Learn about the counter-intuitive leadership practice of one of the most successful labs in the world when it comes to producing Nobel Prize winners. The study itself is a breakthrough study that challenges established notions and provides meaningful guidance on how to support basic science.
Rethinking the Approach to Scientific Research
But the conventional wisdom has been that scientific research is inherently unpredictable and can never be anything but entirely at the mercy of whatever individual researchers happen to want to do. But a fresh look at the Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) tells another tale.
Not only does the research, published in the prestigious journal Nature, underscore how good management strategy can be so crucial to driving scientific innovation, The research led by Ph.D. student Luka Gebel from the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, was conducted with mice and rabbits. This latter paper, published in August of the same year with the W. candidate at King’s Business School along with Chander Velu and Antonio Vial-Puig from University of Cambridge, provides a detailed historical examination of LMB (Papageorgiou et al. 2019).
One of those surprises — that the LMB, which has a long history of spawning Nobel Prize winners (16 so far), should still prosper — is in some ways less interesting than the other: that basic bioscience research now seems to be fashionable again, after a long period when it did not command much support. The authors maintain that the LMB approach is highly efficient at boosting the odds of making important scientific discoveries and adopting it more widely might help to reposition basic science in a way that appeals to funders.
The Secrets of the LMB’s Success
Examining the LMB’s archives, which contain management and board meeting minutes, and interviewing senior managers past and present, as well as external scientific collaborators, revealed the basis of this success.
The researchers determined several critical policy and practice features which have helped sustain the high levels of breakthough science that emerge from the LMB:
Fostering a Collaborative and Mission-Driven Culture — the LMB has: Developed a research culture that promotes collaboration, break down of barriers between disciplines and shared goals. This has led to breaking up silos and more of an innovation culture.
– Strategic resource allocation: The LMB management team have meticulously made decisions on where and when resources are allocated, wherein the equipment and infrastructure required to meet research goals of the lab.
Embracing Diverse Perspectives: The LMB has always gone to great lengths to ensure diverse peoples inhabit the same corridors, making sure that there was a broad sense of identity both within and outside it. This has meant that the lab has been able to harness a breadth of expertise and skills, generating more innovative and applied research.
> Fundamental Science: The LMB continues to value basic, curiosity-driven science at a time when translational research has become the buzz word of an increasingly metric driven scientific community. The unprecedent (for us), high throughput method has been key, the authors say in aiding those discoveries to be made at light speed.
The researchers emphasise these key pillars by problematisng the current repurposing of funding allocated to basic bioscience research, and argue for strategic management aimed at supporting scientific breakthroughs.
Conclusion
This research provides compelling evidence of the potential of strategic management to facilitate scientific innovation and discovery. Through nurturing an integrated, purpose-driven culture, a strategic approach to resource allocation focused on the long-term and respect for all viewpoints, the LMB has delivered world-leading discoveries which have advanced our understanding of nature. The burgeoning complexity and interdisciplinarity of basic bio science makes the LMB’s tale especially relevant as a guide for aspiring front liners in public service, research funders, and the legislatures supporting them.
