Mortimer Overview
Here, we want to ensure everyone has a fulfilling (and fun!) experience, both professionally and personally. This is only achieved by fully valuing the participation of all members of our community. Therefore, all members of the Mortimer Lab are expected to show respect and courtesy to others at all times. Together, we create our lab culture, and our culture strives to be one of inclusivity.
Note, this code of conduct supplements (does not supersede) Adelaide University level policies that apply to you as employees and students.
Finally, this code was heavily inspired by A/Prof. Ben Britton @BMatB at UBC, from his time at Imperial College, London. This is also a living document, and there's certainly more to be added. Anyone is welcome to suggest improvements (or ways that Jenny can live these ideals better), but especially current or former lab members (anonymised suggestions are available via Slack for current/recent former members, or via the contact page).
Inclusion and Diversity
Our lab, as well as Adelaide University, values an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accountable research environment. We will support each individual's development and research, and we promote robust decision making. All group members are thus dedicated to a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, and/or religion. We do not tolerate harassment by and/or of members of our group in any form.
This applies to everyone, no matter their degree level, expertise, or contributions to the group. Jenny will discuss these concepts with anyone who violates them. If inappropriate behaviour continues after this initial discussion, formal processes, in line with AU's policies, will commence. Jenny highly recommends joining one of the AU Employee Support Groups, either because you identify with that group, or wish to be an ally. For example, Jenny is a member of the ALLY network.
For many of us, Australia is not our home country. Jenny hopes that those of us who are immigrants can take the time to learn about our new home, and that those who are Australian or have lived here for a while can take the time to learn about their colleagues' cultures and introduce their own. Patience and kindness are important, but so is a willingness to listen, learn, and take action.
If you wish to report any issue, then please contact Jenny. All communications will be considered confidential. Alternatively, please contact other members of AU AFW, WRI, or Science College leadership (e.g. Profs. Matthew Tucker, Kerry Wilkinson, Stu Roy, Jason Able, Nikki Stanford), HR, or the University Integrity Unit.
Mental Health
There is increasing evidence that certain attributes of research may challenge your mental health, from the high costs of living, being far from friends or family, and uncertainty in your career arc or long-term immigration status.
All researchers (BSc, MSc, PhD, Post Doctoral, Technical and Academic Staff) can be affected by these issues to some degree. Jenny strongly encourages everyone in the group to take an active and preemptive approach towards the maintenance of their mental health, and has committed to ensuring that you have the time and resources needed for successful research. If there is anything that is placing you under undue stress, or preventing you from performing at your potential, please do not hesitate to let Jenny, or any of the other AU staff, know.
Sharing these issues can reduce stress and help others be accommodating towards your needs, and we may be able to assist. There are a range of university resources to support you, including counselling services. If you are an HDR student, please also talk to your postgraduate coordinator — they have a wealth of experience and can point you towards additional support, such as accessing hardship funds.
Flexible Working Hours and Intergroup Communication
The exact hours members of the group choose to work is up to them; however, being at the Plant Research Centre (PRC) between 10:00 and 16:00 Monday–Friday will help facilitate collaborative working and, we hope, lead to a more fulfilling research experience.
Our group meeting is currently at 11:00am on Friday, as this was the time selected by the team as most convenient given current commitments (personal as well as work). However, if this is a problem (e.g. clashes with daycare pick up etc.) let Jenny know, and we will choose another time. We have a Teams (remote) call-in option available for all meetings, although in person is strongly preferred. All group members are expected to attend this meeting, unless engaged on research business (e.g. at a conference) or out on vacation/sick leave. Indicate attendance by using the calendar accept/decline option (for this and all meetings). Other key meetings, depending on your project, include the WRI seminar (intermittent, see email), the P4S seminar (monthly, Wednesday, check times), P4S research seminar (monthly, Weds at 11.30am) or the Future Crops Lab Chat (10am Friday, fortnightly). As above, Jenny strongly encourages attendance at the relevant meetings, and remote call-in options are available. Finally, we regularly organise a morning tea at 11am on alternate Wednesdays, either in the PRC tearoom, or in good weather, outside the back of the PRC. Please, please come along and get to know your colleagues. Also, please sign up to bring a cake (signup sheet in the PRC tearoom)!
Jenny maintains an open-door policy, and strongly encourages you to make the most of it. She loves people dropping by, and it doesn't need to be a specific science question. There's a stash of tea and chocolate in her filing cabinet which she's happy to share. The only exception is when she's in meetings or close to grant deadlines, in which case the door is shut. But, if it's important to you, just send a Slack message and she'll make time as soon as she can.
