Failure is a routine part of scientific research, but researchers are rarely encouraged to discuss it openly. At Imperial College London’s “Failure in Science” conference, chemist Alena Vdovchenko and physiologist Melanie Stefan described experiments that went wrong, rejected funding applications and the personal and institutional pressures that shape who is able to fail—and who is able to talk about it.
“Nothing works and no one knows why”
“I’m a chemist and an experimental scientist, so I don’t have to search diligently for examples of daily failures,” said Dr. Alena Vdovchenko, a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London. She was speaking at a session called “Taxonomy of Failure,” where early-career researchers discussed how, in real life, research often does not go as planned.
“In the lab, most things don’t work out as planned,” Vdovchenko said. Experiments may require careful planning and run for weeks or months, although, if researchers are lucky, they may take only a few days. When the results are analyzed, however, an overlooked factor may emerge, forcing the researcher to redesign the experiment, read more of the literature or return to the lab.
“Overall, I think a lot of chemistry is trial and error,” she said. A quotation displayed in her laboratory captures the experience:
“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.”
Vdovchenko described the statement as interesting, but also as an uncomfortable truth about experimental science.
The conference was discussed by Dr. Stephen Webster, director of the Good Science Project at Imperial College London. The project investigates what researchers like and dislike about research culture.
When failure threatens a scientific identity
At the conference, Melanie Stefan, a professor of physiology at the Berlin Medical University, recalled what she called her first major failure in science. It occurred during her master’s degree in a developmental biology laboratory.
“I really struggled. I wasn’t sure how to troubleshoot if an experiment failed. I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Stefan said. “I don’t think it was the right place for me.”
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.”
Stefan said the suggestion was devastating. She had been studying science for many years, considered herself a scientist and had no alternative career plan. Science was not only something she loved and found interesting; it had also become a major part of her identity.
She eventually completed her master’s degree, went on to earn a PhD and had what she described as a successful and enjoyable experience there. The next challenge came when she began applying for funding to move into the next stage of her career as a postdoctoral researcher.
“Finding funding was really difficult,” she said. Many of her applications were rejected, and she began to doubt herself. Because the scientists around her appeared to be further along and ultimately successful in obtaining postdoctoral positions, she felt as though she was the only person failing.
“All I could see around me was success in the end,” Stefan said. “So I thought I was the only one who failed.”
The “Resume of Failure”
Stefan wrote about the experience in an article for Nature, which she described as the only work she had published in that journal. The article eventually led to her being associated with the subject of failure in science.
At the Imperial College conference, she spoke about a piece titled “The Resume of Failure.” The idea was to encourage successful scientists to discuss the setbacks they had experienced along the way: jobs they had not obtained, grants they had missed out on and papers that had been rejected.
For young scientists, Stefan said, such accounts could demonstrate that rejection is a normal part of research careers and that they are not alone. She said that friends now sometimes tell her they have read something about failure and thought of her.
Stefan welcomed the broader discussion that followed her article, including the conference itself. “It’s really great to see people come together and talk about this concept,” she said.
What science can learn from engineering
Stefan said she wanted to bring engineering into the discussion of failure. She noted that engineering has a well-developed tradition of understanding failure and learning from it.
She particularly valued the conference session “View from the Laboratory,” which focused on how young scientists experience failure. She also highlighted comments from moderator George Constantinides, who compared scientific research with engineering.
“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 added: “If you want people to fly high, you need to allow them to fail well, easily and safely.”
In engineering, Stefan said, failure is inevitable: build something, test a prototype, observe how it fails, analyze the result and use what was learned to create a better version. She argued that scientific careers should be treated in a similar way.
Researchers need environments where it is safe to try something, fail, discuss what happened, learn from it and try again, she said. 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 said she is invited to conferences on the subject partly because, despite her early setbacks, she completed her master’s degree, became a scientist and eventually achieved a successful career.
“So what happens to those who fail?” she asked. By “fail,” she said, she did not necessarily mean personal failure. Rather, she was referring to people who leave science and move into other kinds of work. Once they are no longer part of the scientific community, their experiences may no longer be heard.
Stefan said it takes a certain amount of privilege and professional standing to discuss failure openly. When she was searching for a position, she sometimes searched for her own name online and found that the first result was “Resume of Failure.” At that stage of her career, she did not feel secure enough to reveal her setbacks so publicly.
“Now that I have a professorship, I am in a position to do that. Nothing bad happens,” she said.
She also emphasized that the ability to fail depends on material circumstances. Stefan was able to apply for several postdoctoral grants without immediately obtaining one because her institution agreed to pay for an additional year of postdoctoral study, her supervisor was willing to keep her in the lab and her visa status did not depend on securing funding right away.
“I had so many privileges that I was allowed to fail so much,” she said. Those conditions, she argued, should be part of any discussion about who can afford to take risks and who can speak about failure.
Leaving science is not necessarily failure
Stefan said she had always kept a secret Plan B: opening a small independent movie theater. She was unsure whether she would actually have pursued it if she had left science, but the idea remained a comforting escape route.
She does not consider leaving science to be a failure. Many of her former university colleagues are no longer research scientists, she said, but are doing valuable work in industry, education and other fields.
“There are a lot of ways to leave science, leave academia and do something really interesting and really great,” Stefan said. She argued that treating departure from academic research as a failure creates a damaging and unnecessarily narrow view of scientific careers.
Individual setbacks and system failures
Finally, Stefan said that discussing failure can help distinguish between an individual setback and a problem with the research system.
If a researcher submits a grant application and does not receive funding, that may reflect weaknesses in the proposal or the way it was assessed. But if 100 researchers apply and only 10—or five—receive grants, the pattern may indicate that there is not enough research funding rather than that most applicants are individually inadequate.
“We also need to be open about our failures to see where there are parts of the system that can actually be improved,” Stefan said.
Source: www.nature.com