We recently hosted our fifth and final webinar of the year, “Embracing team science in pure academic and academic-pharma alliances”,  featuring a panel of expert speakers discussing two major trends in research productivity that both revolve around increased collaboration beyond a single lab.

VIEW THE WEBINAR RECORDING

Firstly, there is a growing trend in research for international collaboration, and secondly, academic research labs are also developing closer research relationships with their counterparts from industry.

Laura Wheeler, Community Manager at Digital Science, started the webinar off, introducing the panel of speakers, as well as explaining their different backgrounds, before handing over to Xavier Armand from Labguru to moderate the discussion.

Xavier provided a brief overview of the topic at hand, explaining how the concept of “Team Science” is radically changing models of research, for example pharma companies are now setting up “virtual labs” with academic research groups, often internationally. Xavier also shared his own experience of collaborative research and the associated challenges around coordination, shipping, communication and logistics.

Dr Davide Danovi, Director, HipSci Cell Phenotyping Programme at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King’s College London, was the first presenter to speak. As most researchers will know, the lab is a messy environment and tracing the different processes and workflows that researchers carry out is a real challenge. Lab notebooks are inevitably messy, but digital platforms can help improve storage, preservation, tracking, monitoring, sharing and discoverability.

Lab notebooks are inevitably messy, but digital platforms can help improve storage, preservation, tracking, monitoring, sharing and discoverability.

However, in Dr Danovi’s view it is very important to avoid duplicating work when using such platforms, for example by recording data twice. Unpolished and informal note-taking should still be accommodated by digital platforms, as it is by paper notebooks. There should be a clear and direct relationship between experimental processes and their documentation. Dr Danovi also explained that it is much easier to implement these workflows and platforms when starting up a new lab, it is a lot harder to change people’s existing workflows.

READ MORE