SAFE Labs

CNIDevoLab_2025: As a research team, we are committed to maintaining a professional, inclusive, and supportive working environment where all members can succeed and contribute meaningfully to science. All lab members are expected to act with integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all scientific and interpersonal interactions, while upholding high standards of rigor, collaboration, and ethical conduct. We foster a lab culture based on the following principles:

• Honesty: Be transparent about your work, including insights gained, difficulties encountered, and any mistakes—errors are part of learning and development.
• Respect: Treat all individuals—colleagues, staff, and visitors—with the same courtesy and dignity.
• Communication: Share progress, ask questions, raise concerns, and don’t hesitate to ask for help or offer it when needed.
• Participation: Actively engage in lab meetings, seminars, scientific and other lab activities. Your presence and insights enrich the group.
• Acknowledgement: Recognize others’ contributions, whether technical help, advice, or feedback.
• Accountability: We ask you to do your best for being on time for scheduled team activities, to document carefully your work and share it with the team.
• Dedication: We expect all members to do the best research they can - to strive for excellence in their experimental work, analysis, writing and science communication. However, balancing work and the rest of your life is important: make time for personal things and take care of your health.

We are committed to fostering a psychologically safe space where everyone feels free to express ideas, ask questions, and voice concerns. Discriminatory or belittling behaviour is not tolerated.

OttLab_2025: All lab members are expected to maintain a professional attitude of integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all interactions and endeavours while upholding high standards of scientific rigor and collaboration. Examples include respecting each other’s points of views and contributions to discussions, being timely for meetings, and actively engaging in each other’s presentations. Everyone commits to maintaining an inclusive environment marked by compassionate behaviour and free from offensive conduct, particularly regarding gender, race, sexuality, or disability. Lab members are free to voice their ideas, wishes, or concerns without risking negative consequences ensuring a psychologically safe environment.

ReinhardLab_2025: What I expect from my lab members:

• HONESTY - I expect everyone to be honest about the insights they gained, about mistakes that happened, and about their plans and intentions as far as they concern their work and the lab. Importantly, making mistakes is part of the learning and skill development process!
• FEEDBACK - Give me feedback – both if you find something I do helpful, but also if I do or say something you think is wrong or not in the best interest of everyone.
• COMMUNICATION - Communicate frequently, clearly and concisely. Tell us about your successes, ask questions, and ask for help to solve problems. HELPFULNESS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - Help your colleagues – everyone’s success benefits the whole lab. Acknowledge the help you received in your presentations, add people as authors to abstracts and papers if they contributed to your work. Ideas and regular feedback or significant troubleshooting are contributions, too!
• RESPECT - Treat everyone with respect - your colleagues, other labs, technical personnel, cleaning personnel, administration… This refers to how you speak and listen to others, accepting who they are, but also respecting other people’s time and (personal) space.
• DEDICATION - I expect my team to do the best research they can - to strive for excellence in their experimental work, analysis, writing and science communication. However, balancing work and the rest of your life is important. Be dedicated during your work time, but make time for other things that are important to you.
• PARTICIPATION - I expect everyone to be an active member of the lab, institute and science community. I ask my team to actively participate in lab meetings, journal clubs, seminars, conferences…; and to offer us their insights, knowledge and opinion.

More details and what lab members can expect from me are found on our website.

RossiLab_2025: All lab members are expected to maintain a professional attitude of integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all interactions and endeavours while upholding high standards of scientific rigor and collaboration. Examples include respecting each other’s points of views and contributions to discussions, arriving on time for meetings (remind Federico of this!), and actively engaging in each other’s presentations. Everyone commits to maintaining an inclusive environment marked by compassionate behaviour and free from offensive conduct, particularly regarding diversity and minorities. Lab members should feel free and safe to voice their ideas, wishes, or concerns without risking negative consequences ensuring a supportive environment and diverse viewpoints.

MariottiLab_2025: All lab members are expected to uphold integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all interactions and activities. Members are responsible for maintaining high standards of scientific rigor, collaboration, and collegiality. This includes actively listening to and valuing diverse perspectives, being punctual for meetings, and engaging fully in discussions and presentations. The lab is committed to fostering an inclusive, supportive environment characterized by compassion and free from offensive, discriminatory, or harmful behavior particularly regarding diversity and minorities. Lab members are encouraged to openly share their ideas, preferences, and concerns without fear of negative consequences, ensuring a psychologically safe and respectful space for everyone.

