The Good Science Project

The Good Science Project

The Good Science Project is a Imperial-wide initiative aiming to promote debate about contemporary research culture. We celebrate the ideals which brought us into science, and by which we hope to work. And we look with a critical eye at the way Imperial College can best support our own good practice.  

The Good Science Project is a collaboration between the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) and the Science Communication Unit, and is funded by Research England.

What is ‘good science’?

What is ‘good science’? And what is ‘good practice’? These phrases are interesting because they point in two directions. On the one hand there is the ‘headline’ success of institutions: high impact research results; grants won; league tables scaled; top journals stormed; media time guaranteed, parliamentary questions asked.  We know too that ‘good science’ suggests also something quieter, less public, more intimate. ‘Good science’ may be the moments of reflection where you have time to consider the direction your work is taking. It may be those conversations with colleagues that are both trustful and creative. Good science may be the style of work where collegiality is valued above straight ambition. Undoubtedly good science is linked to the steady and secure development of your skills. We need our institutions to be successful: otherwise, there can be no science. But for the ideas to flow, researchers need time and they need autonomy. How can we get the balance right, and so produce the research culture that helps us all flourish?

None of these issues are easy to get right. None attract instant solutions. But to be confident of progress in research culture, one of the foundations will be the time we give ourselves for reflection and for conversation. This is the ethos of the Good Science Project.

The Good Science Project in 2025/26

Friday Forums

Five Friday Forums are planned, each a congenial in-person lunchtime discussion focusing on a particular aspect of research culture. Brief intervals in our busy day, Imperial’s Friday Forums give scientists, other staff and students the opportunity to step back for a short hour, to consider wider perspectives on their craft.

Among the highlights this year, we look forward to our January meeting discussing the impact of security science on academic research culture (see events listing below). Before then November 28^th we have a meeting reflecting on our use of the animal model; in the New Year there will be a Friday Forum on machine learning, titled ‘Humanising Robots, led by Dr Nejra Van Zalk of the Dyson School of Design Engineering. We are delighted that for our Spring Friday Forum, which celebrates the work of the Environmental Research Group, we will be joined by Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer.

‘I Scientist’ animation nears completion

Early viewings are now underway of the new Good Science Project film ‘I Scientist’. Under the expert instruction of animator and artist-in-residence Litza Jansz, for more than a year a group of Imperial researchers have drawn, rotoscoped, photographed and voiced – all in the service of a participatory project that aims to capture artistically the key concerns and pleasures of the research life. As Litza Jansz put it ‘These Imperial scientists were great to work with and showed real skill as artists. But what was just as impressive was the way, over many afternoon sessions, they could discuss their differing perspectives on science, and find just the right artistic expression’. The film now is now in the last stages of production, with sound engineering curated by Simon Rogers.

We will organise a premiere in the main entrance in the New Year; and it will be entered into the festivals. Colleagues interested in research culture might also consider using the film as a resource for discussions and ‘soirées’ within their department.

Hold the date: announcing the Good Science Project’s 2026 research culture conference ‘Failure in Science’, April 16th 2026

We are delighted that this year’s research culture conference, co-convened with Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature, will be joined by Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock as the keynote speaker. Dame Maggie is a notable and sympathetic champion for science, co-presents The Sky at Night, and is giving this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Our conference this year looks at the many faces of failure in science. As a participant put in a recent focus group ‘We are better at describing success than we are at describing failure’. Yet scientists are united in their opinion that failure has to be accepted as an inevitable, perhaps valuable aspect of the research process. How should scientists view the delays and diversions of failure, and how should institutions ‘manage’ this important element of the life scientific? To what extent is failure unfairly distributed, and what advice can we give each other about resilience and hope? Furthermore, can science itself fail, ethically or simply in terms of unfulfilled promises? With speakers from academic research, from industry, from the arts and from the other professions, this conference will be a unique insight into a rarely-discussed aspect of all scientific careers. Panellists include Professor Roger Kneebone, Professor Nessa Carey, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) Professor Mary Ryan and Professor Camille Kandiko Howson. Scientists at all stages of the hierarchy will be contributing to the conference, including students. And to broaden yet further our perspectives we are delighted to be joined by the eminent social scientists Professor Andy Stirling (Sussex University) and Professor Patricia Kingori (University of Oxford).

Looking back …

2025 Spring Conference, April 2^nd, ‘Prism of Research’. I30 college members discussed the kaleidoscope of research culture, led by Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature magazine, Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) and Professor Peter Openshaw, professor of Experimental Medicine. The conference schedule is here, and the College news item about the conference is here.

2023 Autumn Conference, September 27^th, ‘Day of Doubt’

The Day of Doubt examined and affirmed the importance of doubt as a resource for good science. 280 members of the College filled the Sir Alexander Building, with the day introduced by Professor Mary Ryan (Vice-Provost, Research and Enterprise), Sir Paul Nurse FRS, director of the Francis Crick institute, and Professor Ian Walmsley FRS, Provost of Imperial College. The day was structured to be as conversational as possible, with ample opportunity to discuss such features of research culture as excellence, public engagement and interdisciplinarity. The day was filmed and you can view the different sections of the conference on YouTube.

Art project: The Tapestry of Science

Make sure you visit the 4^th floor of the Abdus Salaam library. As part of the Good Science Project we ran for 12 weeks in Summer 2024 an arts project involving ten scientists, research managers and science communicators, working under the guidance of artist-in-residence Ella Miodownik. The project culminated in July 2024 with an exhibition and Private View, called ‘Experiment’.

The project brief was to represent vital aspects of the life scientific, especially those central to daily laboratory practice. Three concepts form the animating principles of the art piece, ‘time’, ‘balance’ and ‘emotion’, aspects of research familiar to all scientists.

The group met weekly, on Fridays, and worked both jointly and independently on the final artwork. ‘The Tapestry of Science’ is an unusual ‘art-science’ project in that the work is more about the process of science, and the nature of research, than about scientific knowledge itself.

The final exhibition was curated by Mikayla Hu and included a Q and A with the participants, and a video documentary of the project by Madisson McKone.

Finally…

The Good Science Project is assisted by an advisory group. Members are:

• Professor Frank Kelly, Battcock Chair in Community Health and Policy. Director of the Environmental Research Group, School of Public Health.
• Dr Felicity Mellor, director of the Science Communication Unit.
• Dr Sam Cooper, Reader in Machine Learning for Materials Design, Dyson School of Design Engineering.
• Dr Alex Richardson, Research Associate, Environmental Research Group, School of Public Health.
• Ehsan Masood, senior editor and Bureau Chief (Africa and India), Nature magazine.
• Emily Roche, Executive Officer, Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise).