). The programme has a number of features that explain its influence (Box 1). Now valued throughout the PRBB community, it has begun to venture beyond training to organise collective events such as World Cafés and other campaigns that stimulate community conversations around sensitive topics such as research integrity.

Figure 2.

Senior, mid‐career and junior scientists and science managers from 6 centres participate in Intervals courses.Image: ©PRBB.

Box 1: Key features of the PRBB Intervals programme.

Sense of place: The PRBB is a single building and though each scientific centre is organisationally independent, the people who work in the building relate together as a natural human community—like a village. Like any village, the PRBB has its independent bodies but also its shared Commons. Each scientific centre has its own focus and priorities but together PRBB researchers cover the spectrum of biomedicine, the common language being the scientific method.

A Commons resource: Intervals is part of the PRBB community Commons, belonging to everyone: free to participants, with offerings for everyone regardless of status, role, age or experience. This shared sense of ownership engenders responsibility to the programme resulting in lower cancellation rates than is normal for in‐house training.

Influence by example: Active participation by senior scientists as course trainers and as participants is crucial as it communicates commitment to such training. Senior scientists participate in courses on leadership, conflict management, difficult conversations and interviewing skills. Training in teamwork, negotiation and communication are available to all. Mindfulness events are always oversubscribed.

Branding: A strong identity associated with the programme name symbolises the bridging of gaps. Intervals events offer high‐quality training on relevant topics by excellent trainers, many of whom teach in top business schools.

The PRBB story shows how one community of research centres is working to create a new narrative that values trust based on relationship building. If we want to shift science from a hard‐nosed competitive, elitist culture to a collaborative, communicative one that encourages diversity and rewards transparency, we need stories that reflect the new model. The best stories are those that involve us personally. By involving senior staff in both implementation and benefits, the PRBB Intervals programme is difficult to ignore, much less to undervalue when a frequent comment from participants is that “the Intervals programme is one of the best things about the PRBB”.

Changing scientific culture

Changing a complex system is never a sequential process but consists of infinite loops and feedback cycles. Yet, as we grow our skills to cooperate, our mindsets and our cultures shift. More opportunities to cooperate arise, novel ideas appear and other parties join in. At some point, we realise that our own worldview is not the only way to experience the world, and that other perspectives not only enrich the whole, but help us grow. As systems leadership experts report, change initiatives often fail because they are based on “rigid assumptions and agendas that fail to see that transforming systems is ultimately about transforming relationships among people who shape those systems. Many otherwise well‐intentioned change efforts fail because leaders are unable or unwilling to embrace this simple truth 7”.

By shifting the focus to nurturing local science communities, we can complement and strengthen initiatives such as Open Science, giving them a local context in which to grow and thrive.

The need to prioritise relationship building, especially at the local level, is too frequently ignored by the higher echelons. In too many scientific and healthcare institutes, community‐building initiatives are either side‐lined by senior staff, ignored or even eradicated as part of cost‐cutting measures. Attention to nurturing relationship is under‐valued in elitist cultures where achievement is assumed to result from cut‐throat competition at no human cost, and where encouraging people to flourish within a caring community is not thought of as part of the scientific agenda. But while stories show that change can happen, we also need the skills to bring the stories into being. Personal mastery, relationship building, communication and teamwork are all a core focus of soft skills training programmes that help create collective leadership capacity. These programmes are commonly offered to graduate students. But perhaps their impact in creating cultural shift is limited, because this training is often seen as an optional extra to the main task; lacks strategic direction; and is given only to graduate students, the implication being that senior staff have already mastered these arts. This is not necessarily helpful if the entrenched mindsets of the powerful remain the biggest barriers to culture change.

By shifting the focus to nurturing local science communities, we can complement and strengthen initiatives such as Open Science, giving them a local context in which to grow and thrive. But this process cannot be managed from the top: communities are organic ecosystems that behave in unpredictable ways. Though it seems difficult for an enterprise used to structured objectives, we must learn to slacken control if we want to nourish our scientific communities. Rather than seeking to engineer, we must sow seeds of relationship and gently foster their growth. In this way, we give space for human caring and creativity to flourish naturally and trust can emerge as a natural consequence.

In the PRBB, we have been working hard to create such a community. Inevitably, the path is more improvisational theatre than rehearsed opera. Players come and go and nobody knows what is going to happen next. But such is the way of the world. Living in complex, changing environments means that we need to be fully present, senses attuned and ready to adapt as we turn corners and face the unexpected. Developing self‐awareness is crucial, as is sensitising our antennae to listen and respond mindfully to the patterns and relationships in our social environment.

With the advent of social media, online communities increasingly capture our time and our attention. If we were to spend more energy nurturing our local research community, and interacting with each other on a human level, could it all be different? If we focus a little more in front of our noses rather than on our screens, could we help to make the stories of science, medicine, health care and technology kinder and more inclusive? And more importantly, could those stories feed cultural currents so that they flow with us rather than against us as we work together to address the mysteries of our time?

Conflict of interest

Elinor Thompson is an independent public health specialist and consultant who specialises in improving partnership work in health and science. She is co‐founder and director of the PRBB Intervals programme.

EMBO Reports (2019) 20: e46980