Activity

This section describes the main interactive activity during the workshop, with step-by-step instructions.

Guided break-out group discussion

Attention

Ask the participants to form break-out groups and work on the given scenario.

Hint

The questions we used during the workshop to steer the discussions are listed below, which you might use as an inspiration in your session.

Hint

Set a timer of 10 minutes for discussing each question.

Ideal world

To facilitate the discussions during the breakout session, ask the participants to first imagine that they are in the ideal world situation. They can build the ideal team they need for the task by not thinking about any limitations (e.g. budget, etc.). The breakout groups are given two questions:

• What are the important aspects in this project?

  With this question, ask participants to discuss things they, as a team, need to manage regarding societal impact, scientific impact, open science, publicity, economic gains and other related aspects, and try to make the list as concrete as possible.

• What skills / roles are needed to address these aspects?

  Based on the aspects identified in the previous question, the participants need to make a list of relevant skills and/or roles per aspect. They are free to draw many-to-many connections between the aspects and the skills/roles, if possible.

Reality

Then invite the participants to bring the ideal situation discussed back to the reality and asked them the following questions:

• Do people with those skills / roles exist? Do you know where to find them?

  The participants are encouraged to think about their own situation, e.g. for a certain skill/role identified, do people know if it exists in their institution, do people know how to approach those groups, etc.

• Can you successfully include them in the project? How?

  If you find the skills/roles in your institution, what are the conditions of including them in the research project.

Reporting

After the guided break-out group discussion, ask the rapporteurs from each group to give a brief summary of their discussion. Subsequently, briefly reflect on how the breakout session went.

Plenary discussion

Wrap up the workshop with a plenary session focused on practical implications of the discussion. Ask the participants to think about practical tips or creative ideas that they can use immediately in their work.

Instead of open discussion, it is also recommended to run an online survey (e.g. Mentimeter) at the end of the workshop, some exemplary questions could be:

• What can you do today to address the challenges?

• What can your organisation do today?

• What is the most important take-away from the workshop for you?

• What actions can you take today that make your own work environment more inclusive and appreciative?