\nAdapted from Getty<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two of our PhD students were in a bind. They had collaborated on a research project that merged their interests and, as counselled by other faculty members, had decided early in the research process on authorship order. But by the end of the partnership, the designated second author felt that she had contributed more time and expertise to the project, and wanted to switch the authorship order. The would-be first author disagreed, pointing to their earlier arrangement. Disappointment, or worse, seemed the probable outcome.<\/p>\n
This scenario might feel familiar to many principal investigators (PIs). At best, considering contribution and authorship order can be stressful for students and postdocs who collaborate; at worst, these issues can prevent alliances from developing at all. Yet, in our experience, as student collaborators ourselves and then as PIs, some of the best science \u2014 and the impetus for growth in junior researchers\u2019 careers \u2014 comes from collaborative efforts between graduate students and\/or postdocs. As PIs, we work to set the tone for joint science to flourish in our labs.<\/p>\n
We began our own collaboration as PhD students in the same lab at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Working together has produced positive outcomes for both of us \u2014 from developing more-advanced records for the job market (then) to receiving a multi-year federal grant from the US National Institutes of Health that we jointly administer (now). Most importantly, we\u2019ve come to believe that the ideas we generate as a two-person team are better than what either of us would produce alone, and that the scientific process is more fun to conduct together.<\/p>\n
Consequently, we were surprised to encounter push-back when we suggested in our own labs that students consider working together. So, we developed a model to foster collaboration.<\/p>\n
Eliminate a \u2018zero-sum\u2019 mindset.<\/b>\u00a0Collaboration can help to direct students to \u2018growing the pie\u2019 \u2014 creating more resources together that they can ultimately share. As graduate students, we developed a shared research programme that generated multiple studies and articles, so determining authorship was never stressful for us. We encouraged the students in the anecdote above to think about generating a pipeline of collaborative projects. By treating the project as the first step in an important, long-term programme, neither student felt as worried about the final authorship decision.<\/p>\n
Establish parameters.<\/b>\u00a0Recently, a new student in one of our labs wanted to collaborate with a postdoc, yet devoted significant attention to dissecting her role in the project and how much time she (compared with the postdoc) was spending on it. All this worry risked stagnating the science and ending the collaboration. We explained the benefits of this type of partnership, and pointed to how our own successes, as well as those of previous students, have been bolstered by sharing credit with other scientists.<\/p>\n
Encourage students to make authorship decisions after they collect data.<\/b>\u00a0In our experience, determining authorship later in the process puts the science (rather than the publication process) front and centre, and helps students to think of growing the total amount of research, rather than angsting over whether they plan to contribute 49% or 51% of any given project.<\/p>\n
Of course, we recognize that collaboration might not work for all student pairs. Collaborative relationships, in our experience, are most likely to flourish when junior researchers lead them. PIs should help students and postdocs understand the value and process of collaborative work. But junior scientists should initiate specific collaborative projects and decide together how to carry out the research.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s put the science ahead of ourselves,\u201d agreed our two students deciding on authorship order. One was first author on the initial paper \u2014 which sparked a new research programme \u2014 and the other was first author on a subsequent publication. Collaboration benefits both the students and the science.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Nature<\/span>\u00a0560<\/strong>, 673 (2018)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n
doi: 10.1038\/d41586-018-06037-5<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(\uc6d0\ubb38) Top tips for principal investigators to help junior scientists navigate the travails of teamwork. Adapted from Getty (more…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,29],"tags":[6,3],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-on-science","category-lets-do-science","tag-essays-on-science","tag-lets-do-science"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1512,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=1512","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":0},"title":"EBS \ub274\uc2a4 – \uc2e4\ud328\ub97c \uc5f0\uad6c\ud558\ub294 \uc774\uc720(\uc720\ud29c\ube0c)","author":"biochemistry","date":"September 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?reload=9&v=OnPV18QE_2M \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Essays on Science"","block_context":{"text":"Essays on Science","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/OnPV18QE_2M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2237,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=2237","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":1},"title":"Industry is more alarmed about reproducibility than academia","author":"biochemistry","date":"December 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 The reproducibility crisis in biomedical science seems to have alarmed industry more than the academic community (see\u00a0C. G. Begley and L. M. Ellis\u00a0Nature\u00a0483, 531\u2013533; 2012). In our view, this is because they have different yardsticks for success in research. Despite the advent of important new therapeutics, the number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Essays on Science"","block_context":{"text":"Essays on Science","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":961,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=961","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":2},"title":"Microsoft\u2019s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy","author":"biochemistry","date":"June 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 (\uc6d0\ubb38) \u00a0 \u00a0 They fear the online platform will become less open, but other researchers say the buyout could make GitHub more useful. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Satya Nadella is chief executive of Microsoft, which announced last week that it is buying out code-sharing platform GitHub.Credit: Andrew Harrer\/Bloomberg\/Getty \u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Essays on Science"","block_context":{"text":"Essays on Science","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1061,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=1061","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":3},"title":"\ube44\ub217\ubc29\uc6b8\uc774 \uc5b4\ub294 \ubaa8\uc2b5","author":"biochemistry","date":"July 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Watch soap bubbles freeze in real time \u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=52xFz1Cn8E8 \u00a0 Bubbles freezing at -26\u00b0C https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cW8ZO7EBRkc \u00a0 \ube44\ub217\ubc29\uc6b8\uc774 \uc5b4\ub294 \uc21c\uac04 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HvSf2n3HAPE \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Essays on Science"","block_context":{"text":"Essays on Science","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/52xFz1Cn8E8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1388,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=1388","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":4},"title":"(youtube)\ubaa8\ub4e0 \uc0dd\uba85\uccb4\uc758 \uae30\uc6d0\uc740 \ub2e8 \ud558\ub098\uc758 \uc6d0\uc2dc \uc138\ud3ec\uc774\ub2e4?","author":"biochemistry","date":"August 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cgP10pnHqhU","rel":"","context":"In "'08. \uc0dd\uba85\uccb4\uc758 \uae30\uc6d0\uacfc \uc18d\uc131'\uacfc '09. \uc0dd\uba85\uccb4\uc758 \uc5f0\uc18d\uc131\uacfc \uc720\uc804' \uad00\ub828"","block_context":{"text":"'08. \uc0dd\uba85\uccb4\uc758 \uae30\uc6d0\uacfc \uc18d\uc131'\uacfc '09. \uc0dd\uba85\uccb4\uc758 \uc5f0\uc18d\uc131\uacfc \uc720\uc804' \uad00\ub828","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=43"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/cgP10pnHqhU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1593,"url":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=1593","url_meta":{"origin":1499,"position":5},"title":"New voices, at last","author":"biochemistry","date":"September 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 (\uc6d0\ubb38: \uc5ec\uae30\ub97c \ud074\ub9ad\ud558\uc138\uc694~) \u00a0 \u00a0 Science\u00a0\u00a007 Sep 2018: Vol. 361, Issue 6406, pp. 953 DOI: 10.1126\/science.aav2338 \u00a0 Science academies are well placed to help strengthen national systems of research and innovation, drawing upon the knowledge of experienced scientists across fields. But what about the voices of early-career scientists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Essays on Science"","block_context":{"text":"Essays on Science","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Xo1j-ob","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4436,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/4436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/media.nature.com\/w800\/magazine-assets\/d41586-018-06037-5\/d41586-018-06037-5_16067236.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>