Big ones can impede progress

Aligning research incentives to reward open science practices may seem daunting, but university and philanthropic leadership can start the process by taking specific, concrete actions that have already been proven effective in practice. In this spirit, we call on universities to emulate MIT and launch an open science task force. The MIT model is a true collaboration among the administration, chairs and faculty that includes the development and deployment of open science plans tailored to the disciplinary considerations of each department.

It is predicated on the acknowledgement that what constitutes open science best practices in, say, anthropology, will differ from what works for zoology. Facilitating this bespoke departmental approach are the many emerging norms and policies articulated by professional societies such as the Linguistics Society of America , the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science and the American Geophysical Union.

Ideally, the recommended policies that arise from these task forces will resonate with faculty from both an institutional and a disciplinary perspective. The ultimate goal is to develop "mutually reinforcing vectors," an environment in which researchers hear consistently from a range of influencers at their university, within their discipline, and across potential funding sources that open practices are both warmly encouraged and properly rewarded.

In support of this "mutually reinforcing vectors" approach, we also call on philanthropies to adopt grantmaking policies that encourage researchers to share their outputs articles, data, code, materials, etc.

In this effort, they can lean on the work of funders ranging from the American Heart Association to the Gates Foundation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to craft language and workflows that have been field-tested over thousands of grant conferrals. Philanthropies can also draw from policy language templates developed by the Open Research Funders Group and endorsed by funders including the Sloan Foundation and the Wellcome Trust to implement a stepwise approach to more closely aligning their incentivization schemes with open science principles.

While open is better for science, the economy, society, it is not magic. It takes concerted, direct effort by key stakeholders to effect change. The Roundtable includes direct representation from colleges and universities, philanthropies and government agencies. Crucially, the broader network of stakeholders engaging with the Roundtable also includes more than professors, postdocs, librarians, professional society representatives, publishers, funders and other stakeholders.

For any university or philanthropy finding itself not yet prepared to take the plunge in the manner we have outlined above, we warmly encourage you to engage with the roundtable to get a better sense of the tangible steps your peers are taking to stimulate open science within their institutions. There are hurdles to widespread adoption of open science practices, to be sure.

Researchers need proper training on data management plans, reuse licensing and other good open science hygiene. Infrastructure must be developed and nurtured to preserve scientific data, curate it and render it actionable. To get a clearer view of how meetings are affecting your group, use surveys or interviews to gather data and impressions from every individual. This must be an open, nonjudgmental discussion of the survey or interview findings. Neutral facilitators can help keep the conversation constructive.

However, delegating the data interpretation to an outside consultant—or even just a subset of the team—can undermine success. At the financial and regulatory consultancy we studied, for example, exploratory interviews revealed that meetings were chopping up calendars so badly that very few two- or three-hour blocks were left for deep-thinking work. Without enough quiet time to concentrate, the consultants felt that their creativity and productivity were being sapped.

These disclosures served as a wake-up call for the managers who had been scheduling meetings without a full awareness of the impact they were having. For example, you might designate a certain amount of time each week for people to focus on independent work—whether in the office or at home. Giving them such flexibility and freedom can provide necessary relief in their schedules, along with an incentive to make the arrangement work.

As a result, we find, teams hold fewer meetings overall, and fewer people go to each one. The long days were causing significant stress and fatigue on both sides: Early-morning calls were required, family dinners were missed, workdays were more than 12 hours long. In order to ensure the appropriate information exchange, team members had to find ways to cover for one another and keep everyone updated.

Learning how to do that gave individuals the break they needed, but it also resulted in more shared knowledge and versatility in the group.

As with any change effort, it is important that concrete and measurable progress be assessed and discussed along the way. Small, tangible wins provide something for people to celebrate, and small losses provide opportunities for learning and correction. Consider this example: At a global e-commerce company, a team of 30 employees spanning the United States and China told us that their weekly all-hands meetings were a pain point. Attendees were often on their phones or laptops.

Because people were continually distracted, those who spoke had to repeat themselves frequently, making the time spent not only longer but also much less effective. To help address these problems, the team decided on a simple, tractable goal: Allow no outside technology at the meetings. At first several vocal engineers and even the team leader were resistant, feeling that they should have the right to use their devices, especially when meetings became boring or turned to topics outside their purview.

But over time the new norm took hold, and even the manager self-corrected when he instinctively started to check his phone. The team began to see the benefits of this experiment. Meetings became more productive, and people were more engaged. Finally, we have found that it is critical to regularly and openly take stock of how people feel about the meetings they attend and about their work process more generally. Frustration, resentment, and even hopelessness are signals that people are falling back into bad patterns.

Moreover, changing protocols and behaviors takes time, and sustaining momentum requires consistent attention and contact. At the beginning of each pulse check, participants answered four questions: How are you feeling? How valuable are the ways in which you are spending your time? How well are you working as a team? Is this sustainable? The answers to these questions triggered substantive discussions, rich in emotional, strategic, and tactical content. Early conversations focused specifically on the meeting problem, but over time they increasingly addressed how team members approached their work—and one another.

Pulse checks are really insightful—they give me a good dose of reality…and they surfaced issues that resulted in more cross-coverage, people development, and teamwork. It sounds crazy that this little experiment could create these sorts of results, but it has profound implications far beyond the initial goal.

We suggest brief weekly check-ins for a few months, until the new norms, processes, and attitudes are in place. Each of us can advocate for changes to policies and social norms that discriminate against women, so we can be the generation to achieve equality.

Why else should we act on the SDGs? Change happens when we work together — across borders and backgrounds — for the shared cause of a fair, just future for people and planet. Helpfully, the SDG Report for lays out areas we should focus on, including:. Join us to act like the world depends on it. Because it does. By Jenni Lee June 29, Time Traveler for impede The first known use of impede was circa See more words from the same year. Style: MLA. Get Word of the Day daily email!

Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge! Love words? Need even more definitions? Just between us: it's complicated.

Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs.