The Coordinated Science Laboratory
National Center for Principled Leadership & Research Ethics

Principled Academic Leadership: Taking Control of Your Academic Career Resources 2026

Principled Academic Leadership Taking Control of Your Academic Career:
Resources 2026

Greetings and welcome to the Taking Control of your Academic Career program!

Presented by the National Center for Principled Leadership & Research Ethics (NCPRE) at the University of Illinois, Taking Control is one strand of a broader set of programs in our Principled Academic Leadership (PAL) series.

This program is designed to give you information, tools, and skills to take control of your career. Grounded in practical knowledge, we hope that you will leave with a better understanding of common pitfalls for early career faculty and how to avoid them, tips and advice for the tricky interpersonal aspects of running a research group, and a strong network of colleagues who you can turn to for advice and support.

This program centers your development through working closely with your fellow cohort members. The more you put into it, the more you will benefit, and regular attendance makes for a stronger experience for everyone. We seek to foster an environment of trust and expect that all participants will approach our conversations in good faith and will keep discussions shared during our sessions in confidence.

If you have any questions, please direct them to your cohort coordinator or to NCPRE at contact-ncpre@illinois.edu.

Session One: You and the Academic Environment

Reference Materials:

Session Worksheets/Handouts

Tools and Skills

Policies

Session Two: Setting Up Your Group for Success

Prep Materials:

 

Reference Materials:

Session Handouts and Resources:

Assessment:

  • AUDiT for research groups: a personal tool to reflect on your research group

    • The AUDiT was developed by NCPRE to help assess the health of your research group. Please note that this is meant as a tool for thinking about your unit in a structured way, rather than a quantitative assessment. The end score is less important than the process of thinking through the strengths and challenges of your group.

    • When assessing the health of a group, our observation has been that many people tend to focus on areas that they think are problematic. The  AUDiT approach helps ensure that your assessment is comprehensive. Use the AUDiT table to score your unit. Start by putting a number in each cell - the more the cell describes your unit, the higher the number should be. In the green and red columns, scores run from 0 to 5; in the yellow column, it is 0 to 3. When you are finished, add up your green scores and subtract the totals from your yellow and red scores. By going through this process, it can help highlight bright spots or areas that may need focused attention to address.

Session Three: Managing a Group and Giving Effective Feedback

Reference Materials:

Session Handouts and Resources:

Session Four: Foundations of Communication and Difficult Conversations

  • This 8-minute scene follows the actions of PI Jules Sorenson when her lab manager, Loretta, approaches her with concerns about an encounter between one of their postdocs and two faculty members in the mailroom. While Jules is a successful and established lab leader, she is not the department head, and has no direct or formal authority over the faculty members.

  • Capture your reactions in your journal. Consider what elements from our programs relate to the scenario and how Jules Sorenson prepared for and navigated a difficult conversation with a colleague.

Leadership Collection Reference Materials:

Reference Materials:

Session Five: First Semester Capstone

Semester Break Materials

  • Watch the NCPRE Labs That Work For Everyone feature film, A Tale of Two Labs, embedded below. This feature-length film was written and produced by NCPRE and filmed on the Illinois campus. 
    • Ask yourself:
      • What tools from this program would prevent or help in some of the situations shown?
      • What can you learn about your own group leadership by observing the style of the two lab leaders depicted?

Reference Materials:

Full A Tale of Two Labs movie

 

Labs That Work for Everyone:

Check out the Labs That Work for Everyone webpage here for more information about the film and program. If you are interested in piloting LTW with your group, email contact-ncpre@illinois.edu or your cohort coordinator  for more information.