Scientists Report Stress, Bullying, and Harassment in New Survey

The results shed light on a research culture that encourages “unkind and aggressive conditions.”

Amy Schleunes

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Asurvey of more than 4,000 researchers revealed a widespread culture of hostility in the workplace. Forty-three percent of participants said they had experienced bullying or harassment, and 61 percent claimed they had witnessed such behavior in their work environments. Only 37 percent of respondents said they would feel comfortable speaking out about discrimination in the workplace without fear of negative personal consequences.

“Some of these results are frankly shocking,” Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, says in remarks to The Guardian. “There have been enormous scientific advances in the past 40 years and I think we’ve been seduced by that. We’ve been willing to sacrifice everything to achieve them, without asking at what cost.”

The questionnaire was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, which itself faced accusations of bullying and discrimination at the Wellcome’s Sanger Institute in Cambridge, The Guardian notes. The goal of the survey ...

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Meet the Author

Amy Schleunes
A former intern at The Scientist, Amy studied neurobiology at Cornell University and later earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. She is a Los Angeles–based writer, editor, and communications strategist who collaborates on nonfiction books for Harper Collins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and also teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University CTY. Her favorite projects involve sharing the insights of science and medicine.
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