Lab Charter

Federico is a co-founder of SAFE Labs, an initiative that aims to foster more aware, fair, and equitable labs. Federico is implementing all the commitments in the SAFE Labs Handbook in the the Lab Charter. The integral version of the charter is available on the lab wiki. Its core public commitments are outlined below.

Policies

Diversity Statement

I believe that diversity is a resource to harness; thus, I strive to create a psychologically safe environment where disruptive points of view are valued. To foster a diverse and inclusive environment, I review the institutional rules for maternity and paternity leave when negotiating a contract; I discuss any cultural needs at onboarding, and we encourage lab members to share and mark on the lab calendar crucial cultural events and festivities; finally, I promote diversity in science by selecting journal club papers from a diversity of voices. Through these policies, I aim to create a welcoming environment for individuals from different cultural, socioeconomic, gender, and geographical backgrounds.

Code of Conduct

All lab members are expected to maintain a professional attitude of integrity, accountability, and mutual respect in all interactions and endeavours while upholding high standards of scientific rigor and collaboration. Examples include respecting each other’s points of views and contributions to discussions, arriving on time for meetings (remind Federico of this!), and actively engaging in each other’s presentations. Everyone commits to maintaining an inclusive environment marked by compassionate behaviour and free from offensive conduct, particularly regarding diversity and minorities. Lab members should feel free and safe to voice their ideas, wishes, or concerns without risking negative consequences ensuring a supportive environment and diverse viewpoints.

Please refer to the IIT Code of Conduct and Scientific Practice for more information.

Autorship

Authorship vs acknowledgement is not always clear for a publication, but typically all contributors to a paper are included as authors, where contribution is broadly defined by CRediT Taxonomy. For example, developing a new technique for a project, or contributing previously unpublished data/figures would constitute authorship. Conversely, routine experimental work, sharing basic analysis code, or proof-reading a paper would not constitute authorship. Authorship is ultimately decided in discussions between Federico, project lead(s), and any other potential authors. Although the scientific process is unpredictable, authorship will be discussed when a lab member begins, or becomes involved with, a project. Whenever possible, we publish a matrix of contributions at the end of each paper.

Sustainable Science

The lab strives to minimise energy consumption and waste production. We identified three main areas of impact: travel, recycling and economical use of equipment.

Travel: I encourage sustainable transport options both for long-haul travel and for daily commute. For long-hauls trips, when funding allows, I will cover the most sustainable travel option (up to 150% the price of the cheapest alternative). IIT policies also encourages the use of public transport over private cars and taxis. Lab members are encouraged to combine their work trips with other activities to reduce future emissions, like visiting related labs or institutes in the local area, or simply taking a holiday: in compliance with IIT policies, onwards or returning travel on away days will be covered if similar or less expensive. I incentivize sustainable options for daily commute: undergrad, master and PhD students enrolled at University of Trento benefit from discounted public transportation across the Trentino region.

Recycling: We recycle waste whenever possible. In the office space, segregated recylcing bins are provided and disposed of by cleaners; in the labs, we actively arrange our own recycling bins, and empty them when full. To minimize the environmental impact of lab waste, we avoid mixing contaminated materials (which is expensive and environmentally harmful to safely dispose of) with clean recyclable waste. Finally, we order equipment from local companies when the difference in cost is minimal.

Economical use of equipment: when possible and not detrimental our instruments, we turn off unused equipment when prolonged downtime is forecasted.

Lab Language

The lab language is English. Any professional conversation, oral and written, during work activities must be in English: these include presentations and discussion at lab meetings, scientific output, and email exchanges. Outside of professional meetings, the lab strives for inclusive communication: verbal exchanges should adopt the common language that allow everyone to participate.

The institutional language at the Italian Institute of Technology is English; nonetheless, some administrative exchanges and, alas, some forms, of Italian bureaucracy are still in Italian. Proficiency in Italian may therefore turn useful within the institute, as well as when traveling throughout the country.

