Guest Post: From a Science Management Workshop Participant
[This post is from Daniel Limonta, MD, PhD, Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine, Havana, Cuba. Thank you, Daniel! —Barbara]
Greetings! A few weeks ago, I spent 4 wonderful days at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) workshop “Leadership in Bioscience”, run by Dr. Carl M. Cohen and Dr. Dannielle Kennedy.
You may be surprised that leadership and management are important parts of a scientific career. You may even wonder what scientific leadership is. That’s not unexpected, since unfortunately science management is not part of most postgraduate and faculty-development programs. Thus, many scientists are unprepared to manage and lead a scientific team.
Most scientists believe that success in academia or industry depends on up-to-date scientific knowledge and a command of modern research techniques. However, these aren’t enough. Effective personal interactions in scientific settings are also very important for success.
A good leader/manager should know the fundamentals of negotiation to face difficult conversations and conflicts in the research workplace (for example, about first authorship). Furthermore, he or she should be familiar with the key elements of productive scientific meetings (for example, discussing data and giving scientific criticism).
The CSHL workshop addresses these interesting topics and other science management issues, using active learning techniques such as case studies and group discussions of real-world examples. The workshop participants, who were mainly from renowned US scientific institutions, also discussed their experiences.
The key lessons in this CSHL workshop are based on Dr. Carl Cohen’s book Lab Dynamics: Management and Leadership Skills for Scientists. More information about this book and workshop is available online.
This workshop is repeated periodically. If you want to be an effective laboratory member or leader, I strongly recommend attending it.