Culture shock

It’s not all white coats, wild hair and test tubes in the lab these days. There is a seismic shift taking place in the science and technologies industries, and, say technical workplace specialist Hilary Jeffery and R&D expert Janet Fan, not only is the image of scientists being recast, but also how and where they work.

With a population explosion, decreasing energy reserves, a changing climate, fragile economies, ageing populations and changing health habits, the challenges our world faces are increasingly complex. They demand entirely new responses from our R&D community to find cures for growing health challenges. This has provoked a raft of changes with an impact on real estate that we have grouped under the headings of teams, time, technology and territories, plus, of course, sustainability.

Teams

In the drug discovery industry, patent cliffs — the reduced number of drug approvals and the increased number of late-stage failures — are some of the reasons behind the decline in productivity across the industry. According to the Deloitte and Reuters’ annual R&D productivity report, in 2013 the average return from R&D was estimated at just 4.8 per cent, down 10.5 per cent in 2010. Over the same four-year period, the average cost of developing new medicines has risen by 18 per cent to $1.3 billion.

Facing multiple challenges including squeezed profits and growing pressure to get treatments and cures to patients faster, the R&D community can no longer rely on the traditional discovery process nor the solo eureka moment. The emphasis today is on teamwork, collaborations and partnerships. There is an increasing need to create environments for multiple disciplines that traditionally would be housed in different buildings,to enable them to work side by side and further still, a growing requirement to create labs which bring academic institutions, patient facilities, commercial research organisations and start-ups under one roof. Once under the same roof, research environments need to create spaces that bring people together, can flex with change and enable fast transfer of knowledge and speedy
decision making.

Time

Driving productivity and speeding up the time to market means people’s time really matters. Every hour counts, but how and where scientists spend their time is changing. There is a growing demand to provide more opportunities for scientists to share information and exchange ideas. Researchers are looking for collaborative spaces in or near the lab for ad hoc discussions and brainstorming.

Furthermore, while it makes good business sense to get things right, the corollary to this is creating an environment where it’s possible to get things wrong … and fast, so that the right next steps can be taken without delay. To do this, there needs to be an environment where scientists have a sense of urgency and are empowered to try new things
and not be afraid to take calculated risks. The design challenge is one of creating an entrepreneurial atmosphere in a highly regulated environment. Lab buildings need to use their power as symbols for change to communicate a sense of urgency, a place without boundaries.

Technology

How and where a scientist spends time is altered significantly by changes in technology in the lab environment. It’s a fact of life in labs now that there is an increasing use of technology and therefore increased automation; as in so many industries, machines are now capable of dealing with huge volumes of materials and processes, and subsequently create masses of data. The impact on the lab scientist is often to reduce the need for manual, bench-based work, while at the same time increasing their role as data analysts. The impact for the lab manager is often increased demand for equipment space and specialist lab support spaces, coupled with decreasing occupancy, way below the levels seen in offices for example.

Our studies show an average of 10 per cent occupancy in standard bench-based labs. However, the picture is more complicated — senior managers in research organisations consistently cite the need for scientists to ‘get back to the bench’ to drive productivity throughout the research process. So while data analysis is a fact of life for scientists, there is still,
at times, no substitute for being in the lab.

Increasing levels of automation and technology mean lab buildings are experiencing a shift in the proportions of lab support spaces required, with a change from nearly 100 per cent laboratory space as primary space, to today’s ratio of approximately 50:50. Furthermore there is a need to consider the proportion and type of space given over to data analysis work — historically, this is space which is bolted on to lab space and not given the design attention it needs. However, lab buildings also need to create a seamless connection between labs and write-up space so there is a blurring of boundaries between the two.

Territories

Despite people spending less time in labs, there is still a strong culture of ownership in lab environments. The academic arena still encourages an individualistic mindset — research activities are about individuals and their personal interests. This can create high levels of lab ownership and ‘empire building’. Traditionally, a lab was a scientist’s castle with everything they needed housed within the four walls. Furthermore, collaborative working throws up challenges. Lots of scientists we have worked with regale us with stories of solvents being tampered with or equipment not being recalibrated after use. This culture can be exacerbated by organisational structures; for example, budgets for equipment are often held at a local level so any new equipment that is purchased is owned by that department. To drive efficient and effective use of space and equipment, lab managers need to become change managers — tackling behaviours and deeply held norms will be key to unlocking this challenge. The planners of the R&D environments typically assume that equipment, devices, hardware spare parts and consumables such as solvents stay in the lab environment, and the office environment (workstations, offices, meeting rooms, etc.) is for working with paper, computers and people. In technology/electronics laboratories, it is not uncommon to see hardware spare parts and tools at workstations. Some food companies and hardware development companies are asking to have spaces built into the office area so that they can do some tinkering without having to walk far to the “real” lab space.

Sustainability

Finally, along with our four Ts, creating environments which drive multidisciplinary interaction, an entrepreneurial culture and increased levels of shared ownership, lab managers have a significant challenge to reduce energy and water consumption within their lab buildings. The challenges in the science and technology work environment are considerable — especially where there’s a need for 24-hour access to buildings and controlled environments that ramp up energy and water use.

While infrastructure design has a major part to play in tackling resource consumption, scientists themselves also have a role. A building can be designed and specified with all the right green credentials, but if it is used in a wasteful way then savings can easily slide. It is possible to make impressive savings in the lab environment through simple shifts of behaviour. Key areas include reducing lighting demand, water consumption, use of air conditioning, and use of cold storage. However, to build best practice and continued savings, behaviour change needs to be seen not as one-time activity, but as an ongoing process. And this process requires ongoing support.

For this reason, any strategic approach to behaviour change should be a process facilitated and supported by the change champion and further developed and implemented by individuals within the organisation itself. This builds understanding and commitment within the organisation. The diagram, left, sets out an approach to the engagement programme which might elsewhere have been difficult to facilitate.

Importantly, this structure builds in the support necessary for long-term success. Another benefit of this structure is that it allows for cross-disciplinary communication and friendship building which might otherwise have been difficult to facilitate.

Top five big changes for the future

We see the following big changes for lab environments of the future:

1. Blurred boundaries — Labs will no longer be aligned to scientific disciplines or indeed to single organisations but will be designed to support highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary and multi-agency research teams.
2. Patients brought to the heart of the research process — Labs will be more closely connected to patients and healthcare systems, increasing the speed at which treatments and cures reach the patient.
3. Shared ownership — Labs will see a reduction in individual ownership and an increase in shared spaces and equipment including lab support spaces.
4. Design for data analysis — A growing consideration of how spaces for data analysis activities should be designed and planned with a blurring of boundaries between these spaces and lab spaces.
5. Change management — An increased focus on implementing change- management programmes to change mindsets and behaviours in the R&D community to drive change in how spaces and equipment are used.