NOBLE: New Investigator Obesity and Metabolism Network

The transition to PI is the largest career adjustment academics experience. The recent Research Culture: A survey of new PIs in the UK (eLife, 2019 PMID: 31538616) highlights the huge challenges faced by new investigators; establishing their identity, securing funding, meeting teaching and administrative demands, limited staff and fragmented institutional support. This survey laid bare a range of barriers: Funding: Over 40% of New Investigators had no external funding. Grant success: Between 2012-2018 numbers of new investigators externally funded within their first year declined annually (from 95% in 2012 to 30% in 2018). There have been no data collected since 2018. Staff: Up to 50% of New Investigators did not have a postdoc, and up to 75% did not have a RA or technical support. PhD provision: New Investigators found it difficult to recruit PhD students who often favour established research groups. Facilities: 45% of New Investigators were dissatisfied or indifferent regarding their space and facilities. Current systems are not adequate to sufficiently support the success of UK-based New Investigators. Crucially, this undermines efforts to deliver world-class ideas, impact. We aim to overcome these barriers through the formation of NOBLE. A bottom-up, community-led network of New Investigators providing the infrastructure, support, training, and access to facilities required for New Investigators and those approaching independence to succeed. In doing so, NOBLE will drive collaborative, discovery science and bring together teams to solve the most pressing questions across the fields of obesity and metabolism. To this end, our 5 overarching objectives reflect the multidisciplinary nature and inclusive culture at the heart of NOBLE: Bottom-up collaboration through a UK-wide, community-led network sharing resources and protocols, facilitating technical development, knowledge exchange, and training. Interdisciplinary network to establish new cross-cutting collaboration and drive discovery bioscience. Self-supporting community through flexible funding provides collaborative network grants, skill sharing, and training opportunities. Co-created training providing new investigators, and underrepresented groups with professional skills for long-term future success. Building capability to provide opportunities for all new investigators to succeed with access to world-leading facilities and industry expertise. A joint initiative by the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University, we build on our established reputation as a centre of excellence in discovery bioscience and doctoral training. Together, we will offer network members access to expertise, models, and facilities as a central, accessible ‘hub’. Further, in collaboration with project partners Sygnature Discovery and We Are Pioneer Group we will provide network members with training and support from industry leaders in drug discovery and innovation. Through these tools, our goal is to eliminate the dysfunctional experience faced by New Investigators. By supporting a collaborative network, with open access to expertise, facilities, and training we aim to drive researcher development and shared success. We believe this initiative will create a lasting impact. It will establish a new paradigm for how New Investigators can work within UK bioscience, whilst simultaneously increasing the quality, and output of the sector.