Lab manuals for efficient and high quality science in a happy and safe work environment

Abstract

The culture and norms of research laboratories can greatly influence the quality of scientific outputs produced by the lab and the well-being of its members. In most labs, the culture that governs how individual researchers behave in their work is often implicit and situational. In contrast, some labs develop their own lab manual, a written document that outlines their standard functioning. Such a lab manual can ensure that lab members have a shared and mutual understanding of who they are and how they do things. We argue that every lab could benefit from a lab manual because it facilitates efficient collaboration, reduces potential research mistakes, and aids the integration of new good research practices.Developing a lab manual without a doubt requires extra effort. To decrease researchers’ burden of creating their own lab manual, we provide a lab manual template that outlines the different topics that could be included in a manual. Moreover, we introduce an easy-to-use web app, blueprint, that further simplifies the process of creating a lab manual using our template. The present paper aims to serve as a guide for those who would like to partake in this endeavor.

Opening the black box of article retractions: Exploring the causes and consequences of data management errors

“…This is quite unfortunate since the culture of a research lab can have a great impact on how its members approach science. Many researchers call for implementing an open lab culture about errors (Kovacs et al, 2022;Rouder et al, 2019). Since the retraction of her paper, Julia Strand has had lab meetings periodically where the members discuss the errors they have made recently and they record the lessons they learned from them (Strand, 2023).…”