An experiment in scientific research design - Janelia Farm

Have you heard of Janelia Farm?  It's a scientific research facility funded as an experiment by the Howard Hughes Medical Insitute (HHMI) near Washington DC that opened in 2006. There are about 500 scientists working there, under conditions designed to enable them to create breakthroughs. It's a very conscious organizational design, with some features that I find quite interesting. 

The idea was to consciously recreate the atmosphere of Bell Labs in its heyday and of the Cambridge Laboratory for Molecular Biology. It turns out that these two instituions had a few characteristics in common that HHMI thought might be what made them so effective. Some of these were:

1. Fully funded -- no need for scientists to chase grants
2. No responsibilities besides research -- no teaching load, no administration
3. All scientists have to be hands-on -- at the bench
4. A focus on a fairly narrow set of difficult, high-payoff research challenges
5. No tenure -- senior scientists have a five year term and then may or may not be re-signed
6. (My favorite) Research groups can have no more than 6 members. This means that they cannot possibly have all the skills they need inside their team and so will have to get out of their own lab and get to know the other people in the place so they can get the help they need.

All of this is nestled in a facility with amenities intended to increase mingling, interaction and ultimately collaboration.

Is it working?  An article a few years ago said "it's too soon to tell" but some initial signs are good.

Reading about Janelia made me think about how small adjustments (like keeping the groups small) can make a big difference performance. And they may not be the adjustments one thinks of first. Systems are very tricky and getting them to evolve in healthy ways is also tricky. 

 

 

 

Comments

[A. Postdoc]

Sounds great. Except I don't want to live there. Too bad there aren't more of these spread around the country.