For our scientific production, I encourage the use LLMs to proofread and refine original written material; however, I won't accept fully AI generated material. Instead, I incentivise the use of LLMs and other AI tools to streamline and automate bureaucracy, coding and other procedures by providing paid access to the most modern tools (e.g. currently, chatGPT).

Lab member list

Information about current lab members and alumni can be found at Lab Members page

Visa support

If you are not Italian or EU citizen, you will likely need a visa to work or study in Italy. Visas are a complex topic, but luckily IIT has a dedicated office for visa support. If interested in applying, please get in touch with Federico, who can point to the relevant contacts. Visas may require up to 6 months, so remember to plan early. IIT can leverage agreements with the local authorities to get priority appointments, speeding up the process by a few weeks.

Researchers moving Italy are entitled to a refund for accommodation of the first 7 nights after relocation; at the end of the contract, the travel for relocation abroad will also be covered. Typically visa expenses are not covered by IIT contracts. Depending on the source of funding being used to hire a lab member, Federico may be able to cover some of the expenses. If not described in the call, please discuss this possibility with Federico directly.

Work life balance

I am committed to creating a healthy work environment for all lab members that prioritizes mental health and wellbeing together with productivity. Neuroscience research should be an exciting, rewarding, and engaging job. Certainly, it can be challenging, and stressful at times, but it should not be depressing, or life-consuming. Let aside the requirement of different contracts, everyone has a different daily schedule, times when they are more productive, and approaches to scientific work. Not all of them will be suited to our lab. With the goal of minimising expectation mismatch, and to increase collegiality and cooperativity within lab member, I try to outline clear policies for working hours, remote working and vacation below.

Working hours

IIT contracts are very flexible in terms of allocation of working hours, and many of them are milestone based, rather than hour based. Despite this, I prefer the lab members to be onsite during the following core hours: 10am to 4pm. This in-person time ensures regular interaction and allows us to benefit from the expertise and community that comes with working in a research group. Everyone should be mindful of these ours when scheduling meetings and training sessions, or emailing urgent requests. While this isn’t always possible - experimental work and life commitments aren’t always flexible—it should be the standard practice.

Remote working

I believe that some regular onsite presence is important to maintain the lab community. Thus, I expect all full-time lab members should aim to work onsite at least four days a week. However, I am happy to support intermittent periods of remote working when, for example, traveling/visiting family abroad or writing up a thesis/grant. Different arrangements can be negotiated depending on position, project requirement (e.g. experiments vs data analysis) or personal circumstances.

Vacation

I anticipate all lab members taking a minimum of 30 days of annual leave. "Minimum" because if experiments necessitate working on a weekend, or you attend a conference that's scheduled on a weekend, I support lab members taking time off to compensate for this.

Responsibilities and expectations

Responsibilities for each lab role and training provided

Our team is composed by researchers with different roles: postdocs, PhD students, Research Assistants undergraduate students. Expectations for each role, and what they can expect from other lab members, is detailed in the table below. The table is meant as a guide, not a limitation: exceptions will happen (e.g. sometimes a principle project can be collaborative, rather than independent; a productive research assistant or an undergraduate may contribute to writing a paper), but this guide will be accurate in most cases: please discuss with Federico if you have any questions of concerns about it.

Ambitions for publications and duration of each lab role

Guidelines for completing previous work

New lab recruits may have ongoing work from their previous position: I support committing time to complete this work, but the details of their contribution and time committment to external projects must be discussed and agreed with me. While the duration of these committments is understandably hard to predict, ideally it will not last longer than 6 months. If finishing previous work is expected to last longer than 6 months, researchers should delay the start of their position in the lab whenever possible. Finally, in no case time spent on previous work should exceed ~25%.

Funding for post-doctoral researchers

Postdoctoral positions can be funded in 3 ways: on a lab grant, on IIT core funds to the lab, on an external fellowship (e.g. MSCA, EMBO etc..). Salaries and type of contract depends on the funding source.

