Research Ethics Expert: Learn to listen, observe, and speak openly
Academic institutions still value research more highly than teaching, but this is not logical, says Mariëtte van den Höven, Professor of Medical Ethics and Philosophy at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. Instead of a rapid career trajectory, the primary focus should be on conducting high-quality research.
Mariëtte van den Höven delivered a public lecture in Tartu in October on transforming research culture and led a workshop on research ethics. She also spoke about this in an interview to the magazine Universitas Tartuensis, discussing what young leaders can do to promote research ethics within their teams.
The interview with Mariëtte van den Höven was conducted by Mari-Liisa Parder, Research Fellow in Ethics at the University of Tartu.
You have been actively involved in changing the research culture at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. Where did you start there?
Research ethics is the culture we all share and uphold at every level of the organization. Our aim was to bring research ethics more effectively to the departmental level – that’s where people see real change and where research culture can truly evolve.
It has been a challenging task. Sometimes it feels like we take one step forward and two steps back. Some colleagues focus too heavily on securing funding, thinking only about the money behind a project rather than its content. I believe the joy of work comes from the substance of the project. I deliberately set funding aside and said that it should be decided by senior specialists. Do what you truly want to do – that’s the most enjoyable part – and early-career researchers shouldn’t be responsible for financing their own work. I’m open in other areas too, such as recruitment policy, and I involve PhD students. We even created a leadership position for a PhD student to open up decision-making processes at all levels and give people a voice in how the department is run.
Regarding responsible research culture, we try to encourage discussions and collaboration between different research groups to learn from one another – for example, how to write a good ethics committee application, how to register studies, and what the opportunities and challenges of preprints are. There are also less positive situations – one PhD student ended up publishing in a predatory journal, which could have been avoided if we had been more open.
Another thing we try to do is talk about failure. In our department, we ring a large bell to alarm people when colleagues want to share stories and bring cake. Previously, cake was brought when someone received a major grant – now also when a grant application is unsuccessful. People want to share disappointment and experience as well and we create opportunities to do so. I see that people value openness.
Why should anyone be a scientist around the clock?
Still there is a strong focus on obtaining grants, and the workload is sometimes too high. People are so focused on executing their projects and starting new ones that they forget to reflect and communicate outside their project teams. Academic life shouldn’t just be ticking boxes and rushing to the next task – we should learn to embrace something I call slow science.
Leadership comes with responsibility – to help others navigate their careers more calmly. Some want to reach the top as quickly as possible, but that’s often unrealistic. If you’ve just completed your PhD, give yourself time. Don’t aim for a professorship in three years; do what you enjoy, do it well, and in your own way – not just for the sake of ticking boxes or building a career immediately.
What advice would you give to young researchers who feel pressured to advance quickly in their careers? What options do they have to reduce that pressure?
My advice is to openly express how you perceive the expectations placed on you and when those expectations become too much. In many fields, it’s probably possible to slow down the pace. It can’t be that everyone is running like hamsters in a wheel, constantly chasing the highest impact factor. We need to understand that academic life is much more than that. By expressing openly to your leaders or at least to your colleagues how you perceive the expectations, you help initiate those discussions within your department.
And why should anyone be a researcher 24/7? A healthy work-life balance is possible and should be more widely recognised. I always tell newcomers to our department: I want you to feel comfortable here and to be able to grow. That’s the main message. When people feel safe and secure, they are more successful – that’s when better ideas emerge. My professor always said: you won’t have a brilliant idea every Monday morning. Sometimes an idea needs time to grow, and you can’t force it. That’s something we need to relearn.
People in leadership positions probably agree with you, but they also feel pressure from the other side. What is your advice on how leaders can guide young researchers while considering institutional and financial pressures?
I think it’s time for a new kind of leadership in academia. I increasingly see young leaders with fresh ideas who want to change the system. The problems we faced when we were young still exist. Why do we continue to copy and accept the system deterministically? For example, publishers and discussions around impact factors exert significant pressure. If we understand where impact factors originated – they were simply a tool for archiving a researcher’s work, not a scoring system for career advancement – we see the absurdity of the system.
I recommend that those stepping into leadership roles now reflect more on their role and responsibilities. If you’re in the middle of the organisation, with both senior and junior colleagues around you, you’re responsible in both directions. You can help younger colleagues learn new ways of doing research and also resist pressure from funding bodies and publishers, because you’re in a better position to implement change. That’s one of the areas of responsibility we need to value more, along with reflection on the kind of research group you want to build.
