A vision for science culture - community feedback

Progress

Participants in our engagement process said they are witnessing growing momentum to improve science culture at several levels, e.g. institutional, organisational, funder and professional society levels.

In academia, this is primarily manifested in regular informal discussions among peers. Some shared the impression that greater progress is being made in non-academic sectors, where a focus on improving culture is more visible in the strategic priorities and governance of some organisations.

Participants also observed that most discussions, whether informal or formal, link to the themes of inclusion and diversity or open science (in academia), with less attention paid to other areas.

Barriers

A number of participants highlighted the challenge of getting the entire community to participate in efforts to improve science culture. Some said they found it difficult to find others with an interest in improving culture or to identify ways to get involved in their own environments. There was the sense that improving culture is often perceived as someone else’s responsibility – for example those who have volunteered for related committee activities – rather than a shared task.

Several participants also mentioned that they perceived some management and senior staff to fulfil requirements as a box-ticking exercise, rather than genuinely engaging with cultural changes. This practice, as well as more general resistance to change across the community, was seen as a considerable barrier, and participants were unsure of how to change these attitudes.

Another barrier relates to differences in resources and staff dedicated to improving science culture in different countries and across institutions and organisations. This was perceived to exclude less well-resourced countries from conversations on these topics, and create significant differences in the levels of progress that can be realistically made.

Support needs

A range of ideas were shared for how the community can be supported in efforts to improve science culture. Many participants indicated that signposting to useful resources would be extremely valuable, including suggested actions with strategies for implementation, good (and bad) practice examples with lessons learned, and tools to track progress.

Since funders in some countries are starting to implement requirements in relation to science culture, participants also highlighted that signposting opportunities to be involved in conversations on how these will be applied would be useful.

It was noted that to achieve our science culture vision, concerted action will be needed across the community. Some participants flagged that academic and non-academic sectors have different areas of strength and there might be opportunities to learn from one another.

Finally, it was highlighted that organisations need encouragement and support to set out longer-term goals and strategies in relation to science culture.

Progress

Inclusion and diversity was identified as the area where most progress has been made, though some participants argued that there are a lot of box-ticking approaches and sometimes little improvement has been made in practice.

A wide range of examples was shared to reflect the types of efforts underway, including increased data collection and improved or new policies, programmes, working groups, training and fellowships targeted at underrepresented groups, and the embedding of inclusion and diversity in company values.

Barriers

Diversifying the workforce was raised as a key challenge. Many groups expressed the view that the lack of diversity at the point of entry to the talent pool is limiting diversity at later stages. Elitism and a lack of transparency in intake and recruitment processes were also flagged as barriers throughout education and career paths.

Some participants also expressed the view that, while recruitment practices are starting to result in more diversity at entry level, minoritised groups are not necessarily empowered to progress further. They are often also expected to contribute more substantially to activities towards improving inclusion and diversity, although such efforts often don’t count towards promotion or career advancement.

A second theme was the continued difficulty of balancing a career with caring responsibilities, particularly in academia, and the lack of job-share and part-time working opportunities to accommodate this.

In relation to accessibility, limited accessibility for scientists with a physical disability, especially in lab environments, was highlighted several times.

On the topic of collaboration, several participants mentioned that, while organisational narratives increasingly express the value of collaboration, in practice the balance weighs more heavily to competition.

Finally, the role of leaders and managers in creating an accessible, inclusive and collaborative culture came up repeatedly, with the perception that leaders are often under-educated on these issues. It was also mentioned several times that power dynamics often interfere with teamwork, and that leaders have a responsibility to address unhealthy dynamics.

Support needs

In response to challenges identified at the entry level of the talent pool, participants called for more involvement of industry in educational outreach activities, as well as getting chemists across sectors involved in outreach earlier in their careers.

Several discussions explored the development of realistic models for job-share, part-time working or job cover options to support scientists and innovators with caring responsibilities (in academia). It was concluded that, while the related issues are well known, little effort has been made to develop workable models. This would require action at the government, funder and institutional level.

A final need identified was to be signposted to resources to help ensure inclusive committees, conferences, authorship and funding bids.

Progress

Several participants mentioned progress in terms of the support received on ethical practice and the availability of a code of conduct at their organisations. Improved mechanisms to report malpractice, including via new technologies, were mentioned in some countries.

While participants suggested that non-academic sectors were ahead in several areas, some felt that rigour was the exception to this general trend. Participants indicated that there was growing awareness of implicit bias and training to mitigate it across both academia and non-academic sectors.

Several participants from the academic community were positive about funder efforts on open science through mandating open access – increasingly without high article processing charges – as well as starting to mandate FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data requirements.

Barriers

The "pressure to publish" prevalent in academic culture was highlighted several times as a barrier to rigorous, ethical and open science, with the observation that many scientists are aware of occasions where corners are cut, or open science practice is deprioritised, to publish outputs faster.

Biases, gatekeeping and power dynamics in publishing were also mentioned as barriers. Some participants indicated that the FAIR principles for data are not well understood and that there is a lack of standards on how they should be implemented for the chemical sciences.

Despite progress in open access publishing, lack of access to research outputs was still mentioned as a barrier to openness by some non-academic participants.

Support needs

Several participants called for mandatory training, including on responsible peer review (for everyone from PhD level onward), ethics (for every active scientist or innovator) and implicit bias (for everyone involved in decision-making). Some participants highlighted there would be value in further exploring peer review models such as open peer review.

Specific funding for open access publishing was mentioned as a support need in the context of unequal resources available in different countries and across institutions and organisations.

Finally, participants called for more alignment on data standards and sharing practices, both at national and international levels.

