Facilitating psychological safety in science and research teams

Abstract

Abstract Science is increasingly dependent on large teams working well together. Co-creating knowledge in this way, usually across disciplines and institutions, requires team members to feel comfortable taking interpersonal risks with each other; in other words, to have what is known as “psychological safety”. Although the importance of psychological safety for team functioning is increasingly well understood, the behaviours necessary to foster psychological safety are harder to define. We suggest that science facilitation expertise offers a path forward for scientific teams—particularly through the integration of outside facilitators or team members taking on the facilitation role—to identify dynamics that can promote or curtail psychological safety, interpret those dynamics accurately, and intervene appropriately to shift a group towards greater psychological safety. We describe how specific practices can support this cycle of observation, interpretation, and action to promote psychological safety across the team process and at key moments. We conclude with ideas for how research teams might embed these facilitation practices into their work, and how institutions can drive more widespread recognition and development of the expertise needed to cultivate psychologically safe scientific teams.