The Good Science Project

The Good Science Project is an Imperial-wide initiative aiming to promote debate about contemporary research culture. We celebrate the ideals which brought us into science, and by which we hope to work. And we look with a critical eye at the way Imperial can best support our own good practice.  

The Good Science Project is a collaboration between the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) and the Science Communication Unit and is funded by Research England.

What is ‘good science’?

What is ‘good science’? And what is ‘good practice’? These phrases are interesting because they point in two directions. On the one hand there is the ‘headline’ success of institutions: grants won, league tables scaled, top journals stormed, media time guaranteed, parliamentary questions asked.  We know too that ‘good science’ suggests also something quieter, less public, more intimate. ‘Good science’ may be the moments of reflection where you have time to consider the direction your work is taking. It may be those conversations with colleagues that are both trustful and creative. Good science may be the style of work where collegiality is valued above straight ambition. Undoubtedly good science is linked to the steady and secure development of your skills. We need our institutions to be successful: otherwise there can be no science. But for the ideas to flow, researchers need time and they need autonomy. How can we get the balance right, and so produce the research culture that helps us all flourish?

The Good Science Project is assisted by an advisory group. Members are: 

Professor Frank Kelly, Battcock Chair in Community Health and Policy. Director of the Environmental Research Group, School of Public Health.

Dr Felicity Mellor, director of the Science Communication Unit.

Dr Sam Cooper, Reader in Machine Learning for Materials Design, Dyson School of Design Engineering.

Dr Alex Richardson, Research Associate, Environmental Research Group, School of Public Health.

Ehsan Masood, senior editor and Bureau Chief (Africa and India), Nature magazine.

Emily Roche, Executive Officer, Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise).

Our activities

A. Friday Forums

Friday Forums are congenial lunchtime discussions that focus on a particular aspect of research culture. They are brief intervals in our busy day and give scientists, other staff and students the opportunity to step back for a short hour, to consider wider perspectives on their craft. Please sign up – you will be very welcome.

1. Science Inside and Out. With Katherine Mathieson, director of the Royal Institution, Clare Matterson, CEO of the Royal Horticultural Society, Dr Kirsten Bell, Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London, Professor Ken Arnold, Director of Medical Museion, Copenhagen, and Dr Amy Seakins, Head of Engagement (Evaluation and Capacity Building) at Imperial College London. January 31. Register here.

2. Faith and research. With the Very Rev. Dr Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark, Professor Ian Walmsley FRS, Provost of Imperial College London, and Dr Felicity Mellor, Director of the Science Communication Unit, Imperial College London. March 15. Register here.

 
This year’s previous Friday Forums include a debate on the future of the animal model in scientific research, and a discussion on the role of the social sciences at Imperial.

Lunch is provided, outside speakers allow for yet broader glimpses, and it is a strict rule that half of the time is given over to audience discussion. Many of the Friday Forums are described on our blog pages.

B. Annual Conference: 'The Prism of Research' April 2nd 2025

On April 2nd 2025 we will be holding a symposium on research culture, called ‘The Prism of Culture’. The title is suggestive of science as many-stranded, transformative and enlightening. We know that there are many elements, social and technical, to good science and innovation, and we know there are many obstacles too. In a sense Imperial College is itself a ‘prism’.  The conference will open with speakers Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature Magazine; Dr Dan O’Connor, Head of Research Environment at the Wellcome Trust; Dr Melanie Smallman, Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at UCL; and Professor Mary Ryan CBE, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), Imperial College London.

The conference will be organised to maximise discussion and debate, and will be a good opportunity to meet colleagues from across Imperial. Parallel sessions in the afternoon include ‘Friendship in Science’; ‘The Bench, The Bee and the Blooming Bytes’; and ‘Science, Memories, Objects’.

We hope for contributions too from the various teams at Imperial who have been working under Research England’s ‘Enhancing Research Culture’ funding stream. 

C. The Animated Science Project

We now have two artists-in-residence, with animator Litza Jansz joining us in January 2025, to make an animated film about the joys and perils of the research life. Litza will be working in a participatory fashion, involving scientists, other staff and students in the work as it progresses. We have already had our first workshop, in White City, and are planning more for after Christmas. Currently Litza is visiting laboratories to get a better sense of ‘the life scientific’. If you would like to get involved, or would like Litza to visit your laboratory, please get in touch with Stephen Webster.

Looking back:

The Day of Doubt

On September 27^th 2023 we organised a major conference, The Day of Doubt, to examine and affirm the importance of doubt as a resource for good science. 280 members of Imperial filled the Sir Alexander Building, with the day introduced by Professor Mary Ryan (Vice-Provost, Research and Enterprise), Sir Paul Nurse FRS, director of the Francis Crick Institute, and Professor Ian Walmsley FRS, Provost of Imperial. The day was structured to be as conversational as possible, with ample opportunity to discuss such features of research culture as excellence, public engagement and interdisciplinarity. The day was filmed and you can view the different sections of the conference on YouTube.

The Triptych of Science

As part of the Good Science Project, we ran for 12 weeks in Summer 2024 an arts project involving ten scientists, research managers and science communicators, working under the guidance of artist-in-residence Ella Miodownik. The project culminated in July 2024 with an exhibition and Private View, called ‘Experiment’.

The project brief was to represent vital aspects of the life scientific, especially those central to daily laboratory practice. Three concepts form the animating principles of the art piece, ‘time’, ‘balance’ and ‘emotion’, aspects of research familiar to all scientists.

The group met weekly, on Fridays, and worked both jointly and independently on the final artwork. ‘The Triptych of Science’ is an unusual ‘art-science’ project in that the work is more about the process of science, and the nature of research, than about scientific knowledge itself.

The final exhibition was curated by Mikayla Hu and included a Q and A with the participants, and a video documentary of the project by Madisson McKone.