Common ground, community, and belonging: an important scientific technique

“The scientific method” is often portrayed on a pedestal of pseudo-objectivity, with researchers being expected to perform as emotion-free vessels creating scientific knowledge. The reality is quite different, with science being created by very real, complex, and often troubled humans [1] who may not have effective means of support. (Author’s note: I’m undeniably one of those flawed and often troubled humans!)

This talk introduces core interpersonal psychosocial concepts including “psychological safety”, “trustworthiness”, and “emotional intelligence”. These aspects affect science directly, by affecting the researchers who create the science and the ways they interact to collaborate or compete. Counterintuitively to the “objective” ideal, teams with real psychological safety, trust, and wellbeing tend to perform more effectively and have fewer errors compared to teams that do not focus on interpersonal needs. 

Finally, we introduce the OLS Open Seeds and Nebula training programmes, (https://we-are-ols.org/) which use an open science framework to build research teams that are consciously designed to encourage psychological safety, researcher wellbeing, and scientific robustness.  

[1] https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64739