Lancaster’s Psychology Department recently hosted a workshop entitled “New Tricks in Research Integrity”, intended to help early career researchers conduct their research ethically.

Funded by the Improving Research Community Builder Award, the workshop was held on the 28^th April at Lancaster University and invited undergraduate research assistants, Master’s and PhD students, as well as postdoctoral researchers to attend and learn more about the importance of conducting research with integrity. The “New Tricks” workshop kicked off with a keynote from Dr Priya Silverstein, a postdoctoral researcher at the Psychological Science Accelerator – a global network of researchers working to accelerate rigorous knowledge generation in Psychology. Her talk covered the importance of conducting replication studies, providing useful insights into how to conduct replication studies and interpreting their findings.

Following Dr Silverstein’s keynote, Dr Heather Shaw hosted a “Cuppa Conundrums” session - an initiative developed by the Reimagining Research Practices team at Lancaster University (funded by the Wellcome Trust) where important ethical issues are discussed over a cup of tea. Researchers engaged in deep discussions about informed consent, drawing on their own experiences working with different populations, reflecting on the accessibility of participant information forms and highlighting the responsibilities of the researcher. The day also featured a Q and A session, in which the early career researchers were able to learn about the experiences of their senior colleagues in influencing policy, working with the media, science communication, open / meta science and engaging with non-academic partners. Finally, the workshop concluded with a “hot topics discussion”, in which attendees were able to discuss the challenges they face as early career researchers striving to improve their research integrity practices.

The day was very well attended, with 20 early career researchers from across the Department engaging with the workshop, and 6 members of academic staff supporting the event. Organiser of “New Tricks”, Dr Abigail Fiske commented on the success of the event: “A huge thank you to Dr Amy Orben and the Improving Research Community Builder Award for kindly funding this workshop. I am thrilled with the enthusiasm of our early career researchers to learn and engage in topics related to research integrity, and feel that this really reflects the excellent research culture in the Department of Psychology at Lancaster. Thanks is also owed to the several senior academics who supported this event in attendance or participation, it is greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to continuing discussions related to research practices and open science with the revival of Lancaster's ReproducibiliTea journal club in the coming months - all are welcome to join!”