The Good Science Project

The Good Science Project is a College-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 College 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. 

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?

Please join the discussion by getting involved in our activities:

A. New series of Friday Forums.

We are looking forward to our next series of Friday Forums, starting in October. Five are planned, on these topics and with these speakers:

1. Future(s) of the animal experiment. With Dr Anna Napolitano. October 25.
2. What is the role of the social sciences at Imperial? With Dr Mike Tennant, Dr Diana Varaden and Prof. Steve Fuller, Comte Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick. November 8.
3. Measuring science, seeing virtue. With Prof. Mary Ryan; Prof. André Spicer, Dean of Bayes Business School, City University; and Prof. Stephen Curry. December 13.
4. Scientific research as a public activity. With Katherine Mathieson, director of the Royal Institution and Clare Matterson, CEO of the Royal Horticultural Society. January 31.
5. Faith and research. With the Very Rev. Dr. Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark and Professor Ian Walmsley FRS, Provost of Imperial College. March 14.

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 the opportunity to step back for a short hour, to consider wider perspectives on their craft. Previous Friday Forums  include ‘The Ages of Science’, a debate about the way our science changes as we age; ‘Big Science/Little Science’, a look at the advantages and disadvantages of working in big groups; ‘Art/Museums/Science’, a survey of the ways different elements of culture can contribute to scientists’ working lives; and ‘Why Technicians Are Important for Science Innovation’, about the relationship between scientists and technicians.

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.

More information about the upcoming series of Friday Forums, and registration links, will be available in September.

B. Research/Culture: A Symposium on the Nature of Scientific Work.

On April 2nd 2025 we will be holding a symposium on research culture, with guest speakers Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature Magazine; Dr Dan O’Connor, Head of Research Environment at Wellcome; Professor Ken Arnold, director of Medical Museion, Copenhagen; and Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), Imperial College.

The symposium will be an opportunity to debate our views on research culture issues. We are planning contributions from the various teams at Imperial who have been working under Research England’s ‘Enhancing Research Culture’ funding stream. To broaden our perspectives, and to make the day properly interdisciplinary, we will invite also the scientist-artists of the Triptych of Science arts project to discuss their own vision of the ‘science good life’. We hope that colleagues from other universities will join us too. 

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 the College 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 College. 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 conference booklet, called A Memo on Doubt, is available here.

Looking back: 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.