Failure is a routine part of scientific research, but researchers rarely discuss it openly. At Imperial College London’s “Failure in Science” conference in April, scientists described experiments that failed, funding applications that were rejected, and the privileges that allow some researchers to recover from setbacks while others leave academia without being heard.
Most experiments do not go as planned
Dr. Alena Vdovchenko, a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London, said that her work as a chemist and experimental scientist gives her frequent experience of failure.
“In the lab, most things don’t work out as planned,” she said. Experiments may require weeks or months of careful planning, although some take only a few days. When the results are analyzed, researchers may discover that an important factor was not taken into account. The response is often to redesign the experiment, read more of the literature or return to the lab.
Vdovchenko was speaking during a session called “Taxonomy of Failure,” where early-career researchers discussed how research works in practice, rather than how it is expected to work in theory.
“A lot of chemistry is trial and error,” she said. A quotation displayed in her laboratory summarizes the tension between theory and practice:
“Theory is all-knowing but nothing works. Practice is when everything goes well but no one knows why. Our laboratory combines theory and practice. Nothing works and no one knows why.”
She described the observation as amusing, but also as an uncomfortable truth about scientific work.
When failure becomes part of a scientific identity
Dr. Stephen Webster, director of the Good Science Project at Imperial College London, introduced the discussion. The project investigates what researchers like and dislike about research culture.
One of the conference panelists was Melanie Stefan, a professor of physiology at Berlin Medical University. Stefan said her first major failure in science came during her master’s degree in a developmental biology laboratory.
She struggled to troubleshoot failed experiments and was unsure of what she was doing. She eventually concluded that the laboratory was not the right environment for her. The most difficult moment came when her supervisor called her into his office and said, “Melanie, I think you should really look for a job outside of science.”
The comment shocked Stefan. She had been studying science for many years, considered herself a scientist and had no alternative career plan. Being a scientist and doing science were central parts of her identity. She also loved the work and was deeply interested in it, but did not know what else she could do.
“This was a really devastating failure for me,” she said.
Stefan later wrote about the experience in Nature. She said it was also the only work she had published in Nature. Although many other journals exist, she said that she unintentionally became associated with failure.
At the Imperial College conference, she discussed an article called “The Resume of Failure.” After eventually completing her master’s degree, Stefan went on to complete a PhD, which she described as a successful and enjoyable period. The next stage, however, was much harder: she needed funding to continue as a postdoctoral researcher.
Many of her funding applications were rejected. She began to doubt herself and assumed that she was the only person experiencing such setbacks. The scientists around her appeared to be further along in their careers and were ultimately succeeding in obtaining postdoctoral positions. All she could see was their success, not the failed applications that had preceded it.
That experience led her to write about a “resume of failure.” The idea was for successful scientists to discuss the setbacks they had encountered, including jobs they had not obtained, grants they had missed and papers that had been rejected.
Such accounts, Stefan said, could help young scientists understand that rejection is a normal part of the process and that they are not alone. The article contributed to a broader discussion about failure in science, including the conference itself.
What science can learn from engineering
Stefan said she wanted to bring engineering into a conference focused on failure in science. She noted that engineering has a well-developed tradition of understanding failure and learning from it.
She particularly valued the session “View from the Laboratory,” which focused on how young scientists experience and respond to failure. She also highlighted comments from the moderator, George Constantinides, about the parallels between engineering and scientific careers.
“The extensive literature on failure in engineering can be summarized as follows, at least as I understand it,” Constantinides said. “First, there is no failure without uncertainty. And second, a systematic way to learn from failure is essential.”
He argued that these principles could be applied to many areas of work. “If you want people to fly high, you need to allow them to fail well, easily and safely,” he said.
Failure is unavoidable in engineering, Stefan said. Engineers build something, test a prototype, observe how it fails, analyze the failure and use what they learn to create a better version. Scientific careers, she argued, should be treated in a similar way.
Researchers need environments where they can try something, fail safely, discuss what happened, learn from it and try again. The next attempt may fail in a different way, but the process can ultimately produce something better.
Who is allowed to talk about failure?
Stefan also questioned who gets to speak publicly about failure. She is invited to conferences because, despite her setbacks, she completed her master’s degree and eventually became a scientist. In that sense, she said, she can discuss failure because her career ultimately succeeded.
“So what happens to those who fail?” she asked.
Some people who hoped to remain in science move into other fields. Once they leave science, they are unlikely to be invited to discuss what happened. Stefan said that speaking openly about failure requires a degree of privilege and professional standing.
When she was a young scientist seeking a position, Stefan sometimes searched for her name online. The first result was often “resume of failure.” She worried that this might not be strategically helpful, but she did not feel secure enough at the time to be open about her setbacks.
Now that she has a professorship, she said she is in a safer position. She can discuss failure without expecting it to cause professional harm.
“This privilege to be open about failure is very important,” Stefan said. “And failure itself is something that requires a great deal of privilege.”
In her own case, she was able to apply for several postdoctoral grants and continue applying until she eventually succeeded. Her institution funded an additional year of postdoctoral study, her supervisor was willing to keep her in the laboratory, and her visa status did not depend on securing funding immediately.
Those circumstances gave her time to fail. She also had no family responsibilities to support at the time. “I had so many privileges that I was allowed to fail so much,” she said.
Leaving science is not necessarily failure
Stefan said she always maintained a private Plan B: opening a small independent movie theater. She was not sure whether she would actually have done it if she had left science, but the idea remains a pleasant escape if everything falls apart.
She does not regard leaving science as a failure. There are many ways to leave academia and do interesting, worthwhile work, she said. Many of her university friends are no longer research scientists, but they have gone on to successful careers in industry, education and other fields.
“This view of leaving science as a failure is also very problematic,” she said.
Individual setbacks and system failures
Openly discussing failure can also help distinguish an individual setback from a problem in the research system.
If a researcher submits a grant application and does not receive funding, several explanations are possible: the proposal may have been weak, or it may not have received adequate consideration. But if 100 researchers submit applications and only 10—or only five—receive grants, that may indicate that research funding is insufficient.
Stefan said that discussing failure makes it possible to identify which parts of the system need to change. Scientific setbacks are not always the responsibility of the individual researcher; sometimes they reveal broader problems in how research is funded, evaluated and organized.
Source: www.nature.com