DonaLab_2025: All lab members are expected to uphold the following core principles:

• Honesty: Scientific integrity is non-negotiable. Be transparent in your work and never compromise on ethical standards. Seek help when needed—asking questions or admitting uncertainty is a strength, not a weakness.
  Lab members can refer to the CNR institutional page on research integrity for official policies and guidance.
• Respect: Every lab member’s opinion matters. While critical thinking is encouraged, feedback should always be constructive and aimed at fostering meaningful dialogue and personal development. Disagreement is welcome, as long as it’s expressed respectfully.
• Engagement: Curiosity, initiative, and commitment are essential. Strive for excellence in your research, and take an active role in lab activities—this includes lab meetings, seminars, and collaborative discussions. The success of the lab depends on the enthusiasm and contributions of its members.

RadzisheuskayaLab_2025: Our lab culture is founded on mutual respect, accountability, and a commitment to ethical and collaborative science. We expect everyone to contribute to an environment where people feel heard, valued, and supported. This means showing up prepared, engaging thoughtfully with others’ work, and being open to different viewpoints. We do not tolerate discrimination or harmful behaviour of any kind, especially those related to race, gender, disability, or sexuality. Every lab member has a role in shaping a space where it’s safe to speak up, ask questions, and offer feedback. Psychological safety isn’t optional - it’s essential, and we protect it together.

When it comes to how I run the lab, I really try to build a team that runs on self-motivation, curiosity, and a shared drive to do great science. I want people to feel excited about what they are working on and comfortable taking initiative. My general motto is: work hard, work smart, work together. I am here to support, guide, and help clear the path when needed—but I also trust everyone to take ownership of their work and grow into their strengths.

CoenLab_2025: Lab members must maintain professional integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all interactions while upholding high scientific standards and fostering collaboration. This includes respecting others’ viewpoints during discussions, arriving on time for meetings, and engaging actively with presentations. Everyone must contribute to an inclusive environment characterized by compassionate behaviour and free from any discriminatory conduct—especially regarding gender, race, sexuality, or disability. Lab members should feel safe to express their ideas, wishes, or concerns without fear of negative consequences, ensuring a supportive environment.

AeryJonesLab_2026:

• Everyone is an equally valuable member of our team. We respect and support each other’s science and wellbeing. We carry each other through challenges and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. We are curious and enthusiastic about each other’s work. We are all here to learn from one another.
• Transparency is the key to building trust. We share our expectations, our priorities, our work and communication styles, and our goals. We are honest about our challenges and our data, especially when it doesn’t match our hypotheses. We ask for help proactively.
• We assume the best in everyone. We are patient, thoughtful, and understanding. We do our best to work within everyone’s personal work and communication styles. We respect each other’s goals, values, and priorities. We actively listen.
• Everyone contributes to tending the lab ‘garden’. We strive to work collaboratively and mentor others wherever we can. We share our resources and skills to benefit others. We actively contribute to the shared knowledge of the lab. We share our code and data when we publish and release our work as preprints.
• Your time is valuable. There are an infinite number of questions and tasks to pursue and a finite number of hours in your day. I will never ask you to do work that I don’t think would benefit you. I encourage you to say no to me and to other requests when they don’t meet your priorities. We will consider how to use your time in lab as effectively as possible so you have ample time to enjoy your life outside of lab.
• Staying organized to manage your experiments, time, supplies, and resources is critical to great science. We will keep shared resources organized. We will keep our data, records, and samples organized such that our mentees and co-authors can work with us effectively.
• Science goes beyond the bench. We are lifelong learners and will make time for professional development training that meets our needs. We will volunteer for outreach, especially to historically marginalized groups. We will contribute to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts.
• We take caution and consideration with our experiments. We question each element of our experiments to make sure they’re the most appropriate to test our hypotheses. We think critically about the background literature and data the supports our hypotheses. We design the strongest experiment before diving into data collection. We pause to do intermediate analyses before collecting additional data. We seek feedback early, often, and from many viewpoints.
• We value failure as part of learning. I invite everyone to take risks and will commend you even if it fails. We value the process over the product and resilience over results.
• We build bridges, not fences. We bring everyone into science. Our job is not to gatekeep people or their science from progressing. Our job is to see the best in every person and project and raise them up to their highest potential.