Each week, or fortnight, depending on the point in your project, there is a specific time set aside for each of you to have a one-on-one meeting with Jenny. Prior to each meeting (ideally 24h ahead) please send a short email update of progress and any problems. After each meeting, record any action points (ideally in your electronic lab book, so we can revisit them the following meeting; if not, then store in a folder that can easily be shared and accessed). As your project matures, you may feel that you don't need every meeting. That's fine! Cancel, or send email updates. If things aren't going well, or you're stuck on a manuscript, don't put off talking it through. Come and see Jenny, and we will try to work through it together. Need to move the meeting because it clashes with an experimental plan? Fine — just find another spot in the calendar.
Please inform Jenny of holidays or notable absences in advance, and keep your calendar updated. If you are unwell, or caring for an unwell family member, then send Jenny a quick SMS/WhatsApp to let her know. Otherwise, we worry about you! Permission for holiday is not needed, but it is important to respect key deadlines within the calendar year (e.g. end of financial year reporting, program reverse-site visits), and respect that we do work within a research group. It is important to take your holiday, respect weekends (or time in lieu), and establish a sustainable work-life balance. It is also important to respect the time and efforts of others, and the contribution of funders, and to note that effective working will improve the quality of your research. Where there are key time pressures, it is important to prioritise. If you are struggling with this, please discuss this with Jenny early, and often.
Jenny understands the need to work at times that suit you, and indeed, often works out-of-hours, but tries to minimise sending work emails outside 0800–1900 on weekdays (and is trying to use the schedule-send function in Outlook). In particular, don't feel obliged to reply to emails received outside of these times (unless they are emergency ones e.g. the freezer broke, and your samples are thawing — obviously, answer those ones if you can!), but equally understand that Jenny may not answer until the following day.
We have a lab Slack group. Please join if you can — it helps especially for those who are remote working, and to reduce email load. We have a range of channels to join, including ones for coding, wet-lab work, journal club, recipes, and random nonsense (mostly gifs and youtube videos). Want to start your own? Go ahead!
Make sure you are on the key mailing lists for your project e.g. P4S, WRI, Future Crops, JBEI etc. Check with Jenny for the precise ones for your work. We all get lots of email but do try and read those from these lists (especially from Rebecca, Wendy, Lieke and Richard). Also remember to reply to these lists very judiciously — they have a large subscriber base. Replies to these should be especially polite, informative, and respectful.
If you have suggestions for other communication methods we could use in the lab, or better ways to implement the ones we have, then please let Jenny know. We work in a rapidly changing environment, and technologies are constantly evolving. Again, if you experience any challenges with communication then please let Jenny know.
Open Science
Our work is funded almost exclusively by the Australian taxpayer, and therefore we have a moral obligation to ensure that the research (and the data underlying it) are freely available.
We will endeavour to publish all outputs as Gold (or above) Open Access, and manuscripts will be uploaded to the bioRxiv preprint server. In the rare cases this isn't possible, an author's version of the published manuscript will be uploaded to the AU Aurora repository.
All materials used in a publication will also be made freely available to the community as far as possible. Beyond data (see above), seeds will be sent to stock centres (e.g. ABRC) or archived in-house for distribution. Strains and plasmids will also be archived in-house for redistribution (until we build a more formal registry) and regularly requested strains will be sent to Addgene.
During the course of your project, all important biological materials should be archived regularly — do not wait until the end of your project. Please talk to Mohammad about freezer back-up procedures.
Intellectual Property
We work with many funders and collaborators, and management of IP is critical to our research process. We will discuss this at the start of each project, and we have a (quick!) method for reporting records of invention (ROIs) via the Researcher Portal. Any questions, then ask Jenny or any of the commercialisation team.
Conference Attendance and Abstract Submission
We have a general rule that people can attend (depending on funding availability) an international conference every other year. Domestic conferences can be attended in the other years.
Jenny strongly encourages you to apply for additional funding to support travel, and to join professional societies and get involved in their activities e.g. volunteer to help run sessions. It's a great way to meet your field, build your peer network, and support good quality, open science.
Travel authorisations must be obtained in line with AU policy and procedure. This should be done as soon as you have permission to attend from Jenny. It can take a while so plan accordingly. You will not be covered by insurance otherwise. Flights and hotels must be booked through the university travel provider (FCM), and in advance of international travel, you need to submit pre-trip approval.
