As a neuroscience postdoc at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, Letizia Mariotti was part of a core group of friends navigating the early steps of their careers. Even after the four friends scattered to academic posts across Europe they continued to meet virtually to talk through the challenges of launching a laboratory.
The key to a happy lab life is in the manual
It quickly became apparent that their duties as principal investigators far exceeded the bench skills that they’d learnt as postdocs. Mariotti, for example, struggled with the paperwork needed to hire her first international postdoc at the Institute of Neuroscience of the National Research Council in Padova, Italy. And one of her friends discovered that researchers in France embrace formal academic titles in ways that they hadn’t experienced in the United Kingdom. “You could never predict when something would happen that you’d never had to think about before,” Mariotti says.
The group collectively recognized that labs need a document that, rather than simply laying out methods and bench protocols, focused on culture and ethos: everything from where to access on-campus resources to intangibles such as a group’s shared mission and codes of conduct.
In 2024, Mariotti and her friends held the first of two workshops dedicated to creating such a manual — an effort that ultimately kick-started the Starting Aware Fair & Equitable (SAFE) Labs initiative. The resulting SAFE Labs handbook, now freely available online, is one of a growing number of resources dedicated to producing lab handbooks and making academia a more-supportive space. As researchers, institutions and funding agencies take notice of them, these documents are encouraging a collective shift away from unrealistic, and sometimes unhealthy, expectations in academia towards those that prioritize cohesion and support.
“These handbooks are for anyone who wants to create a positive and transparent lab space,” Mariotti says. “The interest and overall positive feedback we’ve gotten really attests to how much this kind of support is needed.”
The core tenets
Exactly how many labs, worldwide, have adopted a lab handbook is unclear, but anecdotally, sources say, interest is growing — partly thanks to the broader recognition that academia is due a change.
Scientists across the career spectrum are burnt out, and people are leaving careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in startling numbers, particularly those from under-represented groups.
Nature collection: Mentoring
... continue reading