Progress

Mental wellbeing was the one area where participants reported progress across sectors, observing that this has received increased attention during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aside from this, few examples of progress were mentioned and those highlighted were mainly shared by non-academic participants. They included support on health and safety being increasingly built into corporate practice, and accessible career development training and clear progression schemes being embedded in companies.

Barriers

A common theme was a lack of perceived emotional and psychological safety in several forms. Several participants mentioned a lack of safety to admit gaps in knowledge and ask for help, others noted a lack of safety to challenge senior colleagues. A number also highlighted a fear of saying something deemed insensitive or unintentionally causing upset.

These comments point to considerable challenges in creating an environment where mistakes can be made, where questions can be asked openly (including to and by seniors), and where a no-blame culture is established.

Alongside a lack of safety to challenge more senior colleagues, other barriers in relation to leadership and management came up throughout discussions. This included the need for more compassionate leadership, for better people management and supervision practices, and for adequate support for early-career researchers.

In relation to career development, several participants mentioned limited progression routes for lab-based professionals.

Finally, a culture of overwork was flagged several times as a barrier to a truly safe environment.

Support needs

The most called for support in this area is related to the abilities and responsibilities of leaders and managers to create a safe and supportive culture. Several participants in such positions indicated that they would benefit from support in how to provide psychological safety in practice.

Some participants also highlighted that it would be useful to gain an understanding of the conditions needed to foster a no-blame culture, and to create space for people to own their mistakes. There was a desire for clearer routes for learning from mistakes and making amends, alongside mechanisms to address inappropriate behaviour.

Finally, several participants highlighted the need for clearer identification of the responsibilities of leaders and managers in creating safe and supportive environments, as well as clear routes for holding senior staff accountable where this is not achieved.

Progress

Participants in our community engagement sessions felt only limited progress had been made on broadening recognition. (In the UK context it is expected that the Research Excellence Framework 2028 will increase focus on research culture). 

Examples mentioned included efforts within the RSC prize portfolio to better recognise contributions beyond publications, and more opportunities for recognition for professional research administrators – for example, in applications for the UK Research & Innovation Centre for Doctoral Training in the UK.

Barriers

Some of the barriers mentioned related to the ‘pressure to publish’. Several participants expressed concerns about the overreliance on numerical metrics and the focus on productivity over quality.

This emphasis was believed to link to many other science culture themes, including incentivising ethical science, supporting a more diverse range of careers, and giving equal recognition to all the important contributions that scientists and innovators make. Some also shared the view that luck is sometimes more important than competence, particularly in academia.

Another barrier mentioned several times was the impression that prejudice plays a considerable role in assessment and recognition. Examples included giving more weight to degree qualifications than skills, and favouring proposals or candidates with name recognition in terms of supervisor and/or institution.

Some participants also shared the perception that being awarded prizes in part depended on a candidate’s network or track record of previous prizes, and not only on the quality of their work.

A barrier identified in non-academic sectors was the difficulty of appropriately weighing quality indicators versus commercial indicators, such as profit, in reward and recognition.

Support needs

The main need identified was developing ways to recognise a much wider range of contributions made by scientists and innovators.

Some areas that were highlighted as deserving of better recognition included: the research process and interim products, alongside final outputs; efforts to improve science culture and inclusion and diversity; and soft skills, including performance as a leader or manager.

Several participants expressed the sentiment that assessment and recognition are broader in non-academic sectors. It was suggested that academia may be able to learn from other sectors, for example how to better implement an annual review process as a formal recognition route.

Science culture progress versus recognition

A tension that came up throughout conversations was that contributions to improving science culture are currently extracurricular and largely not given recognition.

Some participants mentioned that this puts researchers in a difficult position, setting expectations for them to contribute to an area that, while essential, takes time away from generating scientific outputs – the main route to career progression in academia.

Open versus collaborative

Several participants mentioned tensions they had experienced in the establishment of industry-academia collaborations, where there were differing priorities on intellectual property and security on the one hand, and open science on the other. Where it was impossible to find a compromise, this resulted in the termination of such collaborations.

Safe versus accessible

While the importance of making labs accessible to scientists with physical disabilities was widely supported by participants, questions were raised about the need to also ensure safety from physical harm for these scientists, and the challenges that can arise when trying to achieve this in practice.

Inclusive versus open

Several participants expressed support for recent moves towards open access publishing, but the concern was raised that a new form of inequity may be created, as several routes involve a pay-to-publish model.

The view was expressed that openness should also mean open to contribute, and while some organisations, institutions and even parts of the world can now access others’ work more readily, they might be excluded from sharing their own work through a range of publication venues.

Collaborative versus recognition

Several participants said they observed a tension between organisational narratives about collaboration versus the lack of recognition for teams and collaborative work. They expressed the view that assessment and recognition still focuses mainly on the individual rather than the collective, especially in academia.

Ethical versus recognition

Several participants said they experienced a disconnect between their interpretation of good scientific practice and the scientific practice that is recognised and rewarded in practice. Some expressed the sentiment that prevailing performance measures are not necessarily driving ethical and responsible behaviours.

*Meetings of the Scheme Coordinators Group, Professional Standards Board, Soft Matter Editorial Board, Analytical and Organic Community Councils, and Inclusion and Diversity Committee

**Of which 12 individuals identified themselves as early-career scientists, eight as working in a non-academic sector, and six as part of a minoritised group.

***The vision that was presented in engagement sessions did not yet feature the key foundations and presented three combined qualities: accessible, inclusive and collaborative; ethical, open and responsible; and safe and supportive. Following community feedback, foundations and additional qualities were introduced to the final vision.