The importance of a positive work culture for wellbeing and productivity has become increasingly evident in recent years, but academic science still has a negative reputation in this area. To address this issue, we launched a dedicated, international workshop called ⁠“SAFE Labs” in 2024, focused on understanding the key barriers to Starting Aware, Fair, and Equitable Labs.

Here, we focus on two key barriers that we decided we could immediately address:

1. Although many group leaders are passionate about improving lab culture, there isn’t an established resource with actionable advice. Instead, existing training and resources typically provide general advice.
2. Policies implemented by group leaders are not documented (neither publicly nor internally), making it difficult for lab members to influence their environment or hold the group leader accountable. This may also create expectation mismatch between prospective group members and the group leader.

In response to this need, the 13 attendees of SAFE Labs co-authored this handbook. It presents core commitments that span different topics: Policies, Teams, and Careers. No commitment relies on institutional support to implement, and all commitments are actionable, and can be verifiably implemented. This is because:

• Implementable commitments are the most helpful to group leaders and lab members.
• Verifiable commitments allow for accountability and specific feedback. For example, “I commit to supporting a healthy work-life balance for my lab members” will not be in this handbook because the commitment cannot be verified.

Besides inspiring new group leaders, a key goal of the handbook is to increase transparency and minimise any expectation mismatch between the group leader and lab members, fostering a positive and equitable lab culture. We recognise that there are many viable strategies to run a research group, and that challenges and constraints vary across groups, institutions, and countries. Therefore, the core commitments can be adopted as presented, or tailored to each lab research strategy, institution and country. We encourage suggestions for new policies and invite discussion for new ideas.

Why should group leaders implement the handbook? (At least) 3 reasons:

1. They care about improve lab culture
2. It advertises that care to lab members and funders
3. It reduces inter-personal friction and conflict

This handbook does not represent an optimal or exhaustive template: it is the product of thirteen group leaders who are all passionate about improving lab culture, and are all fallible. Although this handbook will not solve every problem, we hope it takes a significant step toward addressing key challenges faced in daily lab life. The handbook will improve through community feedback and further dedicated workshop