1,2) Postdocs are hired via Co.Co.Co (‘collaboration’) contracts, with a yearly gross salary (R.A.L) ranging from 30-55K depending on experience and funds available: these salaries are typically higher than the average in Italy. The collaboration contract is not constrained by working hours, remote work and annual leave limits, which can be flexibly managed in agreement with Federico depending on the project milestones. Additional benefits include an optional health insurance, which paid by IIT top of the salary, which can be extended to any family member: while the insurance cost adds to the taxable income, its value is paid by IIT. At the end of the contract, a researcher may be rewarded with a one off bonus (compenso aggiuntivo di fine incarico, CAFI).

3) Please refer to the guidelines of the specific fellowship, which may warrant different contracts/salaries than what outlined in 1,2.

Even when an advertised postdoctoral position is fully funded via the lab funds, Federico will require all postdocs to apply for funding and fellowships when accepting a position, if eligible. This is for three reasons: it helps to crystalise their project approach and hypotheses; its demonstrates independence in a researcher’s CV; it can provide additional funding for professional activities (e.g. travel).

Meetings, conferences and schools

Attending and funding conferences and schools

I encourage all lab members to seek and apply for training opportunities to learn new expertise, and values initiative to disseminate the lab research at conferences.

TRAINING/SCHOOLS: I support both PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to apply and attend at least one competitive training school during their tenure in the lab. I will sponsor applications (e.g. with recommendation letters) to these initiatives when they align with a project interest or planned career development. Expression of interested must be communicated in time to apply for travel grants/fees waivers, and in any case 1 month in advance. When funds are available, and application to fees waivers are not successful, the lab will cover the costs.

CONFERENCES: I encourage PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to attend at least 1 conference per year to disseminate our work, learn the state of the art in the field, and expand our networks. To sponsor and finance conference attendances, I require lab members to submit an abstract and present at least a poster. Exceptions to this rule can be allowed on the first year of tenure in the lab, but must be discussed on a case by case basis. Each postdoctoral researcher and PhD student has a budget of £1000 per year to attend conferences/workshops/symposia. This can be accumulated across years if that is the preference, and can be used for one expensive conference or multiple inexpensive conferences. If lab members have additional funds through grants or their PhD programme, these can be used in addition to the £1000 annual budget. Federico is happy to make an exception to this rule and provide extra funds if allowed by current grants, and an excellent opportunity arises (e.g. a unique conference, an invitation to give a prestigious talk) that would exceed this budget, but lab members should discuss with Federico before making any commitments.

Research assitants, master's students and undergraduates are also encouraged to attend conferences if they have work to present. They should discuss these opportunities in advance with Federico. Often, there are grants available from conference organisers to support attendance, and if this is not the case, or the application for funds is unsuccessful, I will consider funding attendance on a case-by-case basis.

Regular lab meetings

Lab meetings: The lab meets as a group once per week, on Friday morning from 9 to 11 – breakfast is on the house! We are experimenting with 4 types of meetings:

• Data Clubs
• Journal Clubs
• Literature Review Clubs
• Tutorial Clubs
• Wiki clubs

The expectations for regular meetings are laid out in detail on our lab wiki. All group meetings are in-person events, although we stream them on Teams to allow participation from those who can’t attend in person. Presentations and notes are saved on the lab server for posterity and future references.

1-on-1 Meetings: Federico meets every lab member once per week, typically for around 1 hour, during core work hours, to discuss their project and any other issues. Ahead of the meeting, lab members prepare a presentation summarising the week goals and achievements and plans for the week to come. After each meeting, lab members write a summary of the meeting to ensure that the discussion is recorded, and to serve as a starting point for the next meeting.

Semestral Appraisals: We review the post/project's long-term progress and provide tailored feedback on work performance during semestral appraisals. This is also an opportunity to give Federico feedback about the experience of working in the lab, and discuss how to improve his support and supervision.