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How lab handbooks can help shape research culture in your team

Session details

Date: 27 January 2025

A session on lab handbooks led by the University of York, covering the value of lab handbooks and their potential impacts on research culture - featuring guest academics talking about their own lab handbooks, and signposting useful insights and resources for creating your own.

Speakers

  • Ines Hahn, University of York
  • Michael Plevin, University of York
  • Stuart Higgins, University of York
  • Noémie Hamilton, University of York
  • Benjamin Tendler, University of Oxford
  • Karla Miller, University of Oxford
  • Leonardo Uieda, University of São Paulo

Session overview

Lab handbooks are becoming an increasingly popular resource that outline expectations to group members. They help onboard new team members, outline responsibilities around working culture and practice, and set a general theme that all in the group can follow.

The session addressed how to prepare a lab handbook. The invited speakers have written their own lab handbooks, and talked about how these resources were developed, adapted and implemented. The session also includes advice on preparing your own lab handbooks.

Topics covered

  • The value of lab handbooks and their potential impacts on research culture
  • Ideas for how to go about creating your own lab handbook
  • Where to find useful resources and examples for lab handbook creation

Session resources

Shared learnings

  • Lab handbooks allow a consistent and transparent way to foster an inclusive, supportive and productive group culture, and greatly help when onboarding new team members
  • A live document that is co-written by all group members and revisited regularly helps everyone buy-in and use it
  • A lab handbook helps to set out the lab's ethos around research culture and, if the handbook (or an abridged version) is publicly available, can really aid recruitment of students and post-docs, and when starting new collaborations
  • A lab handbook allows candidates preparing applications for academic jobs or fellowship applications to demonstrate their leadership plans and aspirations.
  • Lots of resources are already available online, e.g. the templates that the Karla Miller and Benjamin Tendler have put together: https://www.win.ox.ac.uk/about/training/lab-handbooks

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