If preparing an abstract, you should send this for review by all the co-authors at least 1 week before the abstract deadline. If this is a repeat submission of a prior abstract, then exceptions can be made. Once you obtain notification of the abstract decision, please inform the co-authors. Please discuss with Jenny in person as well.
For poster presentations: it is required that you submit a draft poster for review at least two weeks before you are due to leave for the conference. This provides enough time for review and printing of the poster.
For oral presentations: please share a complete slide deck at least one week before the conference, preferably two weeks. You should aim to have a practice talk with group members (often at a group meeting) in the week before you leave. For repeat presentations, please share slides in advance.
Computers, Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN), and Data Storage / Backup
You will be provided with a laptop (and peripherals to ensure an ergonomically friendly work set-up). We prefer PCs, although Macs are possible (the price will limit the specs of a Mac).
The computer is university owned property, and you are responsible for taking care of it, and using it appropriately. Refer to the AU training on cybersecurity etc. It is good practice to store all data and working documents on a university provided cloud service (OneDrive, Box), and to back up lab books e.g. create a static pdf of your LabArchives once a month.
Software licences can be purchased for individuals, but it requires approval from Jenny.
Do PLEASE try to keep all your files organised. It helps you when you need to find something in 6 months, or 6 years, and it helps Jenny! Trust her — you don't want her asking you about an Excel file called sheet1v3.xlsx two years after you've left the lab.
Electronic Lab Notebooks — as described on the resources page, we use LabArchives in accordance with AU policy. Please share your LabArchives with Jenny (and any other supervisors) and try to update it each week before our one-on-one meetings. It does not need to be full of perfect paragraphs of text — bullet points, sketches, and photographed pieces of paper from the lab are all excellent, as long as they are labelled.
Manuscript Writing
For each manuscript, please create a Box folder, and share it with all co-authors (see below for authorship discussions). AU supports the use of EndNote as a reference software. You are welcome to use others (SciWheel, Mendeley etc.) but be aware of potential issues when sharing documents, so keep backups! The final version for submission should be polished in Word offline, and EndNote or other reference links removed.
Jenny is very conscious of her linguistic privilege as a native speaker of English, and is in awe of all of you who work and write to such a high level in your second or third language. As such, she is more than happy to help edit and polish as we put the paper together. Your ideas and analysis are the critical part. If it helps, draft the sections as bullet points. We can then discuss the structure, science, and flow before we work together to polish the language. Please don't feel like you can't show a draft before it is word perfect — early and often is much preferred. Scientific writing is part of the training, like any other part of the job.
Figures should be prepared in Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or other vector graphic software packages. All data underlying summary figures e.g. raw data for graphs, spectra, or raw microscope images need to be readily available for each figure even after publication (for a minimum of 10 years, but ideally in perpetuity). As far as possible, Jenny prefers the raw data is included either as supplemental data, or deposited in public repositories e.g. figshare, dryad, github. Failing that (as an absolute last resort!), it should be clearly organised in the manuscript sharefolder.
Authorship will be discussed openly, and likely more than once during the course of a project. If you're not happy with the order, speak up! We aim to be inclusive of everyone who has made a significant contribution to the work being presented. A "significant contribution" can include but is not limited to: collection of primary data, interpretations of primary data, and development of ideas presented in the work. Jenny wants to emphasise that our technical staff are critical to our research success and their contributions should be acknowledged as such. For further information, please check the author credit tools on the Research Integrity portal.
Funding acknowledgements — we have specific language that we are required to use, depending on your grant funding and any user facilities you have worked with. Check with Jenny before submission, and double check in the proofs.
Outreach and Science Communication
This is a core part of our job. Jenny leaves it up to you to decide what that means to you — it can be leading a school tour, advising undergraduates on careers, writing blog posts, developing educational resources, dispelling scientific myths on social media…. It is normal to feel shy and nervous about this at first. Lieke and other experts are happy to advise you, and there are plenty of training courses Jenny can recommend. However, it gets much easier with practice, so just have a go! Join one of our science fairs, and if you want to just hang back and listen at first, that's fine!
Social media — a tricky one. Jenny has found great benefits in using Twitter (before it descended into X)/LinkedIn in a professional capacity. It's been a great way to meet people, learn about issues in science, and stay connected with colleagues. It's a good way to find future jobs, and to share your science. Just bear in mind that if you are posting in a professional capacity, then you are representing AU and your funding agency as much as if you were at a conference. That doesn't mean don't post personal things, but keep context in mind. Some guidelines can be found here. For example, we are not partisan and therefore should not comment on such things. BUT, while science isn't partisan, it is certainly political. Science does not exist in a vacuum, and Jenny encourages engagement.