Transforming Research Rigor in a Leading Neuroscience Department using a Comprehensive Culture Change Approach

The MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) department seeks fundamental knowledge about the brain and mind that can be translated into benefits for society including the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disease. Rigor and transparency are necessary precursors and foundations for these goals. Despite strong shared values and commitment, however, there are daunting obstacles to a sustainable transformation to increased research rigor and transparency. The proposed project is a collaboration between BCS and an external non-profit, the Center for Open Science (COS), that will use a systems-change approach to assess and address obstacles to rigorous and transparent neuroscientific research. In this project, we will translate the effective Theory of Change model developed by the Center for Open Science to the context of a broad neuroscience department. COS’s Theory of Change identifies five necessary and interdependent levels of an effective intervention: [1] infrastructure that makes it possible to do the behaviors, [2] training to make it easy to do the behaviors, [3] making support and behaviors visible to shift community norms, [4] creating incentives to make it desirable to do the behaviors, and [5] re-shaping policies to make the behaviors a required and sustained part of the system. However, this model has not yet been adapted to support change in one of most important subcultures in research -- the academic department. Departments pose a key opportunity for this model, since departments house and are responsible for graduate training programs, and faculty hiring and promotion, and thus the key communities, incentives and policies that guide academic life. The activities of this project are organized to address each of the levels in the Theory of Change. The close collaboration between an academic department and a non-profit culture change organization will produce an effective, scalable solution. By the end of the project period, BCS will have integrated the transparency and rigor-enhancing initiatives into the curriculum and standard practices of the department, and COS will have translated the effective components of the program into an open, scalable suite of products and services that can be exported and adapted to the needs of other departments.