Personal aspects, wellbeing, and social security are topics we’ve ignored for too long, and we can’t continue to deny their importance. New leadership approaches invite us to consider these factors and to lead by example. For instance, I try to avoid sending emails to colleagues over the weekend. It’s easy to press “send” later so that no one feels disturbed. People have told me they thought I expected a reply over the weekend when I sent an email. Sometimes I find it convenient to write at the weekend, but knowing I’m a role model and that it creates pressure for others, I think twice before acting.
You spoke about responsible research, not just research ethics, and introduced the topic of social safety. What does that mean? It seems to me like quite a novel way of approaching issues that have been around for a long time.
In many cases of research integrity violations, we see that complaints are often made when people don’t get along; behind the complaints are conflicts, pressure, intimidation or bullying. Social safety is closely connected to this. It refers to all aspects that make you feel at home in your working environment.
Success often favors a certain type of person – always first, fast, successful in securing grants and publishing papers. Those who can’t keep up feel unsafe. Then there’s power dynamics. That’s inevitable in university hierarchies, but it also occurs between collaborators. It can damage cooperation, making people afraid to speak up, fearing they won’t be heard. Although universities tend to treat social safety and research ethics complaints separately, in practice they are closely linked. A toxic environment often leads to misconduct.
People may not even be aware of a toxic culture in a lab or research group. We need to teach people to recognize that environments which may seem competitive and attractive to some are not pleasant for most. Many don’t feel comfortable in such places. Academic culture shouldn’t be about climbing to the top by pushing others down, but rather about helping each other more.
It’s nice to have your name as first author on a paper, but everyone knows that most research is teamwork. Even if you’re the sole author, as is often the case in the humanities, you still discuss your work with colleagues and receive feedback. You’re only successful by working with others. Even if you do everything yourself, you still benefit from teaching – you learn a lot by discussing your research topics with students. Denying this overlooks what’s really going on – that a researcher is a human being, and humans exist through social relationships. These relationships matter, and we need to understand that achievements are reached together.
When young leaders want to change the culture in a research institution, they often realize that certain topics need more attention. But they may not have received any ethics or research integrity training. Where should they start?
First, we should direct more training, workshops and similar activities to a broader range of people, not just PhD candidates. Second, you don’t necessarily need to have completed training to initiate change. You can start with open conversations with colleagues about almost anything that happens in research. I’ll give an example – the Institute for Brilliant Failures in the Netherlands (Instituut voor Briljante Mislukkingen): you simply talk about what didn’t work. Sharing like this, especially if you’re a more experienced researcher, is very helpful to others, because they see that even senior scientists struggle.
Leadership training helps more generally, especially in understanding that everyone has their own personality. We don’t always have to agree, but we should try to understand each other better. A dialogical attitude helps. It’s connected to the idea of empowerment, which I advocate.
There are different approaches to leadership, but talking honestly about choices and difficulties makes you a better leader.
I’m optimistic – I believe we’re moving in the right direction. It’s impossible not to change academic culture. Fortunately, there are many incentives in Europe to do so, some of them mandatory: codes of conduct like the TRUST code, promoting collaboration between the Global North and South. These push us strongly in the right direction. But if we only take a rule-following approach, it won’t work. We need to be more open. Learn to listen, observe, and talk about these topics. That’s all – I’d say it’s not that complicated.
Doesn’t this make leaders vulnerable, if they start listening more and sharing their failures? How can we encourage them to accept that vulnerability?
It’s a good way to show that you’re also just human. Of course, there are different views on leadership, but greater transparency about choices and challenges makes you a better leader. We need new ways of leading.
Although there are more and more politicians in the world who, to put it mildly, don’t set a good example, we can learn a lot in academia. Excluding people doesn’t work – it’s not sustainable in the long run. We need to reshape ourselves to make academia a better place where people enjoy working.
We’re all focused on advancing knowledge, so I’d say we share a common intention to do good science well. Let’s make that the priority – doing science properly – rather than focusing solely on career advancement, because that mindset has proven quite harmful. I understand that if I were a junior researcher, I might be very frustrated by the fact that academia still operates as a pyramid, where many fall off the train on the way to the top.
The goal shouldn’t always be to reach the top. The growth can happen in other directions: you can excel in teaching, you can excel in societal impact – and those are equally valuable careers. Many people in academia work primarily in teaching roles, not as researchers, yet we still value research more than teaching, which doesn’t make sense. We need to balance that better, and I think we’re heading in the right direction.
Professor Mariëtte van den Höven’s visit to the University of Tartu was supported by a Horizon Europe project Alliance4Life_BRIDGE (Grant No 101136453).
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