As one who has benefited from Wellcome support and is keen to see a real improvement in working environments for the next generation of academics, I applaud efforts to achieve kinder research cultures (see Nature 574, 5–6; 2019). However, the drive for excellence is not the main problem.

Noxious research environments develop when bad conduct, such as bias, discrimination and controlling behaviour, goes unchecked. Some senior scientists might find that conceding a tendency to ‘overvalue’ excellence is easier than admitting to, say, turning a blind eye to poorly conducted investigations, or closing ranks around prominent scientists.

Researchers who are undermined at work are often reluctant to speak up for fear of rocking the team boat, or of losing out on resources and future references. Moreover, academia’s complaints system is stacked against them (see, for example, S. Nik-Zainal and I. Barroso Nature 565, 429; 2019). Their unhappy silence has nothing to do with excellence, and everything to do with the system’s partiality towards the upper echelons of the research establishment. If there are no ramifications for bad behaviour, toxic cultures will be perpetuated.

The worst possible outcome would be for kindness in research to be applied differentially: biased towards scientific royalty at the top of the power gradient, with no change for the rest of us. That would pose a serious threat to UK scientific excellence.