New initiative: Research culture needs 'kindness' as a core value

It’s time to change the working environments of researchers.

As these working environments can be tough, according to Professor Thomas Bandholm, and the ELIS (Excellence and Kindness in Research Training) initiative is an attempt to do something about it.

There will always be an element of egocentrism in research communities, as scientists need to be able to perform in a competitive culture where individual merit is a precondition for advancement. But according to Thomas Bandholm, it is possible to create a culture that can accommodate this, and avoid turning the research environment into something harsh and unhealthy.

»Many of us researchers have a relatively large ego, and maybe even some slightly narcissistic traits. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing if you also have self-awareness. The competition between researchers is also a source of innovation. And it only becomes unhealthy if the competition is more about keeping the others down rather than creating your own success,« says Thomas Bandholm.

He founded ELIS in the spring of 2024 together with two other professors, Julie Midtgaard Klausen from the University of Copenhagen and Michael Skovdal Rathleff from Aalborg University.

Researchers are fleeing

But what is the culture that ELIS wants to develop?

»It is a culture that embraces the right combination of excellent research and kindness, and that counters problematic developments in the research world,« says Thomas Bandholm and continues:

»There are, of course, many different issues in academia. But one of them is what is called The Big Leave or The Big Resignation. People throughout the world have started opting out and leaving their jobs,« says Thomas Bandholm.

He refers to an article in Nature describing five researchers’ challenges with research environments in favour of work in other sectors and industries. On the social media X, the debate continues under the hashtag #leavingacademia which really took off from 2021.

Thomas Bandholm is 51 years old and has had a long career. He comes from a generation where research was seen as a calling. It was a calling for him as a young researcher, and it still is. He did not question how things were. He worked a lot – and got a lot out of it.

But he believes that academia has become a tough place. Especially for younger researchers. And they don’t necessarily think the way he did when he did his PhD. Younger researchers therefore end up leaving academia, according to Thomas Bandholm, and finding work elsewhere.

»The people we recruit today don’t necessarily see research as a vocation to the same extent. At the same time, they work under research managers who may have a different set of values than their own. The research managers still consider research to be a calling. But if they don’t understand that the values system in the PhD programme has changed, they will find it difficult to retain their new employees. They will find it difficult to recruit new, and enough, researchers,« says Thomas Bandholm.

Valuable debate

The purpose of ELIS is to help young researchers create a kinder workplace. Partly because it helps them in their careers, and partly because it is the best way to create lasting change in researchers’ working conditions, according to Thomas Bandholm.

»It can be very difficult to change an established culture in a workplace. On the other hand, it can be very valuable if you can influence the culture through the next generation of researchers. When they become research managers, they become key to the culture in the research environments,« he says and continues:

In successful groups more listening is going on than giving out orders

Thomas Bandholm

»Prevention is always better than changing a bad working culture. And that is why we, with the ELIS initiative, are especially reaching out to the younger researchers. They will, in due course, become the next generation of research managers.«

Thomas Bandholm sees ELIS as a kind of cultural community that is open to everyone. If you are interested, you are welcome to show up and debate at ELIS’ events and activities.

»You don’t have to agree with anyone in advance, or to end up agreeing with everyone, because the value lies in the debate. It’s about becoming better at understanding research, the PhD programmes, and research management,« says Thomas Bandholm.

Staff move depending on values systems

Young people today find it important to have access to mentorship or supervisors to develop themselves, get feedback, and lifelong learning, according to Thomas Bandholm.

»They appreciate relatively frequent contact and feedback, and look at whether their own set of values fits those of the institution or research group,« he says and adds:

»And if it turns out that their set of values doesn’t fit the place they are right now, they will find somewhere else that does.«

If he was to caricature the problem, he would put it like this:

»Perhaps research managers should focus a little less on themselves and a little more on developing the people who they are responsible for. A modern research manager needs to be good at relations management as well as having a high degree of professionalism.«

Researchers part of groups

New parameters for success have also emerged for the research itself, according to Thomas Bandholm.

»Research environments nowadays consist of many people working together. It has become difficult to succeed as a researcher if you only want to work and think as an individual. If you want to be successful, you have to make yourself a valuable member of a group, and you also need to be able to think about how to create or contribute to the right culture in the group,« says the professor.

He believes that it is important to be able to incorporate an element of kindness into high-quality research, because that improves the research output, according to Thomas Bandholm.

»In successful groups more listening is going on than giving out orders. And as a manager you have to be very clear about what kind of culture you want in the workplace«.