National Postdoctoral Association

RCR TOOLKIT
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Training programs in RCR are often directed primarily at the student who is still learning how to be a researcher and may not have experience with many of the topics covered. Postdocs on the other hand are already professional researchers and many RCR topics will resonate with them from previous experience. In addition, postdocs have a number of unique concerns due to the nature of the postdoc appointment, from its short-term nature to its inherent lack of official standing. Below are six general recommendations for tailoring a program to needs and habits of postdocs.

1. Customize Your Program Content to the Specific Concerns of Postdocs

To design a program that targets postdocs, it is recommended to review the seven individual RCR content areas described in the toolkit article “Determining the Goals and Content of your Program” which each outline issues of particular relevance to postdocs.

2. Supervisors are Key to a Postdoc’s RCR Training

It is acknowledged by most sources (c.f. National Academies 2002 [1]; Anderson et al. 2007 [2]) that the best method for influencing responsible behavior is through mentoring from an advisor, which can include one-on-one mentoring as well as participating in group meetings or journal clubs. The relationship between a postdoc and his or her supervisor is a critical one, since postdocs are particularly reliant upon their supervisors for both financial and infrastructural support, as well as further career advancement. Thus it is important to involve postdoc supervisors with RCR training, whether they actively participate as a mentor in these topics or merely support the postdoc’s participation in a more formal program. Since extensive mentoring is not always feasible in today’s busy research environment, formal training is often necessary to supplement individual mentoring. In any case, having a supervisor’s support for such training activities can be critical for postdocs to feel comfortable taking time away from research in order to participate.

3. Establish a Postdoc Training Curriculum that Includes RCR

One way to reinforce RCR education is to incorporate training in RCR into a core curriculum [3]. As the postdoc position is increasingly acknowledged as a training period (as evidenced, for example, by the new NIH and NSF postdoc definitions), it is important to give coherence to that training via a curriculum. The importance of this training is further underscored by the NIH requirement for RCR training for all NIH-supported trainees as well as the 2007 America COMPETES Act which instructs NSF to require training in RCR for all NSF grant-funded postdocs. The NPA’s Recommended Practices recommends establishing a postdoc curriculum, and is currently developing a recommended curriculum of core competencies for postdocs that include responsible conduct of research.

4. Incorporate RCR with Everyday “Survival” Skills

Another recommendation from the NRC report Integrity in Scientific Research [4] is to teach RCR alongside “survival” skills. This is an increasingly popular approach that has become very successful as a vehicle for delivering research integrity training, especially for postdocs. Not only does this have pedagogical advantages by integrating the topic with other basic research skills and thus improving long term retention, it also makes RCR training much more attractive for postdocs. If a training program appears to have a more direct benefit to a postdoc’s career, such as preparing them to be a better lab manager, then postdocs are much more likely to attend. For example, when asked on the Sigma Xi Postdoc Survey what kinds of formal training they would be interested in receiving, postdocs ranked research ethics last, whereas they put grant writing, lab management and project management at the top.

Two primary models have emerged for these types of programs: Survival Skills courses and Lab Management courses. Part of the success of these approaches is due to the very useful “train-the-trainers” workshops that provide instruction on designing and offering such programs.

• The Survival Skills and Ethics program at the University of Pittsburgh offers a series of workshops on survival skills as well as an annual train-the-trainers conference on designing your own survival skills course. Their website also offers a number of resources for those mounting their own program, especially designed for those who have completed their training conference.
  
  Some other examples:
  
  
  • University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: Research Survival Skills course
    Focuses on scientific writing, grant writing, and laboratory management
  • UC San Diego Research Ethics Program – Ethics and Survival Skills Course
  • University of Miami Miller School of Medicine: Professional Skills and Ethics courses
• Lab Management courses were widely promoted through a joint initiative of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The initiative offered train-the-trainers workshops for those who would like to develop a lab management course. Along with these workshops, they also developed excellent resources both for those teaching such a course and those who would take the course. In particular, they produced two publications, which can be ordered for free from HHMI or downloaded:
  
  
  • Training Scientists to Make the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Developing Programs in Scientific Management and
  • Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty.
  • In addition to these publications, the Lab Management website includes a number of useful tools for planning a lab management course, such as example syllabuses, evaluation forms, and case studies.
  Some examples of lab management courses:
  
  
  • Philadelphia Postdoctoral Consortium Scientific Management Course for Postdocs
  • UC Davis Laboratory Management Institute
  • UC San Diego Lab Management Symposium
  • UC San Francisco Scientific Leadership and Laboratory Management Course
  • University of Pittsburgh Course in Scientific Management and Leadership
  • For other organizations mounting lab management courses based on training from the BWF-HHMI program, visit: http://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement/partners.html

5. Address the Cultural Diversity among Postdocs

It is important to take into account the range of cultural backgrounds among postdocs, since the majority will be visa holders. Expect postdocs trained in different countries to have a range of experiences with RCR, different scientific cultures and norms upon which to draw, and certainly different personal experiences with research. Focus groups with international postdocs on RCR at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that while postdocs from all countries indicated a need for RCR training, it was important to allow the opportunity for postdocs to share their varied experiences. Another consideration is that the vulnerability of postdocs due to their lack of official standing is doubly true for postdocs from other countries and those from underrepresented groups.

Some useful resources on this are:

• Alexander, M. and Williams, W.R. A Guidebook for Teaching Selected RCR Topics to Culturally Diverse Trainee Groups. Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
• Williams, W.R. Mentoring International Postdocs: Working Together to Advance Science and Careers. Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
• NPA International Postdoc Survival Guide

6. Consider How to Attract Postdocs

In deciding which format is most appropriate for your postdoc community, take into account some of the big issues for attracting postdocs to your program. It can be a challenge to draw them from their labs and offices, even with the support of their supervisors. Some questions to consider are:

• What will postdocs get out of it? Consider whether the course will be required or optional. Consider whether postdocs will be satisfying a requirement, or perhaps receiving a certification. Postdocs will likely be more interested in a program where they receive something tangible upon completion that may help with future job prospects.
• Is it a time/location when the postdocs will be willing to the leave their lab or office? The distance and time of day of a program can be critical for increasing postdoc participation. See “Marketing RCR Programs to Postdocs” for suggestions on this and other concerns.

Please complete a short feedback questionnaire on the toolkit and tell us how it might be improved!

[1][3][4] Board on Health Sciences Policy and Institute of Medicine (2002) Integrity in Scientific Research: Creating an Environment That Promotes Responsible Conduct. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10430&page=84

[2] Anderson, M.S., Horn, A.S., Risbey, K.R., Ronning, E.A., De Vries, R., and Martinson, B.C. (2007) “What Do Mentoring and Training in the Responsible Conduct of Research Have To Do with Scientists’ Misbehavior? Findings from a National Survey of NIH-Funded Scientists.” Academic Medicine. 82(9): 853